Mudhole: Eternal

Ok, I slacked off a bit this week...

Off my game last week as:

1. We had Monday off
2. I've been with out a truck most of the week (DEF crap)
3. Had to take off Friday because the youngest one decided to be sick.

Anyways, we did have a leak or two, and an exceptionally muddy one on Thursday.

Main side, lateral leak. Domestic.

What started as a small leak, turned into a giant mud hole. Normally, when you have two services (meters) next to each other, the end up tying in together at a "Tee". Then that tee feeds into the main. If you go back on some of the posts I have had about leaks, you can see this.

Well, we expected this as well with this leak, but... this was not the case.

Strike First. Strike Hard. No Mercy

It turned soupy, quick.

When digging down on an active leak, it can get a little hard to see what you are doing. Most initial guesses as to what is broken is done with the hands, and not the eyes. This is why we were confused when it felt like a 3/4 inch line was feeding from the main. Normal, as mentioned above, there would be a tee. Tee's are always going to be a larger diameter that the lines that feed off of them (what we call the service). So it made no sense to have a 3/4 line feeding off the main, splitting into two 3/4 services. That would cause a volume issue for the two customers on that lateral line, should they both try to use water at the same time.

ANYWAYS.

We dug on.

Trying to keep the water off us long enough to figure out what is going on.

Is the lateral over here?

Or is it over here

The hole got wetter, deeper and wider as we went. Eventually we uncovered the right service and verified that it was indeed a single service tied directly into the main, with no tee. This would mean the other service would be the same.

The single tap off the main

The service was broke right at the main. She let go once we started missing with it.

After a new service was built and screwed into the main, we could stop the water flow, and build back. I always take this time to look at what broke, and why.

This weird metal/pvc female adapter broke. Over tightened more than likely on install.

Rebuilding each service in poly. 

Ground was still muddy as could be.

Very muddy. A few boots were lost

Made sure the lines were flushed, and and backfilled what we could.

Still wet!

What. A. Mess.

Then on to the most important part of the day. Lunch.

Well, that all for now.

I go oncall this next week, from Monday to Monday. It's my first time as an on call leader, so I'm sure that will be fun and bring it's own challenges. (I hate being oncall by the way.)

Here's to the next time!

Mud Holes, Forever

The week seemed to be dry and all the clothes were too clean.

But we got a chance to get a little dirty before the week was through. 

A few leaks popped up this week, some where passed off to other crews, but we fixed a few ourselves. Friday was the muddy one.

A reuse leak came in a few days before, but it was small so we let it go for a couple days.  Since it was reuse water, we shut (we thought) the main off so it could dry up (it didnt).

We headed out Friday morning to get it fixed. I hooked up to a trailer and we brought out our BobCat and a mud pump.

No matter where you go, make sure your hair is fabulous.

A few scoops taken out for exploratory reasons.

The main ended up not being off all the way, and the somebody turned the main back on with someone else in the hole. Main was shut off all the way, then the repair began. Ended up being a slipped fitting coming off the main tap saddle.

Mud hog pumping down the hole

Squeeeeezing the bucket between the main and other utilities.

I thought the main was off!?

After we got down to the break, I headed back to the yard with a trailer full of mud. That proved to be a task. All that muck settled driving back to the yard, and suction cupped itself to the trailer floor. I had to hand shovel it all out.

Brownies?

The mud did not move. At all. I even shook the tar out of the trailer and nearly broke the hitch.

After getting more dirty emptying the trailer than I did working, I loaded up some fresh dry dirt to back fill the hole, and headed back. Fuel first.

All the lights

Once back, both reuse services were built back in poly. Meter boxes were set, and we began to backfill. All in all the repair went the way it should.

Tee'd straight off the main.

Not much leak action this week, but I'm sure there will be more next week. I think we have a repair scheduled to remove a meter from a driveway, so that should be fun.

See you later!

More Mud Holes?

Couple more leaks passed by our way this week. Let me show you their features.

