Leaky

Sometime last winter we noticed the sound of water running in the house. It was coming from underneath our stairs and turning off every tap in the house had no effect, nor did turning off our water main. So we called the city and they turned off our water out on the street. The noise didn't stop, or so I was told, I wasn't here for that bit of the adventure. The city concluded that it was their pipe out on the road that was leaking. They also decided to wait until spring to fix it, because digging up roads in the middle of a snowy winter is not recommended. 

So we listened to water running all winter. We occasionally wondered if maybe it wasn't such a good thing to have all that water running under our house, but mostly we happily ignored it because it was the city's problem and not ours. But when the city came back this spring and dug up a patch of road they re-concluded that it was in fact our problem in our yard.

So tonight, James headed out with a shovel and a plan to follow the leak. He found it. And suddenly we realized just how much water was coming out of that pipe. We had a small creek flowing behind our house.

And it was flowing into a small lake.

We were suddenly asking questions like "Does the city do after-hours calls?", and saying things like, "Boy am I glad we convinced all our friends it would be fun to dig a drainage ditch around our house six years ago."

And then this happened:

Water Leak from Nature Nerd on Vimeo.
I particularly like how James takes the opportunity to wash his hands in the spray at the end of this clip.

 Close-up of the leak.

 Once the water was turned off (thank you after-hours city guy!), we got a good view of the maple roots causing the problem.

James looking simultaneously proud and garden gnome-ish next to his handy work.

Now to fix the pipe.