Our Olde House: June 2024
The landscape crew showed up on schedule to remove the stump sawdust, remove the pieces of concrete and bricks from the exploded barbeque, contour all of the dirt for proper drainage, and then install five thousand square feet of Saint Augustine sod in the backyard. But first, we had a few teensy weensy problems to solve, starting with the four kittens I found when I picked up a piece of metal roofing I was using to channel rain water away from the house.
The mama cat ran away leaving four kittens behind; their eyes were open but they were still very shaky trying to walk. I went inside to get one of our cat carriers and put them in it, and then I did what men do best; I passed this problem on to my wife. Miss Sherry loves kittens, along with every other creature that breathes and crawls, she even takes spiders outside, but I digress; she got some cat milk and a small bottle and began feeding the kittens.
I went back outside to confirm some other tasks we agreed to do, most importantly to remove a large concrete hydroponic garden in the middle of the side yard, to remove two martin houses set in concrete on a twenty foot pipe, and to remove the metal T poles from a clothesline that had not been used since the Depression. Wonderfully the landscape crew removed all of these leftover items from yore and repaired the ground.
My neighbor decided that the time was right for him to have some trees removed near our property line, so we coordinated his tree work and bobcat removal of the pieces on one driveway, while the landscapers used the other driveway to ferry sod into the backyard. Everything happens at the same time.
While the landscaper’s bobcat on steroids was attacking the hydroponic concrete garden, some part of it nicked a water pipe below that we did not know was there, causing a small leak. Three hour penalty and loss of down while the water was turned off, the pipe was uncovered, parts were procured from the hardware store, repairs were made, and the water turned back on to test, which was successful. This was a copper pipe running toward the house on one side, and toward the side property line on the other side.
After the delay in the game to repair the leak, the landscapers worked later than usual to get most of the sod installed. They were coming back the next day to finish everything. Later that evening when I turned on the water in my bathroom, the pressure was very low, so I got a flashlight and went back out to see if the pipe was leaking again. It was, but not from the same place that was repaired; now there was a small fountain of water next to the house. I turned the water off again and called the landscapers to tell them about this oops.
The next day the landscapers arrived early to dig up the pipe and see what was needed to repair it. This turned out to be a puncture in a two foot piece of galvanized pipe, between the copper pipe that was previously repaired and galvanized pipe under the house; at this point we realized that we were fixing the main water input to the house from the water meter. I did not see that coming, because this pipe must go under the entire length of the driveway, under the carport slab and then into the backyard, where it takes a curve toward the house, goes under the house and finally connects to the house pipes.
This section of pipe was replaced with plastic pipe, between the copper water main pipe and the above ground galvanized water distribution pipes under the house. The hole in the pipe was perfectly round and on the top of the pipe, what looked like a strike from a pick that for some reason was not leaking before.
The huge bobcat thing continued to distribute the pallets of sod to different locations around the backyard so the sod could be laid onto the ground. Unfortunately, the last water leak saturated the bare dirt where the bobcat thing needed to cross to get into the backyard, and of course it got stuck in the mud because it was carrying a full pallet of very heavy sod. After doing some neutral turns in the mud and nearly disappearing into the muck, the pallet of sod was put down and the landscapers used wheelbarrows to distribute the sod around the backyard.
Since the bobcat thing was no longer carrying a pallet of sod, it was able to escape the mud by driving forward into the backyard, leaving a rather large hole in the mud very near the water main pipe that had been fixed twice. We ran out of sod, about one pallet short, which coincidentally would be just enough to cover the large mud hole.
The next day was Sunday, and when I looked at the mud hole late that afternoon there were still suspicious surface puddles; I thought these should have soaked in by then, so I checked the water meter. The water meter was turning slowly, indicating that water was dripping somewhere in the house, or mud hole. I checked all of the toilets and found none leaking, so I turned off the water and called the landscapers again and suggested that they return Monday morning to look for the leak.
The landscapers returned the next morning and dug up the water main pipe again. They found a small drip near the site of the first repair. Third time was indeed the charm to fix the pipe again, turn on the water, check for leaks and verify that the water meter was not spinning. Finished at last. And Miss Sherry found a home for the kittens, so it was definitely a win win. There are no simple fixes, even when someone else is doing the actual work. Miss Sherry and I definitely need a vacation.
