And...more water problems

Last night Dan called to say he thought there might be another small leak in the water lines. But there was so much water on the ground that it could just be a wet spot that hadn't dried yet. So Randy went down and dug a small hole, to see if it would fill with water overnight. This morning he checked and, sure enough, there was water in the hole. Dang. 

So he started digging the pipe out. He was joined by Ken and Rick - Dan had to go to work today so he missed all the fun. This is horrible ground to dig out - hard and heavy with water, and it was terribly hot today.

They dug the thing out and discovered it was leaking at a joint where the pipe was twisted. So they turned the water off, drained the line as much as possible, and Randy cut the pipe. Unfortunately there was still some water in there. 

Once the line was cut, the rest of the water drained right into the hole they just dug out. Dang again.

It took a combination of siphoning and bailing with a cup to get enough water out to work. Then, with the hardest part done, they put in a new length of pipe.

Ken brought some rock fill to pack around the pipe, Randy and Rick shoveled it in and then it was done - yea!!! Randy went back to the area they fixed yesterday to check it, and discovered a tiny wet spot - a new leak, on the other side of the regulator. Double dang!

More digging to clear the new problem area. A quick effort to seal the leak by tightening the joint; no good. We got one of the volunteers who used to do plumbing to look at our leak, and everyone agreed the regulator needed to be brought above ground. When trying to turn the water off yet again, the backflow valve broke, and suddenly nobody had water. SERIOUS DANG! 

Ashley made some calls and discovered we could probably re-seal the backflow valve just by turning it on very slowly. Thank God that worked! 

Randy and Ken went to find a new connection and discovered some problems with the plan. Now the new plan is build a support platform for the regulator before putting it in. That can't be done until the part is ordered, so they were done for the day. 

Tired and dirty, everyone retired to Ashley's front yard. Rod joined us with growlers from Prohibition and later Ashley got pizza and salad. A great way to relax.