Today's struggle

Well, as promised, the day got started with a bang. The foundation people came back to the Holly house and re-leveled it, a procedure that is really pretty interesting if you've never seen it. Actually, it helps things a lot AND it tears a lot of stuff up! Last time they did it, the jacking up and letting down (they use the weight of the house to drive the piles into the ground) action caused a leak in the gas line.

Now, THAT was an adventure!

No one noticed that the line was damaged until several days later when I was at work; the neighbor smelled gas and called the gas company (BIG mistake.....HUGE), who promptly pulled the meter and blocked the line on their end. Well, my neighbor was beside himself upset that he didn't think about what would happen and realized that he just should have turned it off himself and let me know. Well....anyway....he told me right up front when I got home, so I got out the shovel and started digging. The line was a galvanized steel pipe that had merely rotted from the outside at the soil level and the added stress of getting pulled up and pushed down in the soil was too much for it. I cut it in two with a hacksaw, removed both sections, bought a couple of short sections, a union, and a valve at the hardware store, reinstalled the line, pressurized it and soap tested it, and called the gas company; "Hello gas company! The leak is fixed; you can send your boys out here and put my meter back!...........I have to have WHO inspect it?........the CITY?......what do THEY have to do with my gas service?..........A permit?........a certified plumber?........a pressure AND a vacuum test?.......You've got to be out of your freakin' mind!"
Well, my neighbor must've heard me screaming into my phone, because he came over and volunteered his friend, a certified plumber, to look at my little problem. When HE got there, he looked at my repair and told me that it would have been okay if it was 1985, but times had changed. NOW the union had to be above the valve and the whole thing all the way up to the house had to be wrapped with waterproof tape. He said if I would repair my repair (he left me some of the tape I'd need), he'd get the necessary permit from the city and get it inspected as early as possible. SO........I re-did my repair to code, and waited. After a couple of days taking cold showers, I was past ready for this little fiasco to be over, but I was still a week away from having my gas back!

Should've learned! TODAY the added stress broke the water line, so I spent the afternoon putting THAT back together. Earlier, I had done all of the yard work and retrieved the key from inside the storage building in the back (some genius locked it inside the building....so I had to remove a piece of the siding, get the key, and nail the siding back in place!), so, when the water leak was repaired, I was about done for the day.

Tomorrow, it's back to the fence!