Reinhart vs. backhoe

[duhtroll]

How was your day?

I am certain it was much better than mine. I got to stay home from work (taking one of my three personal days I get per year) to watch plumbers tear up my driveway to find the water leaking and creating a large ice floe down my street.

I call the utility a week ago to mark. Guy comes out and marks. Plumbers arrive and say "they're SURE it's there, right - we don't think so." Call utility again. Guy #2 comes out. "Yes, it's there." Plumbers dig into otheriwse very nice concrete driveway.

One MM sized hole later (the combined hole and pile of dirt ensure that there will be no garage for the Bluesmobile or my wife' car until this project is completed), they tell me they are having trouble finding the line. "They're SURE it's there, right? The measurements for the lot says it's in your yard, not under the drive."

Call utility again. Another guy (#3) comes out. "YES, it's there." Plumbers and utility rep. ponder and discuss for another hour or two. I go back inside to fret and curse. It's cold out and I keep telling myself, "this is my day OFF, dammit."

Hour or two later they call me out and tell me they found the line but cannot find the leak. Now they want to dig up not only drive but remove entire front steps, dig under garage, punch new hole in house, remove two bushes and possibly one tree, and run new service line since they can't find the leak in the other one.

I'm really in a good mood now. :)

Utility Guy #4 comes out "just to check on things." It's now 3:30 PM and daylight ends in an hour.

"Hey - I think I found the leak," plumber says. "It's right at the shutoff - we were looking over here instead.

Large MM sized hole in drive way not necessary, I am thinking. Could have had much smaller Nissan Sentra sized hole (wife's car)

Yippie.

15 minutes later repair is complete. They fill the hole and leave the rest of the cleanup until tomorrow AM when they can see.

When the bill comes I'll see if I can afford a Reinhart exhaust, or if it has to wait a couple months (hence the title of the thread).

Here's to hoping your day was not as bad as mine.

Now I go play a Christmas concert where I am supposed to be bright and cheery.

Piece 'o cake.

Cheers,
-A

[woaface]

See, your tax dollars are good for sumpthin!

[RCSignals]

did they even need to do all that digging if the leak was at the shutoff?

Reminds me of the utility guys when they were putting in a gas line at my neighbours. The utilities were marked, except Cable vision. I told the guys where the cable line was (same run as telephone) They were carefully digging in that area to avoid the cables, then one guy raised his shovel and plunged it down.
He cut the blade through the Cable Vision line, then said, "Oh, that's a wire, I thought it was a root" Duh :lol:

[duhtroll]

I forgot to add - yes, the digging was necessary. Some bonehead buried the shutoff under the drive (stupid in and of itself to not have access to this) and they did it TWO FEET DOWN.

Plumbers did their job as well I as I think they could have. Now the people who built this house were obviously on something - it was bult in 1970, after all. :beatnik: :rasta: :pimp:

At least it's fixed and I won't have that old lady (who walks in front of my house to the store every morning as I leave for work) falling on the ice and suing me.

-A

[Mad1]

Gotta love those utilities guys, when they're sure ... worry.

My mother put a pool in her backyard last summer. The electric guy came out and staked the wires, which ran from the road around the back of the house very near where the pool was to be dug. He said, fine no problem.

Contractor, digging well away from the marked line, finds an unknown loop of extra electrical cable the hard way ... with the backhoe. (I guess when it was installed, they used to much line to the house and just decided it would be OK to leave it a "little" long without telling anyone.

Fortunately, no one was hurt and the pool looks great. ;+)