A Leaky Water Pipe Changes Priorities Quickly

The joys of owning your own home are sometimes challenged by the woes of being responsible for making sure everything works properly.  And some of those 'things' can cause a bit of panic when they fail to perform as expected.  

Our latest crisis was a growing puddle of water that was starting to flood a section of our front lawn and spilling out onto our driveway.   Obviously, something was wrong, but was it a faulty irrigation line or the main water line to the house, or both?  Whatever it was, was more than we could handle ourselves, so we started the search for a plumber.  And we found one who could be here the next day between 11:00 and 12:00 and the price to fix it was $125 plus parts.  What good luck to find someone that quickly.

The next day he called to say he would be late because his pet cat got loose and is lost and cayotes will easily track it down and he would call us back.  He didn't call in the allotted hour so we called him and canceled. But not before finding another guy who would be here as soon as he finished his last repair of the day.  

He arrived, thank goodness, and immediately got to work. But it was fast nearing dark.  He said not to worry, he had a flashlight.  Turned out he needed a much larger flashlight to finish up.  We hat one.  

Something had caused the blue PEX water line to leak right where a Tee had been installed to feed the irritation line.  He just happened to have the $2.00 part, and it wasn't long before he said he would turn the water back on.  It didn't leak.  We told him we would fill in the hole the next day.  He was relieved at that offer.  He looked exhausted.  $225.00.  

This is what it looked like the next morning.

What a mess those guys have to deal with.

The water in the hole was drainage from the previous "flood."  At least we hope so.  There were no bubbles or hole-filling up, so we considered it 'fixed' and refilled the hole.  And in the usual fashion, it took four more bags of dirt to fill it after returning all the previous dirt.  

But the panic was over: we had flush toilets, drinking water, shower water, laundry water, kitchen water, and Irrigation water once again.  That's why we didn't hesitate to pay for what I could have done for free myself if I were just ten years younger and could see.  There's always a problem waiting to happen in  'life,' especially after age 65, especially after 80.