Water Main Springs a Leak!

While we were in the planning stages for the big Thanksgiving dinner and the arrival of our family, I noticed the large water puddle in the street in front of our house. Suspicious, since it had not rained for several days. Upon closer inspection there were five very small water geysers sprouting up from the blacktop. Not good…the water main springs a leak!

The Leak

And so begins another exciting day of our retirement bliss. What follows is the riveting account of me watching the progress. I thought about bringing my camp chair alongside the construction, but decided against it as a little chilly without a camp fire.

I watched from the house and made several trips down the driveway to discuss the progress. I’m sure the crew appreciated my interest.

The town water manager said the cracks in the ductile iron water pipe happen all the time. A full time job for his crew. When he came out to look it over he said it would be tomorrow before his crew could get to it because they have worse today. Our subdivision is probably 60-70 years old, and the water main may be the original for all I know. Maybe our little town can get some of the trillions of dollars of infrastructure grants to install all new water lines.

Luckily for me, the leak was not on my side of the meter as I would have to pay for the repair. Also, lucky was the water would remain on except for a brief time while it was patched it up.

The Repair

Sure enough by 7:00am the next day a rep from the gas company was here to paint lines marking the natural gas lines. Then at 7:30 the city crews showed up. Five dump trucks, three pickups, and a trailered backhoe. For the small town of Radford, this was quite the crew. This section of my street was closed off.

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After marking lines on the road for the water line, they began with a saw to cut an outline of the hole to be. By 8am, they had begun breaking through the blacktop and loading pieces into the waiting dump truck. Next up the backhoe began digging up buckets of dirt to load in the waiting trucks.

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As they neared the actual pipe a nice Radford version of Old Faithful appeared soaking a couple of the workers. On a cold day this is a rough job. Next came the installation of two pumps to clear out the impromptu five foot deep swimming pool.

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The two drenched guy climbed in and hand shoveled the remaining dirt away from the leak. Up the road a block, the signal was given to turn off the water. Without the geyser distraction they were able to clean the pipe and patch it with an epoxy of some sort. Leak fixed!

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By 9am, it was two dump trucks of gravel backing up to unload while the backhoe evened it out. I was then onto my 3rd coffee and had read the newspaper. My crew next brought out a large tamper and packed down the dirt/gravel combination. I have to say, the city does a great job with these things. They were right on it and very fast.

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At 9:30am they were done and even cleaned up a bit. Now I have this swell 5×10 foot gravel section right in front of the house. Their parting comment was to say that it may be too late for the asphalt plant to resurface this year. Oh well, it will provide some entertainment for when we return in the spring next year! Retirement is great!

Wrap Up

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving this year. We have had our home full with family as we wind down our time in Virginia and start to prepare for travel to Florida. In a few days, we pull the 5th wheel coach out of storage and begin loading the stuff that will be needed over the next three months.

Take care and God Bless.