Comments on: Digging Up The Water Pipes at Our House

By: John Raymond

John Raymond — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 17:40:32 +0000

Yep, just found why I have no pressure and take “bucket: showers these last 3 weeks. I have water coming up that looks like Jed hit oil while hunt’in fur some food. It’s late winter but will have to patch it up I guess till I can run a new line. Digging here on Whidbey Island reminds us of why they call it the rock…not fun. My problem is I have no time, but also have no choice. This is what happen when you buy an old house in the country I guess.

By: Madison

Madison — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:58:00 +0000

@ AnnMarie: Thanks anyways!

@ NtJS: Glad you have a house repair fund… I hope you never need to use it.

By: NtJS

NtJS — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:14:32 +0000

We’ve always kept a ‘house repair fund’ of varying sizes, but never had a system for the amount to have in it other than the potential projects that we had line of sight to.

By: Carnival of Money Stories #72: Back To School Edition — Broke Grad Student

Carnival of Money Stories #72: Back To School Edition — Broke Grad Student — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:04:03 +0000

[...] Digging Up The Water Pipes at Our House at My Dollar Plan. [...]

By: AnnMarie

AnnMarie — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:24:13 +0000

Oh, I should have kept reading first. Oh well!

By: AnnMarie

AnnMarie — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:23:40 +0000

It’s probably too late, but they do NOT have to dig until they find it. For our break, they put a camera into the pipe to find the blockage. It’s a full color deal, too (as my DH found out when he stuck around to see it. In our case, it was the sewer line. Lovely!) I don’t know cost-wise if there’s a difference, but at least our whole yard didn’t have to be dug up.

By: Madison

Madison — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:14:49 +0000

@ Sick of Debt: Thanks for the tips! The city inspector (along with lots of other people) was here to approve the work. Thanks for reminding me how much better this is in the summer!

@ Eden: Ok, we’re both on record for restarting our contributions to our home maintenance fund.

@ Steward: I vaguely remember reading something in a home buyers book about the 1% rule. I couldn’t tell you for sure though, it was a long time ago.

@ Jennifer: Oh dear! You just made my situation sound so much better. That sounds horrendous!

@ FMF, James, and Todd: Thanks for your thoughts!

We took some pictures of digging today and I’ll find a good one to post tomorrow!

By: Todd A

Todd A — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:47:37 +0000

Homeownership is always expensive, either fixing it up, or just fixing it. All the more reason to not push your budget with a huge mortgage payment (unless you would otherwise spend it on lattes !).

By: James

James — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:47:01 +0000

Man…I’m feeling for you. The city is going to put a pipe through our backyard and I’m not sure if I have to get two (huge!) trees out of the way. In general, pipes just suck.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:48:58 +0000

I was in my house one month when water started gushing out from the crack in my garage that separates the drywall from the slab. It was behind my 15 year old hot water heater – the plumber my home warranty people sent out swore it was going to be the hot water heater – umm, no. I had a slab leak – lucky for me, it occurred in the one stretch of pipes that went from the main entry to the split by my kitchen sink – a 10′ section of wall had to be torn out and a 10′ section of copper pipe to reroute the water installed. But, they did replace my hot water heater (woo hoo). The cost was $1000, but it could have been much, much worse. With only one month under my belt – home ownership seems like it’s going to be quite the roller coaster!!

By: Steward

Steward — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:25:03 +0000

I really like the idea of setting aside a percentage of the houses purchase price to cover regular and not so regular maintenance. I am curios though, why did you decide on 1%? Would you have chosen a higher percentage if your house cost less?

By: FMF

FMF — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:05:01 +0000

What a nightmare! I’m hoping that they find it quickly and can repair it easily.

By: Eden

Eden — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:51:50 +0000

I’m sorry to hear that, it sounds awful! I really hope you can get that resolved with minimal out of pocket expenses.

Thanks for the reminder on the home maintenance fund. I also started one a long time ago and *big surprise* have stopped contributing to it. I need to get back into that habit immediately.

By: Sick of Debt

Sick of Debt — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:44:35 +0000

We had to do that at our house about 18 months ago. Be thankful that it occurred during the summer months and you don’t have to worry about pipe freezing as well. Our was caused by the house being 100+ years old and the galvanized pipes rusting away to nothing. We never found the culprit, but ended up just putting in a new line.

One thing I learned from the process is make sure you find out from your city the specific codes that should be followed for the line from their termination point to your house. Once you have it fixed, make sure they approve it before it is buried. I would investigate if they had it approved before to find out who may be a fault (if the developer did not have it approved, I would recommend pursing them).