What a morning!

[Plumbstar Tom]

Woke up at 3 o'clock and popped to the loo and could swear i could hear feint 'gushing' noises. I put it down to the freezer being on defrost.
Back to bed and woke again at 5 o'clock to slightly louder gushing noises! Not being a believer of coincidences I was sure it wasn't the freezer so I checked all over and found it was loudest near the airing cupboard. Took a deep breath and opened but nothing. Before checking the tanks in the loft I decided to open the landing window only to hear a loud gusshing from the front of the house.
Grab my keys and rush out in me undies and there is a huge leak coming out of the footpath at the end of mine and my neighbours ddrvie ways! Back inside I popped to get more decent as I had visions of it being on the bad side of my stop tap and needing my concrete drive dug up. I open my external stop tap cover to be welcomed with a hole full of water. In goes my arm whilst steadily balancing on my right hand trying not to slip and end up lying down. Turn stop tap off and leak still persists (technically good news for me). I grab the wheelie bins and reposition to attempt to redirect the water away from my drive and my neighbours, back inside ring the water board who said they will be out in 24-48 hours!
Back to bed and body clock had convinced itself it was morning and I could not get back to sleep!! Much to my annoyance. Been suffering all day since
Anyhow South Staffs water arrived at 12pm and are well under way to begin repairs but my god there is a lot of water. luckily the majority of it is heading down the sloped path to the road.

I'll be back home at about 7 tonight to assess further but a lot of digging is required as the water was coming up in a number of places

 

[SafeGasInstall]

omg .....what a morning after long weekend ! sometimes i fill much safe as I do not own a house yet ! and you are lucky that the leak is out side of your property ! get a drink on the way home !

 

[Plumbstar Tom]

I know i'm lucky but thats why I had to get my hand fully down to the stop tap in cold conditions, Twice! once off, once on.

Buying a house is all good until something goes wrong! Already had to replumb the washing machine waste as thats was a DIYers bodge! he used all the good plumbing fittings including blu tack!!!!

Carpets in upstairs bedrooms is just layed down with no fitting!

 

[secret squirrel]

Mate, when you own property, I just expect something bad!

Like life, you tick along quite happily then BOOOOM! Just have to wait for the next 2 things now LOL they always happen in 3's.......................

Forever the optomist!

 

[Plumbstar Tom]

well the car was leaking coolant on its service so had to get that sorted the other week so I reckon I'm only due one more BOOM!

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

well the car was leaking coolant on its service so had to get that sorted the other week so I reckon I'm only due one more BOOM!

be careful tom it does come in threes ,both the vans went pear within a week of each other then a week after that the car played up

 

[WHPES]

Called to a job this morning - central heating not working. Found a F&E tank full of water, tied to drain off and nothing moved. Hey a blockage. OK so I undid a few fittings and shoved some lengths of wire up and got a load of crud out (part of the pipe was inaccessible so I couldnt get at it all). Thought OK thats good and reconnected and took the bung out of the tank and nothing still. Whacked the pipe over and over with a large hammer, more crud dropped out of the open end at the bottom but still no water. Anyway the pipe had a gate valve on it and having undone the gate valve I found that the pipe was not blocked up to the gate valve and I shoved the wire in as far as I could and loosened some debris. Slight drip from the open end now, then stopped.

At a bit of a loss what to do. CHopping out and replacing the pipe would mean loads of joinery work so suddenly had an idea to shut the gate valve and apply a bit of heat to the section of pipe between the blockage. Started hissing in the pipe and I thought Oh good that'll loosen it. Suddenly Pop and splat, brown crud sprayed EVERYWHERE from the open end and the blockage cleared. Fortunately I had covered most of the surfaces with dust cloths so about 10 minutes of washing down cleared the mess.