Busted Waterline Leads to New Steps

After we returned from two and a half weeks at both N&A's and my parents', we were home for less than a day and our water stopped working. Instead of asking me if I paid the bill (of course!), C went down to the basement and found 3-4 inches of water. Within four hours (last remembered time of water usage), the water main broke right outside the house and water was pouring in through the wall. So C hopped into the water meter and shut the water off there and let our two sump pumps empty the basement. As most homeowners know, a break between the meter and your house is your problem, so my incredibly handy and knowledgable husband began calling around to rent a backhoe.

Within 48 hours we had a trench dug, porch decking removed, waterline replaced (correct pipe & connectors used, laid at appropriate depth, set in fine sand), waterline buried, water on in the house and a happy me, because somehow my awesome husband did all of that for under $400. If we would have called a guy, it would have been in the thousands (one of dozens of blessings).

In digging the trench for the new waterline, they (we had some awesome help from friends B, M, and S AND D, B, and B were able to watch Ivan and love on him) found the old waterline and figured that a leak or break was inevitable with how it was done. Our break was probably due to settling foundation (all our doors are now difficult to close) in these drought like conditions. Anyway, the guys had to take out the sidewalk we were going to take out anyway to run the new waterline.

The yard all put back together: dirt. But please admire the porch!



So C has been working on laying a concrete pad in front of our side door (the one we use 99% of the time) so that we can have steps right in front of the door! He'll also lay a short sidewalk out to the driveway, which will make life, in general, so much easier. Think unloading groceries, loading Ivan, getting the dogs into the trucks. All easier.

Measuring, prepping, something.



Beginnings. So awesome and useful!



Handiwork: brand new concrete slab, repurposed and rebuilt steps in progress.



C really is the best and most useful husband ever.

- Posted from my mobile phone