Home Improvement → [Plumbing] Water line Clogged by Construction?

The one thing I have learned dealing with city hall is NEVER play nice. They will walk all over the polite people to avoid the wrath of the angry people. You really need to retain a lawyer to fight the city for your best interests here.

Our community was completely unprepared for the issues that have recently emerged. For example, the city without any forewarning decided that they would authorize a 20 story condo tower along one of the major arterial roads
on the edge of our block. It was about then that we finally decided that we needed to have a community organization to interact with the city.

There are so many issues that affect are community and the city must know that ordinary people do not have the resources to fully advocate for our best interests.

In the last few weeks a developer wanted to break nearly every possible bi-law to add some totally inappropriate residential space in our neighbourhood. The proposal was not even close to what was required. I suppose that developers do this every once in a while to find the weak communities.

It has been a few months and we finally have had an assessment by a private plumbing professional. The plumber immediately suggested that there is a bend in the water line and this will cost large. Pain a lot of pain was the phrase. The entire driveway and garage will need to be excavated.

This could cost big.
Obviously I am worried that this could become a money pit.

We want pre-approval from the city before moving ahead. This is their problem and we want them to indicate that they intend to pay for it.

I am very unsure whether this is actually a bend. I thought it would simply be some debris. I would really like to see a robot going through the line. It does not make sense to me that the entire water line will need to be redone. If there were to be a bend why would it carry forward 20 or 30 feet?

Help!!!
Does anyone have any comments about this?
Does it really make sense to put down a whole new water line?
I would really like to see an endoscope go through the line.

I am getting scared.

I just contacted the city.
Apparently the policy is that claims must be submitted immediately (i.e. within 10 days). If they are not submitted within this time horizon, the city might simply deny responsibility.

Wow!!!
Can you really make up your own rules like that?
Well I guess yes if you are government you could, but that seems ridiculous.
I had no idea that there was such a rule.

The contractors have not completed their job on our driveway and they will soon be back on the job.

Is the city really saying that the statute of limitations is only 10 days.
This bill could be BIG.

Everyone has agreed that this was caused by the city.
I am worried that the time to claim will be a loophole that could be used to
evade manifest liability.

Why would they pay if its a kink in your supply line on your property?

The kink only happened the day after they excavated our driveway.

We have sent this to our insurance company and they said they would not pay because it is the city's fault.

isnt it the insurance companies job to go after whoever damaged your property? That is what you pay them for. If someone plows their vehicle into my house or car I am not on my own to deal with it since it was the other persons fault.

Hmmmmm, I have gotten an email from the contractor engineer. Their position is that everything is fine to the curbside so this is our problem.
The city simply might say that since it is on our property it is our problem.

About our insurance company, yes I do see the logic in dealing with them. Yet, when I contacted them their adjustor and legal department directed us to seek compensation through the city.

What did you plumber do to prove the line was kinked? I get it it happened right after work being done at the street. Im just saying.

As has been said before, call a qualified Lawyer. Edit: A qualified Lawyer will not instantly ask for a large upfront sum of money and then roll the dice. They will state chance of success, time involved, and potential money from the city for suffering (emotional distress and lack of reliable water). Leaving you with the decision to go ahead.
City is still bullshitting your ass. You have documentation from the start that the city's works on the main water line caused your problem. You contacted them quickly and the a-holes kept denying responsibility in order to evade justice.
"Claims within 10 days" is just another line of bullshit. It is only there so to keep people submitting things quickly and not 2 years later.
If your local media has any balls, contact them, and see how deep the city corruption goes.

rody, thanks for asking for evidence for the kink.
That does not make sense to me either.

The plumber was certain today that it must be a kink.
By just a quick glance at our water meter and our other taps.

They thought there was no way it could be a simple rock or something.
I do not see why not.
They said there is no scope that could be used to take a look.

There has to be a scope!
We bought one for $7!
Might not do the job, but are there no 3/4 inch pipe robots out there?
It could save someone about 10 kilo, if we could see what was going on down there.

How would our whole line have been kinked.
Seems like the plumber sees a gold mine here.
They want to dig up our whole house.
Probably should not have told them upfront that
this was a taxpayer funded job.

Probably good time to call in plumber estimator #2.

The plumber today talked about pain. Pain.
There will be lots of Pain with this job.
Someone's wallet will feel a money pain.
Dig up our driveway then our garage.
Pain, lots of pain.

