Surviving Middle of the Night Water Main Break

Why do these things always happen at night or on the weekend?

It was about 4am on a Monday night. I was glued to the TV watching Drugs Inc. on National Geographic. In-between commercials I kept hearing a slight and continuous humming sound that I’ve never heard before. I’ve never heard it before but it was subtle enough that it didn’t call of immediate concern.

Half an hour later it was time to go to bed. I went to the bathroom and the sound gotten a bit louder. Sounded like running water when the toilet is filling up after a flush but nothing was being used.

It started to look around.

I went to check on the laundry in the garage - nothing. I checked the second bathroom and the kitchen - still nothing.

I opened the front door to see if I could hear it outside and the sound became louder. I began to hear running water. I walked further down the driveway and saw water on the road flowing down from the street. I looked around my car near the mailbox and I discovered this:

Burst pipe with water running out of the ground near the sidewalk and the mailbox.

Shit.

Definatly not normal.

First reaction was to check and see if it was on my side of the water meter or the city.

Anything on your side of the meter near your house is your responsibility and anything outside of that closer to the road is the city. Looks like it was on the city side.

I went around the house to investigate if anything else burst.

All was clear.

All seemed good inside the house and the source of the running water was narrowed down the burst pipe outside.

It is now time to call but who?

I went digging for the recent utilities bill to find their number. After few automatized prompts I got to a live person. She sounded asleep as anyone would be at 4:30am. She noted my information down and said someone will be in touch shortly after she contacts the workers on duty.

Few minutes later I received another phone call. The guy sounded also half asleep.

"You have a burst pipe?"
"Yes. Flowing water. Lots of it. On the curb near the mailbox and down the road."
"Is it bad?"
"Looks bad. But I’m not a pro. First time seeing something like this. Should probably be looked at as soon as possible."
"We go in to work in 2 hours. Can it wait till 6:30am?"
"I really don’t think so. There is a lot of water coming out."
"Ok I’ll be there soon."

2+ hours later I am looking at the sun coming up. Water still flowing out without slowing down and people are waking up - walking their dogs, jogging and leaving for work.

Few minutes later the city truck finally shows up.

I walk out to meet the guy and explain the situation. He starts pocking the water hole using a shovel and the shovel goes more than half way underground. The soil became so soft from the continues running water that you could probably jump into this swamp and go under.

"I gotta make some phone calls." he says.

And the fix begins.

For the next 3 hours the crew begins to show up. First it is a few people. Then it is an excavator and a bulldozer. Then a large dump truck. Then a water truck. Heavy machinery.

The entire job took 3+ hours. By 11am we had our water back and the pipe was fixed.

Turns out the old pipe rusted off.

One week later without any notification a city truck pulls up and they lay down few strips of grass on top of our dirt.

Impressive and professional.

We were lucky the break was on the city side and they were responsible for the fix.

I learned to keep an ear out for weird house sounds that weren’t there before. Also always have this water shutoff tool available for the water meter just in case the break happens on  your side and you need to turn it off yourself.

With all this mayhem to start off 2022, how about you check out how we fixed a cat tree...