Water line repair

[Mortblanc]

Discovered a burst water line last week. I had lost about enough water top fill a good sized swimming pool or to create a really nice wetland ecosystem, which is what I had done. I caught it just before the government declared it a protected duck sanctuary.

Went looking for the leak. Yep, it was under the house where the entry line passes through the crawl space. An old line and leaking under pressure in a half dozen places scattered along a half meter of line.

Tell the greenies that plastic does not last for 25,000 years, It starts decomposing in around 25.

Ahh, I just need a couple of compression fittings and a section of line! An hour of time and it will be done.

!!!!WRONG!!!!

I go to the home improvement center. Sorry no one makes those fittings any more. They don't make the pipe either.

"Hey bud!" I say, "you have rolls of the pipe hanging on the fence!"

Been there for ages and we have no fittings, they say.

And all of them said the same, four centers, two plumbing supply houses. I even walked in with the leaky section I had cut out so I could show what I needed. "Never saw anything like that!", and I knew they were lying. This was all common stuff on any farm or under any house 25 years ago.

I call a plumber, "sorry we don't crawl under 50 year old houses."

Honestly, they said that. Four different licensed plumbers would not even come out and look at the job. One did offer to come look at the leak but he would charge your equal to 50 pounds to tell me he could not do it once he got there.

One last call sent me to a plumber that said he could do it but he had a 4 months waiting list. No emergency calls either. I would have to wait four months.

He was nice about it though and sympathized. He also asked me why I was unable to find the parts I needed.

I told him no one in the area kept them.

He told me exactly where to find the parts and I went yesterday and bought them. Two fittings at 40 pounds per fitting. I would have paid twice that, I have had the water shut off for a week! They had shelves full of fittings, an actual inventory!

They were even glad for the business, and said that most of the other supply places were not getting their orders in and claiming it was impossible to source was their way of copping. Blaming the supply line for their sorry "just in time" inventory program failure.

With the heat index at over 100 I waited until last night to crawl under the house after it cooled a bit. It was still 90F at 9 pm. It took me an hour to do the repair, which is what I had estimated when I first saw it. But it had taken me a week to get someone to tell me where to get the parts.

I have running water again.

There is a moral to this story. I now have a box of assorted PVC fittings and and a couple of extra lengths of pipe added to what I already had, just in case.

I will also be telling my grandchildren to not waste their time at university like I did. Get on with a good plumber and learn the trade. They make more money and get more respect!

I never had anyone call me up and beg me to come tutor their brats for their exams, and let me name my price!