This is starting to sound scary!

Ah, humanfilth, I am still looking at this from a cheerful and hopeful perspective. I am sure that everyone will be grown ups about all of this once things have been reasonably addressed. I want to stay on the high road.

I realize that many on this thread have expressed a certain nay opinion concerning City Hall, though I think we just need to wait for them to step up and show the inherent integrity that I am quite sure that they possess.

We have not yet actually submitted a pre-approval claim to the city, so we still do not know what their point of view on this is. Perhaps they will be very accommodating and fully admit responsibility. Not quite sure yet.

The contractor kept telling us to get an estimate from a plumber and submit it to the city. Well we now have done this and it appears to be big. Now that we have done this the contractor has shifted to saying that since it is on our property it must be our responsibility.

One of the water workers who was here was absolutely furious with the contractors. The worker said that our water trouble was without question a result of the contractors activities in excavating a 50 foot hole on our driveway. Obviously, I would not want to ask the worker for a sworn statement to that effect. I suppose they are not officially allowed to admit these liabilities. The onus then is put on us to prove what is manifestly obvious.

I have become alarmed though at how much the cost of this has now escalated. I thought this might be a simple job of removing some debris.
Putting in a whole new water line moves this up to a whole new level.

If this truly requires that a new water line be installed I would like to read more about those lines that can be installed without a dig. I think that I have read about these online.

Im a directional drill operator by trade. If i was going to replace your water line. I would setup across the street. I would cross over you water line at the connection continue clear under you garage and into your basement. Only place that you would need to Dig is at the main shutoff at the street to connect it. If we can go a mile under a river and never break ground we can certainly tackle a water service for a private home without digging. google search Trenchless construction.

This thread is a train wreck! Three words:

CALL A LAWYER

I am not sure what makes you think this will still be solved friendly. The city is screwing you at every single turn. They tell you to X and you do X then they tell you to do Y and you do Y you are just spinning your wheels here. This is waaaaaay past friendly.

The city is NOT going to fix this unless you make them. And the only way to make them is to hire a lawyer.

That being said i guess my point is if they did kink it during construction. Thats not a reason to replace the whole line. Should be pretty obvious where they dug near it. Thats if its a kink. Could still just be coincidence and its just gunked up with corrosion. Ive taken out water services with the drill. i wouldnt pay to replace the whole thing and neither would my insurance company. Heres the kicker tho. Its going to be on you to prove they did it.

Only way your going to do that is get a vac truck in there. He vacs away until he find a kink WHERE THEY DUG. Seems to me that line was plenty exposed where they dug for a long time that if it was kinked they would have seen it. I would guess they looked pretty hard for kinks they did where they dug. Im guessing they did exactly what i would have done. Thats take pictures everywhere i dug proving i didnt kink it.

I wouldnt suggest the vac truck because vac trucks are expensive and if it turns out not to be kinked your screwed. i suggest call another plumber. This Time dont be so quick to say someone else is footing the bill unless someone actually shows you they are paying the bill. Vac trucks are generally 1000,00 a day or so. They suck the dirt out instead of digging it. They might find the problem in 2 hours and they might be sucking for 2 days. i looked at your shutoff valve. I wouldnt rule out line corrosion causing a clog situation.

rody, that sounds great!
The plumber today was talking about pain lots of pain.
Really seemed to enjoy the thought of pain, quite spooky actually.

Yes, I had went online and read about these trenchless plumbers.
They don't talk so much about pain.
The website that I saw talked about a one day job with little if any mess.

I would be fairly impressed if they could calculate the whole thing down to a few inches into our water meter. They would have to push through about 20 feet of sloping driveway and about 20 feet of garage to reach the destination.

Today they were doing a fast measure with their boots of the distance.
And then all this talk of pain.

It would be so great if we could just email all this money pain to the city and then not have a whole summer of contract work pain. A one day job without excavating our driveway and garage would be very convenient for us.

Do you know whether or not there are scopes that they could use?
The website I saw showed a scope that appeared to be in a waterline.
Might not even need a lawyer if we could show the City a smoking gun in our line. I would certainly like to have definitive evidence of what the problem was before anything happened.

From what I can see the city does accept estimates so that issue is off the table. We could send them le Bill and before we pony up 10 kilo of our money we will know if they will step up and pay up.

