J
John t
Last year , in the middle of a bathroom re-fit, came the time to turn the water off. For one reason and another, I had to use the outside stopcock, for such an old house the tap turned fairly easily, until the corroded handle broke off anyway!! So here I was, A house with no water and a broken tap buried 750mm under a patio AAARRRRGGGHHHH With this stop tap being the wrong side of the property line the water board couldn't help me, with more experience I should have looked for the one in the street then it's the Water authorities problem if anything goes wrong. After an hour of trying to get a pair of mole grips on this 'stump' at the bottom of a 6" sq hole, there was nothing else for it but to grab a pick axe and dig. Plan A was to dig around it and replace the tap, lead pipe as well of course but with time running out I reverted to plan B. strip the tap in-situ, get the tap open and use the stop tap in the street. As luck (?) would have it stripping the tap down gave me a bit more of the stump to go with the mole grips, (and I had dug a 'cavern ' around the tap so I had a bit more space.) Well the tap turned and you could have heard my sigh of relief miles away.
Any body else had a fun day?
Any body else had a fun day?