It's a miracle
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More than 200K people without power. Surprising as heck, we're not among them.
Chicago was hit with some wicked weather again last night, third day in a row we've had storms roll through. We had ten tornados on the ground at one time, one each near O'Hare and Midway airports. Way south there were 100 mile an hour winds. While we got a ton of rain, our town didn't have any wind to speak of. Third day in a row we dodged storms that did a lot of damage not very far away.
OTOH, we woke up to a river in the street this morning with water bubbling up from underneath the pavement. Broken water main. To make things even more interesting the Alabama Slammer valve got the better of the public works crew. As they shut off the water main they managed to create two more breaks in the main which means they've just created a ton more work for themselves...they're gonna be here for a while...
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Wow, sounds awful! Hopefully things will calm down quickly!
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Our air conditioning quit. Went up to the rooftop with the landlord (8 story old office building) and saw that the air conditioner had tipped off the pad! I knew there were some strong gusts last night, but this? Never expected to see that!
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@Rontuner Not surprising. Can it be repositioned and fixed, or will you need a new one?
We were watching WLS, the local ABC affiliate whose studios are on State Street. They relocated all their people to a lower level last night as the storms rolled through. This was a pretty amazing line of storms.
https://abc7chicago.com/post/illinois-tornado-damage-today-clean-begins-after-storms/15062366/
Photos of damage in the Chicago area:
https://wgntv.com/news/chicago-news/photos-severe-storms-leave-behind-path-of-damage-in-chicagoland/
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Turns out the water main break was right where the service line to our house is. Water is back on but the pressure is extremely low. The public works guys called the water meter department and they're coming out tomorrow morning to check the filter on the water meter to see if it's clogged. I never knew water meters had filters, but it makes sense.
I was in the basement working near the water meter when I heard a clanging noise. They must have been making the final connection and they hammered on the pipe down at the street. I'm just hoping that they didn't break the service line somewhere on our property. and that the low water pressure is because it's running into the ground somewhere on my front lawn under the 60 year old sugar maple that shades the front of our house. Fingers crossed; there's nothing bubbling up out there yet.
I'll start a separate thread about an interesting plumbing problem related to a years ago water main repair that had been puzzling us for years and that we think we solved yesterday...
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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Public works was out here on Wednesday to look at our low water pressure problem. They shut off the water on both sides of the water meter in the basement and discovered that the meter was chock full of sand and some pretty good size chunks of gravel. PW guy put in a new meter and turned the water back on. Pressure was great for about 15 seconds and then it pretty much went to zero. He pulled the new meter out and saw it was now plugged up. He got a backup crew so someone could be at the buffalo box to turn the water on and off a few times to flush the line while he caught it in a bucket in the house. Took about 15 gallons of water before everything was flushed out. He installed a bridge pipe instead of a new meter and we went to check the rest of the house to see if things looked good.
First stop was the kitchen, where the water seemed to run fine for 10 seconds and then went to barely a trickle. Other faucets were fine, so we took apart the pullout sprayer and checked the filter screens and they were full of fine gravel too. Got rid of the debris and reassembled and we were good to go. Public works guy left the bridge in so we could see how things fared over the course of a couple of days. He came back today and swapped in the new meter and we are back to paying for our water again.
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Wow, that's crazy! I'm glad everything is resolved! And that there wasn't any lasting damage from all of it!!
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Sharon’s grandparents got their whole house replied after an incident like yours.
Their old galvanized plumbing system had nearly closed shut with corrosion over the years and then a bunch of sand got pumped in when a contractor hit the water main in the street.
Contractor’s insurance company paid to repipe the entire house in shiny new copper pipe!
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@wtg said in It's a miracle:
I'll start a separate thread about an interesting plumbing problem related to a years ago water main break
I was going to do another thread, but I'll throw this in here...
Maybe 10 years ago there was another water main break and repair that occurred down the street in the middle of the night. I got up to use the bathroom and when I flushed the toilet it sounded like a bomb going off in the wall. The pipes were shuddering and rattling and it took maybe 30 seconds for the noise to stop. I had no idea that the water had been shut off for the repair in the street and that the water from the house had drained out and we had air in the pipes. It all slammed up to the little pipe on the second floor toilet when it was trying to refill the tank after the flush.
After that, every time water got turned on and off anywhere in the house we would hear a gentle thumping in the wall that is shared by the two second floor bathrooms, right where the toilet is and where the noise h appened.
We thought pipes might have gotten shaken loose, so we secured those down in the basement. Maybe there's still air in the system, so we bled the whole house multiple times using various patterns. Nothing got rid of the thump. It wasn't a water hammer, just a thump, like a pipe was loose. It would get better after we drained the system but the thump was never totally gone and it would worsen over time.
Fast forward to this past Monday, the day before the water main break in front of our house...
Mr wtg had seen an episode of Ask This Old House where plumber Rich Trethewey solved a similar problem to ours. Turned out the cartridge in the shower/tub mixing valve was bad. So we decided to do a little experiment.
I pulled the handle and escutcheon off of tub/shower faucet in our hall bath and turned off the water using the little screws that are in the valve body. Ingenious little invention, if I do say so. I asked Mr wtg to turn the kitchen faucet on and off and....nothing. No noise. I opened up the hot water side and still quiet. After I turned on the cold water I got a little bit of vibration, and I got a bunch of black crud that came out of the tub spout. I use that tub all the time, so this was a new phenomenon. I messed with it a bit more, turned both hot and cold on, and had Mr wtg do the kitchen faucet test. Still quiet.
It had been years that we were living with that noise, and we finally fixed it. Then the next day, the water main broke in front of the house. What a coincidence.
In any event, looks like we're all set! I may replace the cartridge anyway even though things seem ok now. We did it once maybe 12 years ago when the original cartridge wouldn't shut off and we had a drip into the tub.
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@Steve-Miller said in It's a miracle:
Sharon’s grandparents got their whole house replied after an incident like yours.
Their old galvanized plumbing system had nearly closed shut with corrosion over the years and then a bunch of sand got pumped in when a contractor hit the water main in the street.
Contractor’s insurance company paid to repipe the entire house in shiny new copper pipe!
Cool beans!
We have copper already, but I grew up in a house with galvanized pipe so I know the issues. A lot of the houses in the subdivision had already been replumbed, but my Mom sold it before hers needed it.
