first home: underground water leak

Here is an update on all things we have been doing since my last post! Right before Thanksgiving, my husband and I bought a washer/dryer for our home. We got it hooked up and were so excited. I think we're showing our age, our level of excitement over a washer/dryer was like a teenage girl getting her first boyfriend. After getting it hooked up and loading our first bit of laundry, water started flowing out of the pipes onto the floor. We ran to grab buckets to hold the water and drain the washer. Souwan and I were devastated, like a teenage girl getting dumped by her first boyfriend devastated! Not ever owning a home or being able to call maintenance from the apartment office, we started calling my family members and googling what has happened. My co-worker Mike lent us some great advice. We had a clog! Souwan and I never even thought about that. The house is 1940s old and was vacant for a couple of years. When a house is vacant, it is code to put antifreeze in the pipes. Our friend Mark lent us his tools to clean our pipes. My husband spent four days working on the cleaning the junk out of the pipes, but this clog was thick and stubborn.

Before we could finish with the pipes, we got our ridiculous water bill. We called my family to ask what their bills were normally. My brother told us to look at our meter and if it continued to move we had a water leak. And more bad news, we had a moving meter. Now we were more devastated! Teenage girl being dumped by her first boyfriend for her enemy devastated. A gentleman from the city came out to help find our leak. He probed our yard and found the leak for us. We had to hold off fixing our washer/clogged pipe and start working on this water leak. If you don't fix water leaks right away, your bill can skyrocket. In this case it would be safer and easiest to call upon your plumber. However, my husband wanted to take this on himself. This was our first priority! Before my husband could start digging, he had to make sure to locate the gas line in our yard. Hitting the gas line could cause a huge problem.My cousin and husband started digging where the leak was. My dad, brother, husband and Kit got together to dig. They had to dig a hole 2 ft deep to find the pipe with the water. The next step was to cut the pipe where the leak was and replace it with a new piece. Now thanks to the handymen our water leak/service line was fixed! It was a relief and a proud moment that we achieved our first home repair.

To end this long story, my husband never got that clog out. Instead he and my dad replaced the pipes. Also, something you might want your plumber to do. Now all of that is done we can relax a little until our next project! Fixer upper homes are never without projects, so much more stories to come! Don't forget if you like these home posts from me, let me know! Thanks for reading friend.