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I am a lucky man.
Categories: California House

Not only do I manage to be out of town at the most convenient moment to dodge household crises, I am married to Carrie who appears to relish any and all new challenges our 85 year-old house throws at us.

Burble
This week’s adventure had me in North Carolina when the main water line between the street and the house burst. It was Tuesday morning and Carrie realized her shower was more mud and rust than water. After running out to the meter (I’m reasonably certain she dressed first) Carrie saw that the meter was spinning rapidly. Seeing no customer shutoff valve, she called me to give me the bad news and to ask how to turn off the water at the meter. I convinced her to try the city-side valve but she was unable to get the rusted antique to cooperate.

Carrie helped me get a 260 pound stump grinder in and out of the car last weekend, so if she cannot get a valve to close, it isn’t because she can’t apply the appropriate torque.

She immediately called the city and they sent out two men whose combined strength along with a massive t-bar wrench, were unable to completely close the valve. The guys from the city said that it looked like the valve was original and may not have been closed in decades if ever. They told Carrie to patch the pipe and they would come back to turn the water back on when she called. Carrie dug a hole down to the leak in the pipe and tried a number of solutions to patch it. Between the deteriorated condition of the pipe and the fact that some water continued to flow from the only partially closed valve, Carrie was not able to get epoxy to stick or a clamp style patch to grip the pipe without crushing it.

Carrie called the City and asked them to return and do an “emergency” valve replacement. In the meantime, I’m enjoying hot showers and running water in Greenville; Carrie is schlepping buckets and buying bottled water to survive.

Kings-ley Canyon
In anticipation of the city’s promised valve replacement, Carrie dug a trench that exposed the entire leaky pipe from sidewalk to porch. No small trench either. The pipe was buried two feet down and Carrie dug a canyon two feet wide.
A trip to Home Depot provided all the copper pipe, connectors, elbows and miscellaneous parts and tools needed. Carrie had most of the soldering supplies including a torch from her work in stained glass. She stopped by the Library and picked up three books on home plumbing for reassurance. And a stop at City Hall resulted in the necessary plumbing permit.

Carrie was fully prepared, but the city never showed up. Pomona’s Customer Service people could not comprehend that while the valve had been turned, the water was not off. Since their records showed a crew had come out to “turn off” the water, they insisted Carrie had to first repair the pipe on our side. Carrie couldn’t repair it until the valve was replaced. After numerous calls from us both, Customer Service gave up and sent a crew out on Friday (I got home Thursday night) just to see what we were complaining about. The three guys that showed up took one look and said “You need a new valve” and got to work.

Good News and Bad News
The City gave us a new City-side valve and a new Customer-side valve so we could control our own water flow. The bad news was that they found that the aged pipe from our meter to the main was also leaking and would need to be replaced. Fortunately that leak was small enough that they left the water on for us and filed a request to get that part of the pipe fixed in the next week or two. So far the only evidence of progress on that part of the project is the various colors of spray paint on the street that mark the paths of the underground pipes and conduits for sewer, cable, gas, and water that need to be mapped before the asphalt can be dug up.

Carrie-ing a Torch
Once the City guys left, Carrie got to work soldering, cutting, de-burring, fluxing, and sweating the new one inch copper pipes into place. While she was at it, she added a pressure regulator, a new hose bib, and a connection for a sprinkler system, should we decide to add one.

The moment of truth came just as the sun was setting Friday night. We had carefully planned and rehearsed the sequence in which we would turn on the water. The goal was to bring up the pressure gradually, to test all of the new joints and fittings, and flush the rust and debris out the outdoor faucet, to keep it away from sink aerators. Both of us being in need of a hot shower, we were eager to have this succeed.

We turned on the main water supply and followed our start-up sequence. Every new pipe and solder connection held firm and was as dry as could be. Success!
But no! The old steel pipe to which we attached the new copper immediately failed in a big gushing way.

Dejected and tired we decided to stop work for the day and attack the pipes afresh on Saturday.

A Third, a Third, and a Third
The pipe that failed is under the front porch. This is a concrete slab porch poured over dirt. There is an 18” thick stone and mortar foundation on all sides. The old pipe runs through an opening in the front stone foundation, beneath the poured concrete porch through an eight feet expanse of tightly compacted dirt, and through a second stone and mortar foundation into the crawlspace under the house.

Saturday early, Carrie disconnected the new copper from the old steel. The front third of the old pipe slid out with little effort as it had rotted/rusted away from the back two thirds.

As you may have noticed in this article, or seen stated in other accounts of our remodeling and repair projects, my talents are best suited to demolition. While Carrie is no slouch when it comes to tearing things apart, her aptitude leans more toward the actual repair, restoration, and “fixing” parts of our efforts.

