Witching Water Part 4

Even More Plumbing Woes, Part 1

I was celebrating my victory (kind of) over my plumbing woes at the cabin when reality hit. Just as I drove into my carport at home, I heard "pop, shissssh" and saw water squirting to the ceiling.

At this point, dear reader, I must interrupt this narrative to give you a description of my house and the attendant plumbing set-up: My house has a drop-roof across the back, under which is a carport and a utility room that contains a washer and dryer. The carport is, naturally, on a slab, but the utility room is on a conventional foundation with a step leading into it. A water supply line comes through the carport slab and stands a few inches from the utility room wall. The water line for the utility room runs under that floor and exits through a brick wall, where it attaches to a "tee" fitting on the supply line. On top of this is a faucet. This is in a sheltered spot near the corner on the south side of the wall. It has never frozen before, so I failed to warp it. We did not know it was frozen because we had not used the washer during the freeze. It froze -- and burst when it thawed.

Upon seeing the unauthorized fountain, I exclaimed Oh, fiddlesticks!" (We Baptist don't curse.) Of course, the first thing I had to do was to cut off the water, for my carport was rapidly flooding. I got the water cut-off tool and ran to the water meter -- and could not find it. It was not where it should be -- just a vast expanse of grass. At one time, the cover was removed monthly by the meter-reader, but several years ago, the city attached transmitters to each meter, and the reading is now transmitted to the central office, so a solid growth of St. Augustine grass covered everything. I prodded around until I finally hit something solid, dug through the grass and uncovered the lid. I attempted to remove it, but it was stuck. I needed a screwdriver to pry it loose.

My wife drove up. "What are you doing?" She asked. "We have a burst pipe," I explained, "and I am trying to turn the water off. I need a screw driver. Get me one, quick!"
She ran to the shop and got one -- a Phillips. "No!" I exclaimed, "a flat-head!"

She returned with the appropriate screwdriver. I inserted it into a crack between the lid and the flange of the meter housing and pried it loose. But there was only dirt -- no cut-off valve.

Thinking that dirt had washed into the meter and covered the valve, I probed with the blade of the six-inch screw driver and could not find it.

"You know," my wife mused, "several years ago they changed everything up. They stopped reading meters -- it is now done electronically. I will bet they removed the meter dial and cut-off valve."

"Well, there has to be a cut-off valve somewhere," I said," to which she replied, "Well, I don't know where it is."

So I did the sensible thing: I called the water department. The lady there explained that all their workers were busy shutting off other people's water, and I would have to wait my turn: so I did -- as my carport continued to flood.

The Utility Department man arrived soon, got a "sharp-shooter" shovel from his truck, dug down about a foot deep, uncovered the cut-off valve and turned off the water. "Since we stopped reading meters, some of these haven't been opened in years. Dirt washes in and covers these cut-off valves pretty deeply, he explained.

After my experience at the cabin, I swore I would never attempt plumbing again, but would call a plumber. But, it was mid-afternoon, with no chance of getting a plumber that day, and I was without water, so I decided to tackle it. Besides, simply cutting out a piece of burst PVC pipe and gluing in another would be simple.

Wrong.

End of Part I. Stay tuned, dear reader, for part 2 of this sorry tale.