Water line repair

[Mortblanc]

As a continuation of this far fetched tale at the end of the meter reading cycle I had a water bill of nearly $500 USD!

Since the leak was outside, and unobservable the water department gave me a break and discounted all but $100, which was still 4X my normal bill, but I appreciated their considerations since they could have charged me the entire sum legally.

Today I spent the afternoon under the house once again. The leak seems well repaired and I decided to insure against this happening again.

I applied a new electric heat tape to the pipe in question. I boxed the whole in with foam insulation board and stuffed the inside of the little house around the pipe with fiberglass insulation. After closing it up I sealed the corners with a super sticky tape.

The pipe had lasted for nearly 50 years, part of that time with no protection and the last 13 with only a "heat tape" protecting it and it had survived at least one -20F sold snap each year, and at least one dip down to -35F after I moved here.

I am hoping I will not encounter this problem again. I'm too old to be crawling under houses!