Up to this point, I’ve had little to contribute, other than encouragement, awe, and the occasional Diet Coke for Carrie. I am a Lucky Man!
But with two thirds of the offending pipe yet to remove, it was my turn to sweat. I crawled under the house.

Ever notice that whenever you have a repair under the house, it is at the corner opposite of the access point, thus requiring a belly crawl the entire length of the house?

The old pipe had become one with its mortared passageway into the crawl space. A couple of hours of chiseling, drilling, and beating on it with a sledge hammer finally broke it loose. I triumphantly pulled out the old pipe only to find that I too had only one third. The middle third was left securely adhered under the porch. The problem this created was that the middle third of the old pipe was obstructing the path of the new pipe. Carrie and I tried a number of combinations of metal poles, rods, and pipes that we inserted into the hole and then pounded on furiously in our attempts to push the old pipe through or at least out of the way. Most of our tries ended with our pusher pole deflecting off the buried pipe and hitting the foundation far from the original hole.

“Power Tools are a Girls Best Friend” – slogan on one of Carrie’s favorite sweatshirts
Saturday late. It was getting dark. Carrie suggested we adopt our usual course of action when hand tools don’t deliver the desired results; get the biggest power tool we can find. She suggested we rent a hammer drill to enlarge both the front and rear holes under the porch. This would allow us to vary the initial angle of attack to our best alignment advantage, and it would increase the margin of error in targeting the rear hole. We called our friends at Home Depot to confirm their Sunday hours and called it another day.

Sunday morning we arrived at Home Depot soon after their 7AM opening, rented the biggest hammer drill they had with a 1 ½” bit, and picked up some Egg McMuffins on the way home for fuel.

There remains a small dispute about the heft of the hammer drill. I say it weighed 40 pounds; Carrie says it is closer to 10. At this point, I’d rather not know.

We enlarged the front hole until we were certain we could direct our pusher pole past the stranded pipe. Then I went back under house with the hammer drill while Carrie pounded the pole through to the foundation. Things were looking up! The pole landed just inches from the original hole. More importantly, it lined up on a patch of mortar which made drilling the new hole much easier than if we had to go through stone.

It took just minutes to drill the new hole. Carrie pulled out the pusher pole and slid a new piece of copper pipe through in its place. The new pipe slid cleanly through the new hole so accurately it didn’t even scrape.

We packed up the rented hammer drill and returned it well ahead of our 4 hour maximum. Then Carrie got to work reattaching her new copper to the pipe we added under porch. Then she crawled back under the house, added a length of copper pipe to reach the first length of solid steel pipe available, and connected the two.

Round Two
Once again we rehearsed our start-up sequence and held our breath while we turned on the water again. This time everything held. Both Carrie’s new copper and the old original steel pipes held the pressure. We attached a gauge that confirmed the newly added regulator was delivering the expected 50 PSI.

We let the water run through the backyard hose until there was no evidence of rust, mud, or flux pouring out. After removing the aerators from the faucets, Carrie let the water run in the sinks.

Sunday night was glorious hot shower time.
We’ve slowly caught up with dish washing and laundry this week.
The City Inspector came out Tuesday, verified our plumber did an excellent job and signed off the permit.
Wednesday, having missed our traditional home-cooked weekend meals, having been otherwise engaged, I cooked a couple of filet mignons with marjoram/sherry sauce, buttered egg noodles and glazed carrots. Speaking of role reversal…

There were a number of times that Carrie got to have fun with people who were shocked to see or hear that it was a “girl” doing this kind of work. The City crew that came out were all stunned after they said when replacing their valve, “You can call your plumber now” and Carrie smilingly told them “Oh no; I’m doing the repair myself!”
Many neighbors came by to express amazement. My favorite was when some neighbors we had not met stopped by to give us some of our mail that had been mistakenly delivered to their house. Carrie was under the house soldering and I was sitting on the front porch doing a crossword puzzle when they drove up. The look on their faces when I told them my wife was in the crawlspace soldering water pipe was delightful. (In addition to doing a crossword, I was on call to hand Carrie any tools or parts she might need. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
I think the Inspector’s only comment was “Wow!” I had to tell our neighbor Rose, that while I agree I am a lucky man, she needed to stop telling me in front of Carrie quite so often.

Today, we filled in the trench and replaced the sod. Carrie made a sieve that allowed us to filter the rocks out of the dirt before putting it back in the trench. This put a layer of non-copper-puncturing soil next to the new pipes. We bought new shower and sink faucets and all the pipes and elbows and connectors needed, and Carrie went back to the City and pulled the permit so she can replace the rest of the old pipes in the house.

I am a Lucky Man.

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