Pages

15 September, 2012

A Little Watah Here, A Little Watah There

When we first built the place, we put a single faucet on the back-side of the house. That was adequate for several years. But, now that we've added planter boxes and a compost bin, our needs have changed significantly. Which change necessitates digging holes, finding the old pipes, and figuring out just how we're going to route stuff to accomplish what I'm seeing in my mind's eye.

For starters, I had Cody dig out the piping for the existing faucet. Naturally, it's buried directly under a 3-inch drain pipe we installed later - after we had our roof gutters installed.
Work is Just Starting
As you can see below, it's a bit of a tight fit. One thing that did help (seems like it does with each project too) is that I take photos of just about every phase of a project. Makes it easy then to go back when change is mandated and figure out, more or less, just what we had done in the first place.
Bit of a Tight Space to Work In
I decided to cut the water line right under the drain pipe. There was enough room to put an elbow there and reroute everything without digging up more than necessary.

I wanted to run a new line from there over to the new compost bin so we could have a faucet to take care of that area and the whole yard by the street. This meant that we had to run the line under the sidewalk (You can see that at the top of the photo below).

If this was in the states, making a 'water-jet' would be easy. Just go to the hardware store and buy a couple of hose threaded slip fittings (male and female) for an old length of PVC pipe. Glue it together and hook it up to a hose and blast away. Well, unfortunately, those fittings aren't available here.

Improvise. I found a piece of PVC electrical conduit that was just perfectly sized to fit the diameter of the hose I had in mind. I cut one end off the hose, slid the length of hose through the conduit and attached a new hose fitting to replace the one I had cut off. I now had a rigid water-jet to blast a tunnel under the sidewalk. Perfect. After attaching the water-jet assembly to a hose and turning on the water, it took about five minutes to bore a pipe-sized tunnel under the sidewalk. No big deal at all.

Running Another Line To the Compost Bin
Then, it just became a matter of gluing all the bits together, and before burying it all, turning on the water to see if anything leaked - which nothing did, so we were good to go.

Pretty Much All Hooked Up - Ready to Bury
Here's another view of the completed assembly showing the pipe running under the sidewalk. I haven't removed the old hose rack and hose yet. The rack will be repositioned by the double faucet, bolted to the steel post right there.
Faucet Re-routed From Wall to Garden
We're looking at the business end with the double faucet ready to go. One spigot for the watering wand curly hose and the other for the odd filling up buckets and washing hands and tools. Handy, eh?
Two Faucets Now
Cody's filling in the trenches he had dug for the piping. The pipe runs for now over to the corner of the compost bin pad, where I capped it off till Carlos gets done building the bin walls. Then I'll add some more piping, run a length up, install a faucet and my last hose rack and it'll be a done deal.
New Faucet Will Go In the Corner
Dianna had a good idea about a drain field for the front of the compost bin. We had Cody dig a trench about a foot deep and wide, and then fill it with gravel. Hopefully it'll work as we imagine it will.
Seeing How Everything Fits
Carlos starting the compost bin walls. It's going as high as the terra cotta fence in the background.
Carlos Hard At Work
A couple more hours and there's some real progress that has been made.

It's Going Up
After completing the two courses of each wall, Carlos cleaned up for the day. Next Friday he'll form up the top of each wall and cast a cap with rebar to give some rigidity to each wall. Then, it's parging the walls inside and out, and painting the outside walls and the project is done.

5 comments:

plumbing fittings said...

Every household needs good plumbing in order to work well. Plumbing parts, which are sold online, are of different varieties and qualities. This is the job of the customer to find the variety which is most appealing, and which can resolve the problems for a long term.

Dave Rider said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave Rider said...

Hi There PF,

Waxing a little philosophical over those plumbing bits, I think, but, thanks for the comment.
I hope they're resolved for the long term. I hate dealing with suddenly broken pipes and such.

Cheers,
Dave

JRinSC said...

Another good job by Cody -- with manual labor provided by the homeowner. LOL

Good job..

Dave Rider said...

Hi Julian,

Don't forget Carlos' work. My input was mostly as gofer and the ever-necessary cash.
I'm glad you like it. It has really cleaned up nicely and is a nice feature.

Cheers,
Dave