EVIL PIPE

Yes, it truly is an EVIL PIPE that has plagued us since we moved in 3 years ago and it continues to do so to this day....

There used to be a water spigot right in front of the house. We initially thought it was fed from the house water source but one day it sprung a leak, and after turning off the house water we realized we were wrong because the water kept flowing and flowing and flowing. 

Higher up on the property we have a cistern that had a 2" pipe leading out of it directly downhill toward this spigot so our second thought was that it came directly from this.

So that day (you can read about that leak HERE because I know you can't get enough of our plumbing escapades) we had to drain the entire cistern, a couple of hundred gallons, and then were able to fix the leak and get the spigot back working.

Well, when we were going to be moving the house, this spigot was in the way so we needed to cap it off below ground level. Eventually we knew we would have to pull it up and cap it off further up the hill as it ran directly through the foundation of the new house but for now just eliminating the spigot was the task of the day.

So on Christmas Eve we repeated what we had done a few years ago, turned the spigot on to drain the few hundred gallons out of the cistern and then we would be able to take off the spigot and cap it.

Well between 2009 and today we had installed this:

Mr 2,500 gallon tank. It is fed from our spring and provided a consistent water supply to the workshop of cleaner water than the cistern provided. What we didn't know is that somehow the EVIL PIPE somehow connects to the water to the workshop and not directly to the cistern. Its complicated and we still don't know exactly how its configured but needless to say later Christmas Eve night - we had NO WATER:-( Its really fun to inherit other people's "ideas" of plumbing!

Yes, the EVIL PIPE drained the entire 2,500 gallon tank and we had no water. Fortunately we have another 5,000 gallon tank that we used to fill the 2,500 workshop tank and by morning we had aqua and got the pipe capped.

So when we needed to excavate for the foundation we found where the pipe ran further up the hill and after shutting the water off at the big tank (trying to be smart here), we drained the EVIL PIPE and Kyle cut it off in order to install a spigot on that side of the driveway. No reason why the EVIL PIPE couldn't be useful for car washing or irrigation one day.

        

This, of course, all had to be done at 9pm at night on one of the coldest nights we have had yet. So Kyle is working in a 5 foot wet hole in the partial blackness and I am handing him parts and pieces and thinking I haven't been this cold since I had horses, just a little reminder not to have horses again.

We got the spigot installed and were all ready to turn the water back on - this was my job!

I turned the water - all at once. Apparently not the correct protocol with new plumbing. Needless to say the water flew downhill fast and burst out our new plumbing work.

After Kyle bailed out the water from the hole we were able to get a cap on that stayed put when I turned the water back on for the second time - slowly, lesson learned. But the saga with the pipe is still not over, we need to find where it begins and once and for all be able to turn it on and off without losing ALL our water.

The nightmare joys of home ownership!