This first one was relatively small. A backflow company was attempting to change out a backflow, and in the process split a piece of galvanized pipe.  We had to cut back on it with a hacksaw, and install a new compression fitting with curbstop. We always try to fix our leaks under pressure, especially the small ones. Fixing the leaks under pressure prevents disruption of service to the customer, as well as prevents us from putting customers under a "Boil Water" notice.

Split right behind the curbstop in the galvanized pipe.

 

Next one was a doozy

 

 

 This leak came in at 4:30pm. Sometimes we let them ride till the next day, but in the case of leaks like this one, we decided to fix it immediately. The water main runs directly underneath the driveway, about where the split is between the dry and wet pavement. Trucks were loaded with dirt and limestone, trackhoe was loaded up, and off we went.

 

 

 

Driveway was cut to gain access to the ground and water main underneath. Once we got down to the main, the leak indeed up being a 5 inch split running inline with the pipe. Looked like the pipe had suffered a hit when it was originally installed, and just wore out over time. 

Strike first, strike hard. No mercy.







Ended up staying till 12am

 

 

The split section was cut out and replaced. Sometimes we can install a repair band around the main, but the position of the crack made prepping the pipe too difficult. Before wrapping a pipe, the ideal way to handle a split is to drill a hole at the edge of the split line, to prevent the crack from spreading. The split on this pipe was on the bottom, so we would have to submerge our drill in the water and mud to drill the pipe.

 

After the main was repaired, the hole was backfilled, and water service restored. Didn't get to keep the water on this time. Total repair took around 6-7 hours. Not that bad, but we could have shaved an hour off if we went straight to the clamps and replacing the piece of affected pipe.

 

A repair band was attempted first

Two hymax couplings were used, as well as a new piece of pipe.

Driveway secured.

Bye Felicia.



Pipe Dreams

One of my most favorite things to do is to do what I do for a living, on a day off. :(

tl:dr - Something broke, I was a slacker in fixing it. It cost a lot of money, so then I fixed it.

A few weeks ago, I noticed some water pooling up around my sidewalk. Now, you'd think someone who works in a water utility would immediately look into this... buuuuuuutt... no. I just looked and went, "Huh. Look at that. Wounder what that could be.", and went about my business.

2 days go by, and I'm walking to my mailbox. Water's still there. At this point, I realize that it hasn't rained in  at least a week, and that I don't have my irrigation system hooked up. This must be a leak. I realize that there is water slowly coming from my irrigation heads.

UNAUTHORIZED FLOW

Through my extensive background training in irrigation and leaks, I immediately knew what to do. I turned the water off at the backflow and said "Forget about it." Until the bill... $300.00 plus. That got my attention. So I decided to fix it, and ask JEA for a leak credit.

After digging holes all over the yard, I finally traced the irrigation pipe back to the solenoid. I had to do this because for some reason, someone thought it was a good idea to place each individual solenoid in its own zone, rather than place them all net to each other, in the same box. I dug it up, made the repair (with some difficulty, thanks to tree roots) and got it all running again.

Check out the pics.

The culprit valve.

Laying out my supplies. No spoons here.

How it was supposed to go

Everything was going good until the picture above. Notice the gap. Now everywhere else, this wouldn't be too much of a problem. Cut your piece of pipe to length, glue and slip it in. The problem I ran into was that there is a massive root (about the size of my arm) on top of that white pipe, and another root growing vertically next to it, basically killing any chance I have of flexing this pipe into submission. Then, on the other side of the new valve, the pipe turns into 1 inch. This pipe 90s up and back, then goes into a Tee. No flex from that either. What to do?

Get angry and rip the whole thing out of the ground, breaking the previously mentioned 1 inch side. Then give up and come back the next day. 

So I cut back on the pipe, and did it right. Everything works, and now we wait for JEA.

The finished product

Beautiful. <3

Thanks for reading, and tighten up every chance you get.

"Just" a Toilet Leak

This is what a toilet that runs "some of the time" looks like.

Just because you can't hear it running, doesn't mean it isn't. In fact, by the time you hear it running, the toilets probably been leaking for weeks.