Agile Tortoise
Greg Pierce’s blog
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I need professional help
While we were away on vacation, Texas had a deep freeze. Of course, it hadn’t really occurred to us to do proper winterization before we left, since the average temperature this winter has been about 70 degrees.
When we arrived home last weekend, we were in the middle of the biggest rainfall in two years, so it didn’t seem odd to us that our yard was soaking wet. But, as the week went on, and it had been longer and longer since the rain, this fact started to seem a bit odd.
It turns out a pipe in the sprinker system busted in the freeze and was seeping a considerable amount of water up through the ground. Yesterday, I thought I had tracked the spot down and dug a hole, but hit the wrong spot. This didn’t bother the boys much. They proceeded to turn the errant pit and associated pile of mud into messy diversion. Today, I spent a large part of the day on the problem and tracked down the actual spot by poking a lot of whole in the ground following one of the feed pipe and then turning the water on a looking for gurgles.
I dug up the spot and found the problem, which was a busted connection on a T-joint in the PVC. The bottom PVC of the grouping of three pipes stacked right on top of one another. It was tricky to get around down there and get it repaired, but about $3 worth of parts later, all is good. I’m going to leave the hole open for a couple days to make sure, but it seems to back in order and no water is ticking off the water meter unexpectedly now.
On the whole, however, the experience has been yet another reminder to me that I need to let go of certain problems, and despite liking to be self-reliant and cheap there are times when it’s probably easier to call someone and let a professional take care of it.
