Fixing the Water Leak in the Street

September 17, 2009
I was surprised to see it took only about a week since I called about the water leak in the street in front of our house for someone to come check it out.

A couple of men from the local water company came out to repair the leak. Two or three days before someone – I don’t know who – marked the street outlining the area where the leak was seeping through the asphalt.

I went to take a look to see what was going on. It turned out to be a rather tough job even getting to the source of the leak. Seems that about three feet of concrete lined the ditch where the fiber optic cable had been laid which also was in the same area as the leak.

Water leak - street and yard hole

Water leak - street hole

Water leak repaired/ new valves, pipe

My little car moved to dead grass area

I moved my car so it would not be in the way. Note all the dead grass and terrible grass all over. The gophers have done a real job on our front lawn. We finally gave up since we have had little luck killing them. So we’re letting the area on one side of the driveway die and will put paving stones, bricks or rocks there. The other side we are going to put bushes along the other side of the driveway. And the rest of the yard – haven’t decided yet. It’s a fairly large area so it will be costly whatever we do.

I talked to the man with a jack hammer who was sweating in the sun after breaking up part of the hole that had been concreted over. He had found the leak in the street. I was surprised to see it was the water line going to our property.

He told me he had to carefully break about three more feet of concrete to get to the water pipe coming out of our yard. Unfortunately the first group of men who covered up the ditch concreted all around the area where the water line from our property met the line in the street.

To make matters worse the fiber optic cable was right there too which meant real care had to be taken not to damage the cable. Damaging it would cost a huge amount to repair and a long waiting period.

Right on his estimate how long it would take to break the concrete and repair the water line, I heard the doorbell ring. I answered and was told our water was now turned back on. It had been off about 90 minutes while the actual repair took place.

The whole repair effort took about 5 hours. They left a big steel plate over what little they left to be asphalted over saying in 2 – 3 weeks it would be paved over.

I don’t know, but estimate that whole repair effort, so far, must have cost many thousands. With still a little more to do, I’ll bet the total cost is probably well over $5,000 dollars. This is just a guess on my part. If anyone has an estimate of what it cost to locate and fix a water leak four feet down in a road, enter your estimate in the comments below.

Charles