Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
When I moved into this new build house in 1976, there was still a trench where the pavement/sidewalk should be. The builders simply filled it in temporarily for us to be able to access the drive and move in.
A little while later they actually laid the pavement.
Later still, it transpired that some genius had arranged for every house to have its 'streetside' water stop valve positioned on the pavement exactly where it would get driven over daily by vehicles accessing house drives. In my case, for some reason, the stop valve was not positioned in a proper chamber beneath a cover, but inside a few bricks piled up to form a rough 'box'. Of course...it wasn't long before that crumbled, but since I had no cause to inspect it.. I was unaware. Nine years later, when the rising main inside my integral garage 'popped off' ..naturally below the 'house side' stop valve.... it took me some considerable time to access the street side valve and shut off the water...
Despite not being a plumber.. I soon worked out that whoever had attempted to fix a plastic 1" pipe, which had been terminated with a 45 degree cut, to a copper rising main...was on a hiding to nothing. Hence the catastrophic leak. I simply cut the end of the pipe correctly and using the original olive and fittings, put everything back together. That was 1985.
At some point after.. the water company came along and fitted a proper chamber under the streetside stop valve, and repaired the dip in the pavement.
Last year... during lockdown..I decided to fit an outside tap, plumbed directly off the rising main in the integral garage. Being forewarned and therefore forearmed, I made sure to clear the little streetside cover, make sure it was capable of being opened and check that the brass tap below was accessible and turnable.
It was well that I did so, because during subsequent plumbing operations in the garage, the water main parted company again.. below the house side stop valve. I was able to shut off the water in seconds and then completely renew the internal stop valve and coupling.
When I finally turned on the water at the street side valve I noticed that the chamber was filling with water. I assumed it was due to a leaky packing gland in the stop tap.. but decided to ignore it.. as I'd had enough of other people's plumbing cock ups.
However... none of the above is important right now....
Last Tuesday we returned from lunch with friends, and noticed bright blue spray paint around our street side water stop valve. I wasn't much concerned.
Yesterday.. two chaps turned up with a truck and a small digger type machine in tow. They parked across both mine and my neighbour's drives and started operations. Neighbour enquired as to how long they would be because he needed to go out in 10 minutes. They cheerfully agreed that they would move their vehicles whenever neighbour needed to move his car.
I enquired similarly and they informed me that I would be able to move my car, but that once they had finished their work, Mrs Mull's car would be trapped on our drive, because they were only there to dig a hole and change the stop valve.. The pavement would be made good 'in a couple of days'...by another crew. Mrs Mull took the opportunity to move her car onto the street.
I politely suggested to the workmen that it might have been a good idea for United Utilities to actually give me some form of warning of their intentions.. not least because I might ell have been out when they arrived..with who knows what consequences..
The workmen agreed wholeheartedly and explained that United Utilities policy of not informing residents in advance, of inconvenience to which they were to be subjected...often resulted in them being subject to hostile reactions from residents.
Incidentally, it turned out that the water leak was in the join between the stop valve and the blue plastic 'supply side' water main.
Shortly afterwards...the workmen left. They had replaced the stop valve with what looked like an all plastic alternative, left the contents of the hole on the side of the pavement adjacent to the hole, surrounded the hole and its contents with an 8 foot by five foot arrangement of bright yellow plastic barriers and sited a total of four signs over an approx 100 metre stretch of pavement, indicating 'Footpath Closed'. All of this in a Cul De Sac with 6 houses.....
And yet somehow.. United Utilities had not provided said workmen with the means to backfill the hole and make a simple patch repair to the pavement.
As you can probably deduce from the above... I am lost for words...
A little while later they actually laid the pavement.
Later still, it transpired that some genius had arranged for every house to have its 'streetside' water stop valve positioned on the pavement exactly where it would get driven over daily by vehicles accessing house drives. In my case, for some reason, the stop valve was not positioned in a proper chamber beneath a cover, but inside a few bricks piled up to form a rough 'box'. Of course...it wasn't long before that crumbled, but since I had no cause to inspect it.. I was unaware. Nine years later, when the rising main inside my integral garage 'popped off' ..naturally below the 'house side' stop valve.... it took me some considerable time to access the street side valve and shut off the water...
Despite not being a plumber.. I soon worked out that whoever had attempted to fix a plastic 1" pipe, which had been terminated with a 45 degree cut, to a copper rising main...was on a hiding to nothing. Hence the catastrophic leak. I simply cut the end of the pipe correctly and using the original olive and fittings, put everything back together. That was 1985.
At some point after.. the water company came along and fitted a proper chamber under the streetside stop valve, and repaired the dip in the pavement.
Last year... during lockdown..I decided to fit an outside tap, plumbed directly off the rising main in the integral garage. Being forewarned and therefore forearmed, I made sure to clear the little streetside cover, make sure it was capable of being opened and check that the brass tap below was accessible and turnable.
It was well that I did so, because during subsequent plumbing operations in the garage, the water main parted company again.. below the house side stop valve. I was able to shut off the water in seconds and then completely renew the internal stop valve and coupling.
When I finally turned on the water at the street side valve I noticed that the chamber was filling with water. I assumed it was due to a leaky packing gland in the stop tap.. but decided to ignore it.. as I'd had enough of other people's plumbing cock ups.
However... none of the above is important right now....
Last Tuesday we returned from lunch with friends, and noticed bright blue spray paint around our street side water stop valve. I wasn't much concerned.
Yesterday.. two chaps turned up with a truck and a small digger type machine in tow. They parked across both mine and my neighbour's drives and started operations. Neighbour enquired as to how long they would be because he needed to go out in 10 minutes. They cheerfully agreed that they would move their vehicles whenever neighbour needed to move his car.
I enquired similarly and they informed me that I would be able to move my car, but that once they had finished their work, Mrs Mull's car would be trapped on our drive, because they were only there to dig a hole and change the stop valve.. The pavement would be made good 'in a couple of days'...by another crew. Mrs Mull took the opportunity to move her car onto the street.
I politely suggested to the workmen that it might have been a good idea for United Utilities to actually give me some form of warning of their intentions.. not least because I might ell have been out when they arrived..with who knows what consequences..
The workmen agreed wholeheartedly and explained that United Utilities policy of not informing residents in advance, of inconvenience to which they were to be subjected...often resulted in them being subject to hostile reactions from residents.
Incidentally, it turned out that the water leak was in the join between the stop valve and the blue plastic 'supply side' water main.
Shortly afterwards...the workmen left. They had replaced the stop valve with what looked like an all plastic alternative, left the contents of the hole on the side of the pavement adjacent to the hole, surrounded the hole and its contents with an 8 foot by five foot arrangement of bright yellow plastic barriers and sited a total of four signs over an approx 100 metre stretch of pavement, indicating 'Footpath Closed'. All of this in a Cul De Sac with 6 houses.....
And yet somehow.. United Utilities had not provided said workmen with the means to backfill the hole and make a simple patch repair to the pavement.
As you can probably deduce from the above... I am lost for words...