[Others.056] Burst water pipe

One of our neighbor's water pipe burst right under their driveway the other day. The whole street suffered lost of water pressure and few hours later, completely out of water. The water pressure from the damaged pipe was so strong that it cracked and pushed the driveway up a few cm higher than the footpath level, some of the footpath also damaged.


Annoyingly, it took Sydney Waters about 3 hours to send someone on site. After some investigation, they digged a big hole on their driveway.


Have a quick chat with the guys and they said this is the smallest 4 inch pipe, and start talking about another incident where an 8 inch pipe burst, how much damage it caused.... We finally got our water after about 6 hours later.


Other than having the water back, What we were more concerned about is how are they going to fix the damaged driveway?

The next morning noticed the hole has been filled up like this... Also noticed a few yellow marks been sprayed on the footpath and other areas where the concrete were cracked.


At first we thought is that it? The driveway will be left in such an ugly condition?

Then last week, council parked a caravan at the front. Next day they started working on the driveway. They were quite careful, only did one half, wait for it to dry before working on the other half.


After a few days work. It's now a brand-new driveway and footpath also fixed too!

What our landscaper told us before is correct. If your driveway was damaged due to burst pipe or whatever reason, the council will only replace it with basic concrete. So if any of you thinking of extending your beautiful driveway paving all the way to the road might want to think again... Better off saving that for the back yard?

[Progress.032] Drainage work completed!

Should have done this post yesterday, but was too busy with other stuffs...

This is what our site looks like yesterday afternoon, compared with the first 2 photos from previous post and you will see the differences. The small pipe near the gate, marked with some tape was where the sewage pipe is located.


This photo from the right hand side of the slab shows a few extra drainage pipes for the rain water been installed. I think they will later be connected to the down pipes.


This photo from the left hand side shows even more pipes. I think the 4 marked with dark colored tape are for the powder room. Those extra ones on the left hand side must be for the down pipe or the water tank connection.


We are quite happy to see all soils been removed and the 2 small concrete stuffs at the front path also removed.

The weather is not that stable and we have very heavy rain for the whole day today. The weather forecast for next week wasn't that good either, seems to be raining everyday. Hope it stops for a few days for our frame installation...

[Progress.031] Work for drainage pipe started!

Every time I start winging on my blog, the next day there will be activity happening on our construction site. Ha, ha! It must be magic, or my blog must be indeed really powerful/influential...

When I walked past our site around 7:50am this morning, there were a few trucks parked outside. A few trades person were digging holes and there were long plastic pipes everywhere.

When I drove past the site again around 3pm, I can see some of the pipes already connected. Looks like this long one shown in the photo below is for the rain water.


They even drive the excavator machine on to the slab, the slab must be quite strong!

Looks like we are getting rubber pipes for the main water connection, not sure if that's a good idea...

The excavator was cleaning the site, all those muds around the area were all gone...

I was told the pipe at the left was for the sewage,and today they will only connect it up to the boundary. Later, some other trades person will look after the connection from here to the main sewage pipe somewhere at the front of the house.

When I was there around 5pm, the excavator was gone and they are working on the drainage pipe for the powder room. They are working really hard! All other drainage pipes for rain water are done and covered.

Will visit the site again tomorrow morning, hope all the drainage pipe work can be finished today...

[Progress.026] Drain pipes installed

There wasn't much progress when I checked our site this morning, only a few drain pipes installed.
This is for the powder room, we also have a shower so there are 4 pipes: toilet, drain for shower, drain for floor and vanity.

The one at the left is for the kitchen, the two at the right are for laundry.

This one is similar to the one above, except from a higher angle as I was standing on the brick fence at the front. You can see all those concrete piers all over the places, wonder how long it takes for them to be completely dried.

After the concrete piers on Monday, we got lots of dirt/soil everywhere. According to our supervisor, there will be another round of digging when all the plumbing work including water, sewage and drain pipes are connected. So they won't be removed until all the plumbing works completed.

Our supervisor was also talking about he will give us a quote for removing all the dirt, and if we can get a cheaper one we can use our own trades person. Hang on, I thought we already paid extra and got the dirt removal covered in the contract? Quickly check the document and confirmed it's covered. See, there's another trap for extra expense if we haven't got that covered!

