water main repair 大水, 死人

This past Sunday I was working in front of my computer. I happen to notice through my webcam that an unusual volume of water was rushing into the storm drain in front of my house. It is not unusual to see significant water flow into the drain, except this time the water comes from the opposite direction and it was not raining hard.



I went and check and saw the water emerges from the side of my neighbor's house. I called the water and sewer bureau. My neighbor had apparently also called before me. When it rain very hard this time of he year, it can be difficult to tell if the problem is due to a broken storm drain system or a water main. It turned out to be a water main.

It took awhile for the sewer bureau person to assemble the repair crew on a Sunday afternoon. They came with all the necessary equipment.

this is the giant hydro-excavator - it is essentially a high volume pressure washer and wet shop vacuum combo

 it sucked up the mud and gravel slurry with it's 10-inch suction pipe in a hurry

Well as for the repairing of the broken water main pipe, it is nothing out of the ordinary. The crew use a pipe repair collar not much different from ones we buy from home center to repair our kitchen drain.
the toy repair collar we use for home

the one the crew used is just much larger for this 8" diameter pipe - on the left hand of the crew walking towards the sidewalk

I didn't get to see all the details but I infer they must cut enough of the broken pipe to allow enough room to slip the repair collar in place. They only dug a very small hole big enough for one crew to get down to the broken pipe for the repair. It was a very tight fit for the big guy. I love watching and learning how things work.

this giant natural gas second stage regulator caught my eyes while coming out of a shopping center

here is a "toy" propane regulator used on my VW Westfalia camper - measure about 6 inch in length