dodged the bullet yesteday...
had my main waterline start a slow drip leak last fall, just inside the basement wall at a fitting right in front of main shutoff valve. It had that big white crusty growth like you get on battery. looked to be where connection went from iron pipe/galvanized to copper. Finally got some help together had a cousin stop by friday evening with a small Kabota with backhoe attachment. we dug down in front yard to find water line, was gonna replace entire line out to the city main with plastic, get rid of the original 45 year old metal pipe.
long story short we hit plastic, went to meter end dug down by hand found plastic? went back in basement and pulled some paneling to get a better look and they had cut the plastic even with block, put compression fitting on, copper, then iron nipple, then iron reducer to copper elbow, and into the copper shutoff with iron nipple, don't know why on earth they mixed the metal with copper in less than a foot run. we got the original copper fitting on the plastic to break free from the iron nipple/reducer and only had to replace the mixed metal mess and went and installed a new shutoff just to be safe.
now I only have two small 3-4 foot diameter holes to fix in front yard and grass back in. sure beats having to reseed 1/3 or better of front yard, I never have had luck getting grass to grow and fill in to match rest of yard.
long story short we hit plastic, went to meter end dug down by hand found plastic? went back in basement and pulled some paneling to get a better look and they had cut the plastic even with block, put compression fitting on, copper, then iron nipple, then iron reducer to copper elbow, and into the copper shutoff with iron nipple, don't know why on earth they mixed the metal with copper in less than a foot run. we got the original copper fitting on the plastic to break free from the iron nipple/reducer and only had to replace the mixed metal mess and went and installed a new shutoff just to be safe.
now I only have two small 3-4 foot diameter holes to fix in front yard and grass back in. sure beats having to reseed 1/3 or better of front yard, I never have had luck getting grass to grow and fill in to match rest of yard.
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The mixing of different metals on water lines is common and a bad idea with out an isolation fitting between them. Glad you fixed it before she cut loose while you were out of town. A full flow can turn your basement into a swimming pool real fast. 0 -
Awesome. I need to replace the galvi fitting on the outside of my pitless adapter this year, 4' down. Already have the new stainless steel fitting in hand. I'm going install a pulley and rope(s) to replace the single rope in the 3" pvc that has the power and water lines plus the heat tape. I think I'll pull in a new heat tape at that the same time. I think the current one is 15 years old. 0 -
did some plastic water lines around the yard many years ago and been lucky to have only one leak..back then they were a lot thinner wall plastic than what is used today 0 -
I had a thin wall PVC water line around 1000 feet between meter and house installed in 1996 I kept having leaks for years dig up and fix
finally this year I bought some PEX and pushed it in the old PVC worked pretty good
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Sounds like some of the stupid crap that was done at my house over the years before i moved in.
Grrrr.............................................slaps hand to forehead.
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Man that was a disaster waiting. Glad you noticed it, realized the problem and got it fixed right. For such a mess, you did get real lucky with. Good job. 0
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