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.



Ketchup

Ok, let's get everyone up to speed.

For the most part, everything is still the same. Still work at the same place, albeit performing a different duty.

My previous job title was "Field Service Technician" and I've pretty much summed up what those job duties were. Through people moving around, I have ended up in a spot titled, "AMI Supervisor", "AMI" meaning "Advanced Metering Infrastructure".

Not me, this guys is too excited.

What does that all entail? Well, to be honest, I'm kind of figuring that out on my own/making it what I think it needs to be.

Current duties keep my very busy and include the following.

• Inventory - In a nutshell, every meter, register, and related device goes through me. Whether it's new stock arriving, checking current inventory out to the Field Techs, or doing warranty returns, I'm the guy that scans in and scans out all of it.
• Truck Maintenance Records - I make sure our in house database is up to date with my departments vehicles. I'm currently using this information to try and put our trucks on a routine maintenance schedule.
• Quality Control - Making sure our guys are doing the correct work, at the correct address, with the correct parts. This is the most time consuming part of my job. Any error out the field gets sent to me. Sometimes it's small and an easy fix, sometimes it's not. Half the time I can get the guys to go back and correct it, sometimes I end up having to go.

I do a few other small things, but those are the biggies. It's a change of pace, and a welcomed one at that.

Currently, we are scanning in every single item me have, for the end of the fiscal year inventory. This is where things get scary. Basically, every item the finance department says we are supposed to have, we better have. So for now, I'll be spending my time in the meter bay, armed with a bar code scanner and a pack of pink stickers.

This is but a smidgen of our inventory

Frozen in Time

It's been awhile.
That seems to be a reissuing theme, doesn't it?

Well there were Holidays and stuff.... Yadda yadda yadda, Bob's your uncle.

Currently it's very cold, and I'm in a beast of a truck, with (among many crippling defects) no heater. It's great.

Well, here's to more posts! I've got things to say!

See you soon!

TOAST Pt. 2 - Basic Load out

Welcome to "Tools of a Service Technician" Part 2.

See what I did there? I shortened the title so I could make a catchy acronym.

Today we will look at what you could consider my basic "load out" or what I commonly grab when I get out of the truck for a regular service ticket.

In addition to the previously talked about screwdriver, the next most common tool would be what I call the meter key. Some call it a turn on wrench, or turn on key, but I'm sure it goes by many names. This is the tool I use to open or close the valve (curbstop) that turns on or off your water. These can be bought at most hardware stores, but generally are a little smaller and lest robust than the one shown.

This type of key comes with soft yellow padded handles, but I pull them off. Reason being is that they don't last that long, and... If you look next to the meter key, you'll notice a metal bar. I insert that metal bar through the handle sometimes, when extra leverage is needed. Some of the older curbstops (the on/off valve) are quite old, and need a little something extra to turn them.

Next up we have the pin lock, and the pin lock key. Again, I think these go by another name (barrel lock), but that's what we call them. This is what is used to lock a meter in the case of a nonpay violation, or other general reason. The key goes into the lock, and pulls two ball bearings in. When the key is removed, the bearings push back out, and the lock is set. The locks are somewhat easy to remove, of you give it a decent effort. That little red cap goes on the lock to keep dirt out of it.

Lastly, we have the Touch Reader. This small hand held device actually performs a couple different tasks, but the main one is to electronically read the meters. There is a wire attached to the meter that runs to an MXU (that's a topic for another day, but is basically a broadcasting device for the meter readings). You can pull reads off the meter my touching the reader to the plug at the end of the wire. Now I'm old school, and a good percentage of the meters I read, I read by hand, but the Touch Reader comes in handy for when meters are underwater, or four foot deep and covered in dirt.

So that's the basic tools I use day to day, running what we call a normal service run. More tools to follow!

"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.