Recently in Brooklyn our customer received a 3 day notice due to their leaking water main. At first they property owner did not take the notification seriously and as a result the city issued a 10 day notice. The big problem with a 10 day notice is that the DEP issues the notice and turns off the water to your house at the same time.
At this stage our customer was forced to take this seriously and hire Harris to repair the water main. The DEP told the property owner that it was only the “goose neck” fitting that was leaking and as a result, she could perform a repair inside the roadway excavation that they made to replace the goose neck fitting.
Once we applied for the DEP permit they flagged our submission due to an existing lead water main at the house. This was actually a surprise to us, the house had a copper water main entering where the main valve is located. At some point there must have been an illegal repair completed where they connected a new section of copper pipe to the old lead.
We now began the installation of their new copper water main including 55′ of new 1″ copper. The process includes digging three separate holes, one in the street, one below the sidewalk and one in the foundation wall. Now that the excavations are completed we can begin making tunnels with compressed air from one hole to the next.
Foreman Dwight prepares the pipe and fittings that will be installed on the inside of the house due to the lack of space inside the wall. Once the fittings are put together he will work on connecting the fittings to the meter and the new copper water main to the fittings. Now that the water main is connected on the inside of the house and in the street to the city connection, Dwight will open the main control valve very slow. This is to avoid any issues with air or to much pressure at one time.
In this particular scenario a very slow water main leak had actually eaten away at the brass fitting in the roadway. A slow and steady stream of water will make a hole in the fitting if it is leaking for an extended period of time.
The entire installation is completed in one day, finally we were able to provide water back to the house after living without water for two days. The new copper water main will last another seventy years before they should expect to experience any future issues!
