(no subject)

[which_chick]

We have located the sneaky, leaky water pipe, which was about six inches to the magnolia side of the great glorious Mariana-trench-like ditch we dug in the dirt.



It was twenty inches below the surface of the dirt. It was red pvc, which apparently was a fashion color for water pipes back when the thing was built. The reason we were digging in a six-inchly wrong place was that we had no real idea of where the pipe was and dirt is rather less than transparent. If I were Superman, I would not have had this problem, but, alas, I am not a son of Krypton. Also, the borough water people are not particularly able to locate plastic pipes. They can locate copper pretty well by using actual science but plastic pipes -- the best they can do is wander over your property with two brass rods in hand, witching for the line. (Based on my personal experience with the efficacy of that method, I'd like to offer up a resounding NOT. As street theater goes, though, it's fun to watch.) Because plastic pipes aren't all *that* sturdy, you really should not dig for them with a backhoe or similar because when you will find them you usually wind up with a fountain to mark your success. (Not good.) So, all the digging was done by hand. We did not puncture the pipe. However, the pipe is not leaking where we dug it up. No leaky there.

The amount of leaking going on here, combined with the fact that the damn thing has been leaking since November, suggests that there should be a massive amount of water somewhere. We can find no suspiciously wet pieces of ground. We see no unexplained drainage -- the site is on a slope and there should probably be some of that but we're not seeing it. We are pretty much fresh out of ideas at this point, so we went back to the borough office and asked if they could test the water meter to see if maybe it was having some kind of issue. The water meter is damn near new -- we put it in last year about this time -- but it's all brass fittings and should be fairly easy to remove. Any further digging we need to do on the exploratory water pipe locating front is going to be difficult and time-consuming. It may also involve tearing up the pavement, which will be expensive. The borough said there was a fifty-dollar fee for testing the meter and that they'd get back to us later. Since the water bill is four hundred dollars a month higher than it should be, we're of the opinion that risking fifty bucks to find a problem is probably a worthwhile proposition.

Comments

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

They were actually dowsing? For real?

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

For real. I would not lie to you.

[staceman.livejournal.com]

I worked for the borough maintenance as a summer job when I was in school, summer of '87 I believe it was. They did this all the time, to varying degrees of success. Until I just did a quick Google search on this long-forgotten subject, I had no idea it was considered a paranormal thing, I had always just assumed it was based on nature stuff, and never thought much of it.

I wonder if Mr. Kachurik can do the spoon-bending thing too? ;-)

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

I would think that dowsing would be not something that just anybody can do...

Water water nowhere?

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

I would think that dowsing would be pretend, kind of like determining the sex of a baby using the old ring-and-string trick.

I'm not much for the paranormal outside of The X-Files.