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Fixin' broken water lines

Hanta Yo

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
3,662
Location
South Central Montana
Hate fixin' broken water lines, especially in the winter...hard to break through the frost in the ground... we have to get this fixed before the next cold wave....

sw in backhoe

swinbackhoe.jpg


Thawing out the ice

thawingouttheice.jpg


The problem area

theproblemarea.jpg


Breaking through the ice

breakinthrutheice.jpg


Diverting the water

divertingwater.jpg


Water leaving

gettingwaterout.jpg


Tomorrow, hopefully the water will be gone, and we can dig a little deeper to find the problem...

Pics to be continued...
 
Don't envy you a bit there, Hanta Yo. I noticed here that the bare ground has cracks in it so that means the frost is going down. There is about 10 -14 inches of ice on the ponds!
 
Sundancer said:
Don't envy you a bit there, Hanta Yo. I noticed here that the bare ground has cracks in it so that means the frost is going down. There is about 10 -14 inches of ice on the ponds!
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Our ponds had 2 ft. of ice a month ago as they were very low from summer I bet they are froze solid now.
 
Looks familiar Hanta Yo and sw. Everyone around here has had some water problems after the last cold spell. We have a fountain that is froze up down under it. At least you had real warm weather for working on it! I see sw has no earflaps. He must hate wearing a winter cap as much as I do. :-)
 
Hanta,looks like you have a Bradco back hoe for your skid steer,are they worth the money ? or just another glorified toy ?what HP is your skid steer ?...............good luck
 
HAY MAKER said:
Hanta,looks like you have a Bradco back hoe for your skid steer,are they worth the money ? or just another glorified toy ?what HP is your skid steer ?...............good luck
Click to expand...

The Bradco backhoe is one of our better investments. It seems we are constantly digging up broken water lines (we didn't put them in). The skidsteer is a New Holland LS 160. Handy dandy piece of equipment!!!
 
Hmm... Interesting... Oh well, it will stay on the list after a few other more important things I am sure.... It would be nice to dig up water lines that always seem to break at the most inoportune time and my local backhoe guy unfortunately passed away last year so now there is nobody who comes out and does it... ink Iwoud ather buy a orse at this moment however

Thanks for the info.
 
Found the problem...frost too hard, had to dig underneath with the shovel

theproblem.jpg


That Tee was leaking pretty bad, got it fixed, will wait to turn the water back on since it was pretty cold gluing the new one on, hopefully the glue holds.

I don't mind too much fixing water lines in the summer if it's in the 90's :P . I don't like fixin' them if the trench is in rock and a person only has so much width to work in
 
Could be worse... you could have it situatied in an old Sandpoint pit, have a cow get in there somehow, knock break the pip and flood the pit somehow getting out. Than the pump could finally short out but only after filling the pit. Breath, wait 12 hours until morning when you find the pit basically soild ice with no way to reall fix it until spring.. Ahh... good times, good times... :lol: :lol:
 
Yep, we all get to have fun. Frost here is down to 4 and 1/2 feet. We are filling water tanks with 400 ft of garden hose. Thank God we only have to do it once a day. Lots of problems here. A few folks in town were talking about sewers freezing. Back when we had the dairy farm, main water line broke. 8 feet down. Had to get Jack hammer attachment for skidsteer just to break through 5 ft. of frost so the backhoe could dig.
This summer when I put in new water lines I will go down 8 ft. and trench 2ft. wide. I will put 4 inches of foan over the line before we fill in. That should take care of the frost problem.
Good luck with your repair.
 
Shorthornguy said:
Yep, we all get to have fun. Frost here is down to 4 and 1/2 feet. We are filling water tanks with 400 ft of garden hose. Thank God we only have to do it once a day. Lots of problems here. A few folks in town were talking about sewers freezing. Back when we had the dairy farm, main water line broke. 8 feet down. Had to get Jack hammer attachment for skidsteer just to break through 5 ft. of frost so the backhoe could dig.
This summer when I put in new water lines I will go down 8 ft. and trench 2ft. wide. I will put 4 inches of foan over the line before we fill in. That should take care of the frost problem.
Good luck with your repair.
Click to expand...

I sure hope your plans this summer for water lines works. Good luck to you. Let us know how they work out :)
 

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