Sunday, April 4, 2010

Do It Yourself If You Can

Today really couldn't have gone more wrong. If it wasn't so utterly frustrating it would have been comical. We woke up, intent on going to church, and then heading to my mom's to celebrate Easter. As I was out in the front yard hiding Easter eggs for the kids I discovered that our entire front yard was flooded. We initially thought it was coming from our irrigation system, but later discovered the main water pipe to our house had burst....and it's located UNDER our concrete driveway.

I started calling plumbers to get estimates, etc. The cheapest we were going to get off was $537 and that was assuming they didn't have to tear up the driveway, which truthfully would have been the easier way, and therefore the way they probably would have chosen, regardless of cost to us. So my husband spent the morning digging a ditch to try to locate the pipe. Later in the afternoon my brothers came over to lend a hand in pulling up foliage, sawing out roots, and digging about 3 feet down and 3 feet in (and under) our driveway.

It took 6 hours but my husband and one of my brothers were about to put the new piping in when they realized the pipe they got was 1/16th of an inch too big....and by this time all the hardware stores had closed. So, my husband has to go back and get the correct size tomorrow and hopefully since all the heavy labor has been done it won't take too long to size, cut, and assemble the new piping. Total cost of piping and supplies? Sixteen dollars. Even having to go back and get new piping after the mis-measure will result in a grand total of $32.

That's a lot better than $537!

2 comments:

Nancy said...

How terrible!!

Thank heavens you have a handy husband and siblings that are able to help.

I hope it all gets corrected tomorrow. You must be water-less then?

Anonymous said...

Awww. That is such a lot of unexpected work! But the end has turned out so good! Your post has made me smile. Thank You!