Yes, yes, yes – we have water flowing in the house again.  All of us are thrilled beyond belief.  The problem was incredibly complex and took days to decipher.  Ok, well, that might be half right.  It did take days to decipher.  We will tell the whole story with a few pictures thrown in for good measure, even though it is a little embarrassing for the hu-dad (you can just skim for the pictures if you want to – those are about us).

Water pressure began dropping several weeks ago.  We checked the well (hot summers have been known to dry out wells), but everything was ok.  Being busy humans, no plumber was called.  Then, last Thursday night, the water was not running at all.  Time to panic – er, start thinking things through.

The well is used by three houses- one belongs to the ski resort for seasonal help, one to a family from Florida that used it as a second home (uh, like 5 times) and then has been trying to sell it for two years, and us.  One line goes straight from the well to the ski house and one comes down the hill, hits a t-intersection (this is an important detail) to split off to the second home, and then comes down the hill to our house under the road and then under our driveway.  Once in our driveway, the pipe goes to the cut-off valve which is directly under the dog room (another important detail) and then into a utility room.

We determined on Friday that no water was coming into the utility room, so we would need to dig up the water line until we found the clog.  But we needed to access the cut-off valve under the dog room, so the Herd could not be free.  Close your eyes – this next picture is shocking.

The dogs of cell block H.

The digging began on Monday morning.  No, The Herd was not enlisted to dig.  Our fantastic neighbor (the one with his own well and the only other year round resident) brought his backhoe and began digging (this neighbor also has a big tractor which is our snow plow in the winter to the main road off the mountain – again, a fantastic neighbor).  We did not exactly know where the pipe was, so it took a few holes to find it.  Once found, the hu-dad began ditch digging so that no damage was caused to the water line.

The hu-dad does not get to operate the tractor. His equipment is leaning against the trailer. He is barely qualified to work that.

The elusive water line. Note the hu-dad's excavation around the pipe. This is specialized labor.

Ok, let’s speed this story up.  Cut this water line.  No water.  Moved about halfway up the line.  Repeat digging.  Repeat cutting the water line.  No water.  Started to move further up the line to the T-intersection to the home that had been for sale for 2 years..  Remember we said this was important.  The neighbor suddenly uttered a couple of HBO words.  He remembered seeing a house inspector wandering around that house.  The inspector would have wanted to confirm that water was running into the house.  So he would have turned valves.  Some day, this will be funny.  Some day, this will be hilarious.  But to discover that this inspector had turned the WRONG valve and LEFT it that way was, well, hmmmm, frustrating.  Repair the two cuts in the water line.  We now have water flowing, but still low water pressure.  Call plumber who promises to arrive Tuesday morning.

Qannik inspects the hu-dad's pipe repair work

Rusty is far more interested in how the machinery works.

Think of the holes we could dig with this!

Don’t let Rusty fool you.  They have dug holes that big in the dog yard.  Anyway, Tuesday morning, plumber shows up and quickly traces the problem to a clogged pressure reducing valve which was replaced.  And, we have water in the house again.  The neighbor used his backhoe to fill in the holes and the work was done.

Wait - no work is done until the inspectors approve.

Uh, Qannik, we just filled the hole in. We do NOT need to dig it back up.