We received this video from a customer at 6pm on Thursday, out of nowhere they began experiencing the water pouring through their foundation wall into the sewer pit. The first step was to call the drain cleaner, due to the location of the leak the owner assumed it was a sewer problem. After 30 seconds on site the drain cleaner was able to identify that the water main was broken. Luckily for this homeowner the sewer trap was located directly below the point of entry and all of the leaking water was draining out to the street sewer. In other scenarios where the sewer trap is on the others side of the building or suspended in air, the water leak would have created an absolute disaster in the basement.
The work still had to be performed on an emergency basis the very next morning to avoid the possibility of additional damage. First we obtained our emergency street opening permit with DOT, at this time we began digging in the roadway to locate/close the city tap connection to stop the leak.
Now that the water leak was under control we were able to identify what had caused such a heavy leak. At some point in time someone performed a repair on the copper water main which did not hold, for this reason we always suggest that our customers replace the entire water line at once and avoid the possibility of future problems, as well as the additional cost.
The next step was to make the below ground water main tunnels for the new copper to be pulled from one hole to the next.
Two hours later the new copper was being installed through the tunnels
And finally re-connected back to the tap connection on the city water main.
