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| Vermeer Navigator Horizontal Directional Drill |
The day after my last plumbing catastrophe I got a card from the city telling me I'm using too much water. Okay, it's not a horrendous amount, maybe one unit (100 cubic feet) more than normal for this time of year. I'm a little sensitive to this kind of thing since I had a irrigation leak a few years ago that cost me $400, so I go looking for a leak, but I'm not finding anything. Turn off the water to the irrigation system and to the house and water meter is still ticking over at the rate of about one-sixth of a gallon a minute. That's 6 gallons an hour, which is like 150 gallons a day, which is 4500 gallons a month which is like 600 cubic feet, or 6 units. Better put a stop to this. So I called a plumbing company to find the leak.
Guy from 3 Mountains Plumbing shows up, bright and cheerful but he isn't going to find the leak, he's not even going to look for it. Fixing a leak in an underground water line is a waste of time, his solution is to simply replace it with a new line, for $10,000. Yowzir!
I didn't like that answer, so I called Cornel's Plumbing. Guy shows up and he's telling us the same story, and the same price.
Okay, but where's the leak? So I call Leak Locaters to find the leak. I was curious about this because my lawn man tells me they inject Xenon gas into the line and use mystery equipment to find the leak. Well, I gotta see this and the $350 price tag looks like small change compared to what the plumbers are telling me. He shows up with a big van and connects a hose to the water line. There is no fancy gas - he simply pumps the line full of air and then listens for it. He's got some fancy probes from Siemens that he jams in the ground and then uses to listen for air escaping from the water line. He doesn't have to look too hard because we can hear it coming up through the river rock that is right next to the house. I didn't take a picture of the probe because I thought I would surely be able to find it on the web, but I must not be holding my mouth right because I found nothing.
I am slowly adjusting my brain to the idea of forking out ten grand for what should be a two dollar repair, but surely someone has a different option, so I call a third company - 1-800-Plumber+Air. Zori shows up, takes one look at the situation and tells me the same story. He also gives me an estimate to simply do the repair - $2500, but he doesn't recommend it and there is no warranty.
The problem apparently is that the water line is PVC and it's 30 years old. It's past its use-by date. If I was a younger man I might have tried to tackle it myself, but I'm an old man and I know it would probably take me a month of Sunday's to do it myself, so I tell Cornel's to go ahead and replace the line. (my wife liked Cornel's guy best).
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| Dirt Vacuum |
Four guys show up Monday morning with four trucks and two trailers loaded with equipment. They start with excavating the irrigation valve complex using a dirt vacuum.
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| Irrigation Valves |
The boxes enclosing the valves were entangled in roots from the surrounding vegetation so they used a sawzall to clear out the roots.
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| RIDGID 21893 SR-20 SeekTech Lightweight and Utility Line Receiver/Locator |
They used a fancy Ridgid gizmo to get a closer reading on where the underground utility lines are, which is kind of important because all our utilities are underground here - gas, water, power and telecom.
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| Digi-Trak Falcon F5 Detector |
Then they used the Vermeer machine (top) to drill a hole under the driveway and into the crawlspace under the house. They used the Falcon F5 to monitor the drill's position. Once they have the drill all the way in, they hook up the new PEX water line and drag it back through the hole and out to the water meter. Now they repeat the process to run a new line to the irrigation valve complex. Now it's a simple matter (ha. as if.) to connect up the new lines. 5 PM and they are all done.
I filed a claim with my homeowners policy today. We shall see if they send me any money.
The detectors are expensive. The Ridgid probe is like three grand and the Falcon is over ten grand.
Update 2 weeks later - homeowner's insurance paid. The adjuster I talked to seemed really happy that there wasn't any water damage. With a water leak inside the house, I imagine the bill could have been more like a hundred grand instead of just ten.
2 comments:
I would have paid to had them run the PEX through a PVC pipe to protect it and prevent future leaks.
Blocking the street, you know there's serious work afoot. You should be proud, I would be. You now have homeowner war stories. The neighbors are enthralled.
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