Also - thanks to the water authority for NOT telling me about the leak for a few months so I went through a few YEARS of water. They called last week and said that I had been using an excesive amount of water. 105000 gallons for the month of September. The representative said it was probably a leaky toilet. However, I would imagine that 105000 gallons through my toilet would have overwhelmed my leech field.
I fixed the leaky toilet and we were still leaking 1.3 gallons per minute. So I started calling around. No one would be willing to take a look at it. I found one company that would run me a new line for $500/ft + 3750 connection fee. We're 140 feet off the road ... do that math! Another company was willing to look and do a quote until they heard it's a mobile home then they said they don't do mobile homes. Even though the problem is in the yard ...
Found out a family friend does this and has done it. When I was asking him what he was thinking to find the leak and fix, he said if he couldn't fix it I'd be looking at less than $5000 all in for a new line with a plumber coming out to hook it up. At that point, I said let's not bother finding the leak and just replace it with something NOT copper. We got the UFPO request in and by Monday we were marked and ready to go! So he started digging and got the new poly line to the house. From there, we had a plumber come out and get us hooked up inside. All in all, we were without water in the house for maybe 20 hours. Not bad at all considering the major failure.
When he started digging up the old line, he discovered that someone buried copper line right in rocky soil with no sand bed. That causes a few issues. Our soil is acidic. Also as the ground moves around, the rocks against the soil don't do us any favors. Also someone tied it into the original well. Then from there it went to a pressure tank next to the garage which was not buried far below the surface. Then under the garage slab, the slab between the house and garage and the house slab. There's a lot of line sitting under slabs! I'm pretty sure I caused this by parking the Jeep next to the garage for a few months right on top of the pressure tank sitting next to it.
It should have been obvious sooner. Back earlier in September, my pressure washer stopped working. Then we had about 6 days of rain and the yard never dried up (we're all sand here, so there's very rarely any standing water for more than a few hours). The other day I had the washing machine going and I took a shower and noticed no pressure at all in the shower.
My pristine , fully manicured lawn before digging started! I was joking about this - I literally do not care about the yard, or the trees. I'd pave the lot if I could.
Excavation at the meter pit to find the old line
Starting Digging
Almost there
To house:
Ready to go to the slab! The water table isn't this high, this is water that was pushed in this
I fixed the leaky toilet and we were still leaking 1.3 gallons per minute. So I started calling around. No one would be willing to take a look at it. I found one company that would run me a new line for $500/ft + 3750 connection fee. We're 140 feet off the road ... do that math! Another company was willing to look and do a quote until they heard it's a mobile home then they said they don't do mobile homes. Even though the problem is in the yard ...
Found out a family friend does this and has done it. When I was asking him what he was thinking to find the leak and fix, he said if he couldn't fix it I'd be looking at less than $5000 all in for a new line with a plumber coming out to hook it up. At that point, I said let's not bother finding the leak and just replace it with something NOT copper. We got the UFPO request in and by Monday we were marked and ready to go! So he started digging and got the new poly line to the house. From there, we had a plumber come out and get us hooked up inside. All in all, we were without water in the house for maybe 20 hours. Not bad at all considering the major failure.
When he started digging up the old line, he discovered that someone buried copper line right in rocky soil with no sand bed. That causes a few issues. Our soil is acidic. Also as the ground moves around, the rocks against the soil don't do us any favors. Also someone tied it into the original well. Then from there it went to a pressure tank next to the garage which was not buried far below the surface. Then under the garage slab, the slab between the house and garage and the house slab. There's a lot of line sitting under slabs! I'm pretty sure I caused this by parking the Jeep next to the garage for a few months right on top of the pressure tank sitting next to it.
It should have been obvious sooner. Back earlier in September, my pressure washer stopped working. Then we had about 6 days of rain and the yard never dried up (we're all sand here, so there's very rarely any standing water for more than a few hours). The other day I had the washing machine going and I took a shower and noticed no pressure at all in the shower.
My pristine , fully manicured lawn before digging started! I was joking about this - I literally do not care about the yard, or the trees. I'd pave the lot if I could.
Excavation at the meter pit to find the old line
Starting Digging
Almost there
To house:
Ready to go to the slab! The water table isn't this high, this is water that was pushed in this