Water Leakage

The fun of living in an older house [sorry Beth… another complaint] comes with all sorts of regular challenges. For example, plumbing issues.

We woke up Monday morning to this:

Out In The Street

The main water line for our house is out in the street. Not in the middle of the road, but cars drive over it on a regular basis. So that constant pounding over layers of asphalt and dirt takes a toll on 50 year old pipes in the ground.

This happened to us two years ago as well. So we discussed the options with our city water department. Here’s what’s on the table, er.. in the pipeline:

  • Option 1) Move the water meter to a place closer to our house and away from the road.
  • Option 2) Fix the current leak and then revisit the moving of the meter to next year.

Option 1 is very costly right up front. The city will pay for the cost to move the meter, but we have to change the location of where the water line is coming into our house. That’s our expense. Currently, it’s about $5,000 to move that, just to meet where the city relocates their line.

Option 2 still requires us to move the line, but it buys us some time to come up with the money or figure out another option [digging the trench ourselves, only needing a plumber to come out and do all of the pipe connecting work.]

We chose Option 2, which the city was also happy about [I’m sure their annual budget is getting pretty tight by this time of the year]. This is what the road and the area near the water main looks like after the repair:

Water leak repair
the orange cones help keep the cars off the newly-repaired leak

Water leak repair
Yep, that’s my scooter in the background to the left

Water leak repair
A closeup view of the road dug up and repaired

Until Next Year

So we are good to go for now, only being water-challenged for a couple of days. Guess I need to start getting prepared to dig a 60 foot trench next year. All in the name of saving a few thousand dollars. Yay me!

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