Oh my goodness! We have running water on our property now! This is a really big deal. I am so grateful to the licensed water operator, who the community service district hired, and to our neighbor up the hill because they are both trusted local people who stood up for us.
Working with the neighborhood community service district was challenging, to say the least, even though most of the board members are very nice. It felt like playing a made-up game with a kid who keeps changing the rules on the fly and then throws a tantrum when they can’t figure out how to win.
After 6 months and 5 board meetings, one of which was a torches and pitchforks meeting with some worked up neighbors and another one in which a board member yelled at me, we were allowed to design and build our water connection. We dropped everything else to work on that until we had running water on our property!
The water operator felt more comfortable with a professional plumber tying in to the existing 6″ water main, but we were allowed to do the rest of the work. We started by digging a big hole around the tie in location. On the second scoop, our tractor, Dipper, died! So we bought a tow strap, towed her out of the way, called Solectrac for service, and dug the hole by hand.
Dipper needed a relay replaced, which was done quickly and under warranty. The new tow strap was quickly useful again when a young climber high centered his sedan on the road past our property and we towed him out. Meanwhile, our pipe arrived.
The awesome plumber and his crew tied into the main line. Jon began using Dipper to dig across the road. We had hoped to only close the road for a day because one set of neighbors were at a wedding and the other were also out of town. The soil is very hard there and Dipper’s bucket is small, so it was slow going.
After a chat with the water operator and then the plumber, he drove off to pick up his mini excavator and returned to dig across the road. His crew installed the pipe and he covered and compacted the road again. It was an exciting day! Whew!
The plumber rented us his mini excavator for a week+ to do the remaining 400 feet of pipe to our meter. It saved us so much time! I got to do the digging and Jon installed the pipe. He created a jig to help him set the gasketed connections on the pipe.
Then there was the meter, the curb stops for both the community service district and us, thrust blocks, the valve and flushing system. And we also installed a camping style frost free yard hydrant inside our fence, so we had running water for upcoming concrete work.
We partially filled the trench, piling dirt on the middles of the pipes because we thought, if there might be a leak, it would most likely be at a joint. The water operator returned to pressure test the system, flush the pipe, and test for bacteria. Since the pressure test passed, we could finish filling in and compacting the trench.
When we had the bacteria results back and our water officially ON, Jon and I were so relieved. It tickles us ever time we see our yard hydrant or use it.
Yay!!!!!