We had a minor emergency at the compound today.
There are some areas of the property that have become overgrown with invasive plants. HA and The Hand have been chipping away at them with chainsaws and hand tools, but it’s slow going.
HA got a recommendation for someone who does this kind of work, and he claimed he could do in two days what would probably take me a year. His secret? A wood chipper attachment for his track loader.
It’s impressive: it clears huge areas in minutes, and leaves behind a nice layer of wood chip mulch. Unfortunately, it also mulched a water pipe that was above-ground but buried deep in vegetative overgrowth. The pipe only fed a spigot in the garden, which we aren’t currently using, but there was no shutoff for it so we had to turn off the water to the entire house. I had replacement pipe and cement and such, but didn’t have the requisite ¾-inch straight couplers. I had to go down the mountain (through the electric gate!) to the hardware store. I bought the couplers, and some compression-fit couplers in case I could get away without having to wait for pipe cement to dry, and a cap in case nothing else worked.
The compression couplers worked great, insofar as they held enough pressure to reveal another break in the old and friable, above-ground PVC pipe. Ugh.
I had to crawl under some thick vegetation and wedge myself in a culvert to cut the pipe upstream of the second leak, and opted to just cap it off. Alas, while gluing pipe in that awkward position I also managed to glue one of my braids together. (I usually wear my hair in two braids, which HA takes care of for me.) I tried rapid application of acetone, but I was too late. HA had to cut the mummified braid (and its sister, for symmetry).
Fortunately, I have a lot of hair. I don’t think the eight inches I lost today will be particularly missed.
In two more hours I should be able to pressure-test the repair.
—2p
Newly cleared area:
The successful but insufficient repair:
The capped pipe at about 8 o’clock in front of the culvert:
addendum 2025-05-13 16:07
The cap held, there were no leaks upstream from the cap, and water is fully restored to the main house.