Red Ring Tupperware Party, Autumnal Equinoctal Edition (24)

I recently sprung two leaks on the hot water pipe under the house. The first time we had a crew dig a hole and fix the pipe. It took two guys three days to dig a 4' by 3' by 15 foot long tunnel to get to the pipe.

The second leak happened months later and we saw it in the garage. Took out a good part of the wall and cut a hole in the garage floor. Finally found the leak about 15' deep under the dining room floor. I decided to re-rout the pipe through the attic instead and cap off the hot water under the house.

gjl711 wrote in post #18448996
I recently sprung two leaks on the hot water pipe under the house. The first time we had a crew dig a hole and fix the pipe. It took two guys three days to dig a 4' by 3' by 15 foot long tunnel to get to the pipe.

The second leak happened months later and we saw it in the garage. Took out a good part of the wall and cut a hole in the garage floor. Finally found the leak about 15' deep under the dining room floor. I decided to re-rout the pipe through the attic instead and cap off the hot water under the house.

wow

I can't imagine why the pipe is so deep?

Edit: Never mind, long not deep, to get to it.

hqqns wrote in post #18449140
wow

I can't imagine why the pipe is so deep?

Edit: Never mind, long not deep, to get to it.

The pipe runs from the street under the garage floor and then distributes to the various rooms under the slab. That pipe feed the upstairs bathroom and the master bathroom and uses an interior closet to make it's run upstairs. It's about 15' from the nearest outside wall so the only way to get to it is either cut through the floor as I did in the garage, or dig under the house.

Are they running pex as a mainline into your house?

jay125 wrote in post #18449250
Are they running pex as a mainline into your house?

Everything is copper.

jay125 wrote in post #18449250
Are they running pex as a mainline into your house?

Are you asking me?

Then no, it's Copper. 25 to 35 years old is my guess.

hqqns wrote in post #18449267
Are you asking me?

Then no, it's Copper. 25 to 35 years old is my guess.

Copper in my house is 17 years old as the house is 17.

Big benefit to having a basement is not having to bury anything.
Our well is in the back yard, that water line is underground. It's about 25-30 feet to the house. If we had to dig it up all we would have to do is pick up the back porch (small wood deck on blocks) and lift a few patio stones. Pump is in the basement.
We had a leak at the well several years ago and had everything out there replaced. Place was built in 1971 and that was the first time there had ever been any issues with the well.

Jill-of-all-Trades wrote in post #18449374
Big benefit to having a basement is not having to bury anything.
Our well is in the back yard, that water line is underground. It's about 25-30 feet to the house. If we had to dig it up all we would have to do is pick up the back porch (small wood deck on blocks) and lift a few patio stones. Pump is in the basement.
We had a leak at the well several years ago and had everything out there replaced. Place was built in 1971 and that was the first time there had ever been any issues with the well.

Your sucking water up? Not pushing? Must be a very shallow well. I was on a well when I lived in Illinois. Our pump sat 275 feet below the ground. On the positive side, the water was very old, 10,000 years or more so it was clean, no man made chemicals. On the downside, it had a lot of iron.

hqqns wrote in post #18449267
Are you asking me?

Then no, it's Copper. 25 to 35 years old is my guess.

I was asking both. I have copper coming into my basement about 3 feet to the meter, from the meter, the rest is all pex. My mainline is ~20 feet to the city hook up and buried ~8 feet. We never had a well. My grandparents did and a friend. I was city born and raised.

gjl711 wrote in post #18449381
Your sucking water up? Not pushing? Must be a very shallow well. I was on a well when I lived in Illinois. Our pump sat 275 feet below the ground. On the positive side, the water was very old, 10,000 years or more so it was clean, no man made chemicals. On the downside, it had a lot of iron.

Yeah, we use a shallow well pump. Water table sits at about 17 feet blow the surface, but in the spring will come up to 5' or less. Very clean and abundant water supply. We have iron and some iron bacteria, not enough to be a problem. We do get natural gas in the water, comes out in bubbles in the hot water tank. If the hot water hasn't been run for several hours, when the tap is first turned on it will just be a gas bubble. Kinda annoying, but again, not enough to be a problem.

Just asked Dad more about the well. The source pipe is 78 feet deep, which is how deep the bedrock is here. We use a double drop jet pump, with the jet down about 50 feet. We can pump around 8 - 8 1/2" gpm's, which is really, really good around here. Friends lived at a place about 10 kms north of here and their well maxed out at 1 gpm. They had two holding tanks in the basement.

Years ago we ran a supply line over to our neighbours house. For whatever reason, they never had a good well, even though they are right next to us. Our well has a more than adequate supply for two houses, especially since there are only two of them there. They pay us enough to cover the electricity to run the pump and salt for the softener. They also offered to pay half the repair when we had the well rebuilt.

As a side note... the brine loops for our geothermal heat pump are also 78 feet deep, and the high water table helps with the efficiency of the system.

14 km ride this evening. My knees hurt!

Absolutely perfect weather to go out and ride along the waterfront. I figured out how to get my bike to fit on the rack I have, so it's easy to take it along.

So after some brilliant detective work, using a very good metal detector I was able to distinguish where the water pipe was going ( and not gas pipe or underground power) and found the leak.


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Naughty tree and it's root.

That's a load of my mind that I want going crazy and won't cost a small fortune.

Glad you found your leak subby. We have a much easier way in the states. The utilities have a free service we can call and they will come out with all their toys and mark the water, gas, electrical, and cable. In fact, they highly encourage you to call any time you are digging a hole. It's free and they are quick. If you call them in the morning, by afternoon, everything is marked.