Memorial Weekend 2005

The worse day of my entire plumbing carrier

It was Memorial weekend, I was the plumber on call for the plumbing company I was working for. I received a call from one of the property management companies we work for to come over to a condominium complex to check out a leak under on the buildings.

When I got there the property manager showed me the building to check out. I went into the crawl space and before I could turn on the light I step into a water puddle that almost went to my knee and I heard water rushing to the ground.

When I turn on the light I notice right off the bat that a six inch water main had broke a the 90 degree ellbow. It wasn’t totally broke off just enough to let out several gallons of water per minute.

I went back to the property manager and told her that they had a rupture and it needed fix now. The property manager didn’t want to fix it right now, because weekend renters and owners were starting to come in. They needed water.

I tried everything in my power to convince her that it needed repair now, not later. She was adamant about waiting.

So, we waited.

Sunday afternoon I got the call to come and fix the break. Every building and there was ten of them had no water. I ask the property manager to have maintenance turn off the main and before I arrived.

These condos are over twenty years old and the water main was ran in a series. So, if you turn off building six, building 7,8,9and 10 would have no water as well.

I fix the main with a mechanical 90 degree elbow instead of a PVC 90. I had the pipe fix in an hour. The maintenance supervisor turn the water back on and just as I thought we were out of the woods a passerby stuck his head in the crawl space and ask me if the other building should be running water like it was.

I stuck my head out of the crawl and saw the next building beside the one I fixed had a river running out of it’s breathing holes in the concrete wall, over the side walk and into the lake. I called the maintenance super to turn the water back off. Then went to check i t out.

The crawl space door was missing and floating in the lake. This wasn’t good. Underneath the main had broke in two three different area’s including the fire sprinkler system. This really wasn’t good.

Luckily, I had enough parts on my van to fix the water main, but not the fire sprinkler system. I spent the next three hours putting the system back together. It was time to turn the water back on…

There was something bothering me about why the water main had broke in the first place. I ask the maintenance super if he had any thoughts. Just old pipes he said and drove the half a mile back up the hill to turn the water on.

While he was driving I began investigating the next building down which we will call building four. I happened to notice that under this building there was a six inch pvc ball valve on the main near the south wall of the building.

I called the super back and ask if all the buildings had a ball valve on them. He confirmed they did and said that they were all open. There  was no reason to turn them off. Besides he said that they were so big that it would be impossible to turn them off without breaking the valve handle.

I agreed and waited for the water.

Guess what? The water came and the number seven building broke just like the number five building. We shut the water back off and this time both the building super and myself began crawling under each of the buildings to find out what was going on.

When going under building two I found that the ball valve had in fact been shut off. This caused the water to back wash back through the pipes and the pressure caused a violent rupture through the system.

The super called the ground maintenance man who had been there that day and found that he had turn the valve off after the first building lost pressure that morning.

With no parts to fix the next building and it was approaching 8pm, I had to go back the shop and see what parts we had  left. While driving I called a few friends that work at the local plumbing shops. They were all out of town for the long weekend and would be back Tuesday.

Plan B was out.

The shop was out of six inch pipe and only had a few fittings. I called the super back and ask if they had any pipe. I had enough fitting in pvc but not in mechanical to fix the building. He acknowledge that they had some pipe.

I rush back to the condo and found about 20 of the occupants gathered out side of the number seven building. All of them were complaining about having no water.

By midnight I had the plumbing back together. Since I had used pvc pressure fittings we had to let the glue dry. We couldn’t turn the water back on until 6AM. It is recommended to allow the glue to dry one hour per size of pipe. Six inch would take six hours.

Exhausted I drove home for a few hours of shut eye.

By 6AM Monday morning I drove back to the condo praying that nothing else went wrong on this job. The super turn the water back on and all was well.

This time no more mains broke and everyone had water. I spent the rest of the week at this complex repairing the fire systems that had broke and taking care of other leaks that was caused by the mains breaking.

This was the worst day of all of my plumbing carrier. It still causes some stress when I think about it.

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