WOW, what an eventful day. I think I know now how my friend Travis Hughey must have felt while he was in Kenya and was having so many problems with the plumbing at the compound that he was staying at while on a missions trip (you can read about Travis’s trip at fastonline.org ) At anyrate, we had some real problems today with the plumbing. Our day started out testing the gas line that we had installed. The pressure indicator showed that we were loosing pressure somewhere which indicated we had a leak. After calling the gas company, a representative from the gas company came out. He was a really nice guy and went out of his way to help us. He got on his horn and called in some backup with a sniffer ( a deal that can sniff out gas leaks) we quickly found out where the leak was and thankfully it wasn’t anything that we had installed but was related to some older plumbing. While he was there he recommended that we down size our gas meeter. Right now the meter is the size of a VW and we really don’t need anything quite that big. So, the gas company is going to come back and take care of than.
Meanwhile, we noticed some rust on another pipe and like the master finger painter that I am, I give it a peck with the hammer. Wa La! a nice fine stream of water started spraying a really nice mist. It felt so good in the hot humid room. It was really quite nice I thought. Like two skilled city workers we stood there and stared down at the pipe while we talked about what to do about our dilemma. For some reason, I thought another peck with the hammer would help. NOPE, that didnt help any at all. Now we have a bit more than a nice comfortable mist. So, I turn off the water at the shut off inside the building and we cleverly decided we would just remove the pipe and replace it. It seemed to me that the best way to handle the situation was hit it some more with a hammer and that would break it the rest of the way so we could twist it off with a pipe wrench.
peck it again with the hammer - Yeah thats it - peck it again!
A couple of wacks later (notice I have gone from pecks to wacks) another really nice mist of water is spraying down on the other end of the room. Wow, this is getting exciting. The really fun part is now the other leak is past the main shut off inside the building. So, we venture outside to find the main shut off. After digging around we locate the shut off only to find that it was way down in the ground and the city would now need to be called.
We call the city out and and within no time 2 men were out looking down at the ground where the shut off was. I knew it was getting ugly when they got out there shovels. I was hoping that they were just wanting something to lean on but I was wrong. One off them begun digging and it wasn’t long before I saw the heads shaking in disbelief.
give it a peck with a hammer, it worked for me
I wasn’t worried though and knew everything would be all right when a second truck showed up with 2 more guys in it. He probably had a bigger hammer, I thought. Now 4 guys were looking at 1 guy down in the hole. the shut off was rusted off and they had to replace it. It wasn’t long and the water was shut off.
2 hammers are always better than one and I know one of them has to have some duck tape!
So, we got the water turned off and had a plumber come out to give us an estimate to repair my peck with the hammer. He starts in the morning.
The next time I peck a pipe I will think what I could be pecking up.
I’m taking my rubber mallet tomorrow just in case.
Tags: rusty pipes, water leak