The other day when the concrete pumping guys finished their work, they dumped the remaining concrete at the front entrance. That doesn't look good but I think it can help with keeping the soils been washed away to the street when it rains...

Hay, this wasn't there yesterday? Some one decided to do some concrete mixing work in front of entrance. It's all dried and stuck on the floor, right in the middle of the path where people normally walk past our site. Hope no one get tripped over by this. This is really dumb!

[Progress.005] Water pipe fixed, trees pruned

The pipe connecting to main tap was finally fixed yesterday morning and the hole also been filled up. I contacted Sydney Water to find out the cost for the emergency service, and was surprised to be told it's free. Sounds too good to be true. Will call again tomorrow to re-confirm...

Photo of hole filled up:



Philip from Tall Timber Tree Services was here this morning to prune the 2 big trees. As shown below, they did a pretty good job.

Before:


After:


After spending almost $1000 on this pruning work, Philip told us they found some "bracket Fungus" and big mushrooms on the taller, white colour, blue gum tree at the right hand side. They reckon that tree is very sick, and will die and probably collapse in 6 to 12 months time. Don't know what the hell is that, Philips said it's quite common for gum trees to attract those fungus during dry weather, and as they grow inside the trunk, when it's been discovered it's normally too late and almost impossible to remove or kill it.

We are quite shocked and don't want to worry about the huge tree might collapse during the construction. Philip said it would cost at least another $2000 to remove the whole tree, sugar, another unexpected surprise... Will get a few more quotes from others... We also contacted council to confirm these details, quickly lodged a tree removal application, and another long, painful wait for council decision. Hopefully all these will be over before the construction starts...

Photo of Philip's huge machine behind the truck:

[Progress.004] Main Tap

I took a much clearer photo of the Main tap this morning. As shown below, the red dashed line I added shows where the main pipe is located, right below the Main Tap. The smaller pipe on the right is the copper pipe that connects to our water meter.



Photos of the hole from differeng angle:

[Progress.003] Plumber on-site, Sand Stone vs Timber retaining walls

Plumber
Plumber was on-site this morning to fix the broken pipe, hopefully the water supply will be fixed and also the hole filled up when I get back home tonight.

Geoff, our Landscaper was there as well to assist, he checked the pipe and confirmed it's copper, therefore don't have to worry about bending it and ok to use the existing one. We also make sure that when the plumber install the pipe, there's enough space reserved and when Geoff put in the wall footing, the same pipe-cemented-into-the-footing scenario won't happen again.

Sand Stone vs Timber Retaining Walls
Geoff is a funny guy, he always said that we worried too much. We saw the quality of his sand stone block wall the other day, quite like it, and decided to change our original timber retaining wall to sand stone wall. We expressed our concern whether this change would require further council approval (landscape drawing, retaining wall engineering details all submitted to council and approved). Geoff contacted council and builder, and confirmed the builder is using their private certifier, no council approval is needed, just need to confirm with the certifier and he quickly got it all settled. This was a big relief as timber walls won't look as good as sand stone ones.

We are also surprised to find that although the cost of sand stone wall is higher than timber wall, it's actually cheaper than brick wall and much stronger. I guess as the sand stone blocks are much bigger than brick, it would require less labour to install...

Photos of Geoff's work:



Main Tap
According to the 2 gentlemen from Sydney Water the other day, the Main tap which connects our water meter to the main Sydney Water pipe is currently located quite close to where our future drive way will be built. Should there be any need to service the Main tap, they will need to dig a big hole, similar to what we seen the other day, and would cause damage to our drive way. After some discussion, we decided to ignore it as it's too late change the drive way now, plus the cost and delay involved is unclear, and the chance should be very very low. Even if this should happen, as we are putting pavings on the drive way, any damage should be easily recovered. But if anyone planning to have new drive way on different side of their property like us, should consider this issue.

Builder Post-Demolition Inspection
We are doing some tree pruning tomorrow morning, after that the builder will come for post demolition inspection. They also suggest us to withhold at least $2000 with the demolition payment until they are satisfied with the inspection, which is a good idea. Hopefully everything will be fine...