water main break 2-21-09

These are pictures of my most recent Battell Disaster, phone started ringing at 8 am on saturday concerned tenants letting me know that there was water coming up through a crack in the parkinglot.. 6 and a half hours later there is a huge hole in the middle of the parking lot and a break in the main water is fixed, all of this happened on the day of the first annual winter carnival in middlebury. had to turn the main water to the entire building off. imagine how the resturants took that bit of info! The break was caused by a large rock being pushed up by the frost and cracking the main water which is located benieth the main sewar...Yikes i always say it could have been worse!

In this picture you see the break, pretty clean break i suppose but still...

My star plumber Keith was right there all day with me (at 90.00/hour) to keep me calm. Bruce (my boss,owner of building) showed up just as keith was turning the water back on for the building.
Here they are poking the rock with a shovel to show it a lesson.

We see the 12 inch sewar pipe and the four inch water main below it the rock in question is under that.

they put this heavy duty patch on the main allegdly it will last longer than any of us. although the guys i was working with had 20-40 years on me, who exactly will it outlive?

Here we see the patch working!

all in all it went as well as it could have. it cost 8,100.00 to fix all said and done (but the escavation crew will be back in the spring to permanetly fix the pavement). The numbers are in to the insurance company who already is saying they will not cover the plumbers bill (smallest bill) so i guess we will just see...it took alot of deep breathing but Bruce is very very pleased with me and rick (he had the day off from the farm) for the way we delt with it all. Like i said Bruce showed up at the very end when the water was being turned back on. Trial by fire.