We can hit within 1/8 of a inch. Dude i can stick a 4 inch bit in the ground at your neighbors and pop it straight up thru you toilet if i wanted to. Bit has a sonde in it and the drill is directional. i could draw a 6 inch hole in your bedroom floor and pop thru it with a 4 inch bit. With you seeing NOTHING but the bit. Coming out of the ground.

If they have scopes that go up your ass into your stomach which they do. Nothing is off the table. Would anybody risk a high dollar scope on a old water line. I doubt it. i will go and see if i can fimd a picture. if we have to come up thru a concrete floor a little hole gets core drilled in the basement floor. If it goes into the basement wall we can simply drilll that with the drill. You cant come up on a angle and drill concrete. it will deflect off. But straight on you can drill right thru.

Plumbers indeed!
I hope the Secret Service is aware of all these shenanigans.

They are very aware of directional drills. United States is in the process of setting underground sensors up (MEXICO) because these drills are getting drugs into the US. One person actually drilled into a vault and robbed a bank with one. Im unclear how he pulled that off tho.

This is all very impressive.

Somehow they will have to make it through the concrete in our basement, though this is sounding much less painful for us. I didn't want to even think of how much of a nightmare digging everything up was going to be according to the plan as given today. A lot of pain.

And why should we have to go through such pain any way?
It's the city's problem they can pay for it.

Some eeny teeny weeny hole in our meter room really is not much pain at all.

I am not sure why the estimator kept coming back to the pain, the big money and inconvenience angle when we can simply go on line and ask around for the best tech.

Save money, save hassle.
I am not a sadomasochist
The less pain the better.

Will be very interesting to compare estimates from the diggers and trenchless plumbers. Looks like trenchless could be cheaper.

Heres a directional drill. Its a smaller one but plenty big for a water line. Basically them 2 stakes in the front anchor it to the ground and you just keep adding rods until you get where you want to get. in the back on the machine. that one carries 206 feet of rods. You dont have to stop at 206 foot tho. You can just add more rods. Its not cheap tho. Until you get electronics and the machine. That machine is a cheaper one. Thats only 120,000.00, the electronics tho is another 40,000.00. The bigger ones go for millions of dollars.

"Between November 28 and December 3 there were multiple water shut downs for the contractor to do work and for watermain breaks. Your water service is right beside a temporary dead end in the watermain. It is likely that your water service has a blockage somewhere with silt/sediment that has been stirred up with this recent construction activity. However I believe the only way to confirm is with a plumber."

Hmm, this does not sound like a kink at all.
Would we really need a new water line if it were just silt in the line?

Quite impressive machine.

Wonder exactly how one of those suckers works.
Wound the drill head have GPS guidance?

Just so great that we have this sort of technology.
I think they were trying to sell us 19th century tech.
Funny how when you are not informed they will sell you cave age.

Im not answering for him. But im under the impression if it is crap in the line its stuck because the line is already mucked up. If it was clean i think it would have went thru. Your shut off valve was nasty looking. yea it wasnt clogged. but that valve is a lot thicker than you water line. i doubt your water line even has any 90s or 45s in it. They are usually unrolled.

CALL a LAYWER!!!!!!!! CALL THE MEDIA !!! Use twitter , facebook . Contact your local paper. Any citizen group. Your local gov rep.
6pages here has gotten you very little. redirect your time and energy elsewhere.

The thing is that our house was constructed 20 years ago.

The water main has been there for probably about 80 years.
When the contract engineer visited us he said that the water main had about
a half an inch of sludge coating it. I doubt if our water line has even a minimal amount of sludge.

The above quote is putting this into focus for me. The contractors knew that there was all this sludge and that we were on the deadend of the watermain. So even they do not appear that surprised that we are now having these problems.

And they did have a huddle for a while when I suggested that they try a backflush. They ultimately decided against the idea because they did not want to be responsible if our pipes burst trying to push back their sludge.

Thank you Polo.
It might not look like progress, though it certainly feels like it to us.

We are finally making forward progress.
We are now moving to the point where we can call in the pros and they can help us fix this.
This is one of the few households jobs that does not appear to be DIYable.

Knowing what technologies might be available to us will be very helpful.
Trenchless digs is now clearly at the top of the list.

Getting the claim together to submit to the city.
Happy to know that they accept estimates in their claims process.
I would not want to be stuck with the bill if the city did not want to pay up.
We should know before the work is done what the city's position is.