Wow, I am learning so many things about construction these days, which is funny because we have slowed down so much lately. We are really just planning our next strike and what we are going to work on with the budget we have, but I am still learning construction lessons the hard way.
For example, I busted the water main planting a tree last week. Since then, I have dug up the pipe three times now because there have been leaks. Leaks!!!? What is going on? I am measuring the pipe, cutting the pipe, priming the PVC pipe and then gluing the PVC pipe and then giving it time to dry. When I turn the water back on at the street level, I always do it very slowly and with a spigot on so the air/water pressure doesn’t blow out the pipes.
Yesterday, after two trips to the hardware store (Ferreteria), I had all of the PVC elbows, PVC reducers and plumbing tape. By the time I had all the cuts and pieces ready to go, I realized that the glue I purchased at Home Depot two days ago had hardened in the can. Since I was so close and so sick of going to the store, I searched our little construction graveyard in the back and found another bottle of PVC glue, but this stuff was clear instead of the blue I have always worked with. I glued the pipes back together, gave them time to dry and fired up the water main.
Water was shooting out of the connection at the the 1/2 inch threaded spigot. I assumed the reason for this was that it was missing a gasket. I called Summer (she was at home depot buying plants and asked her to pick me up a couple of 1/2 inch gaskets. Well, that did the trick at the thread where the water was obviously leaking, but once that stopped, I saw that all of the couplings, elbows and reducers I installed had slow leaks. Aaaaaaaah! I can only guess that the glue I used was not good anymore because all the connection points were clean and smooth before I primed and glued them.
This morning, I am going back to the ferreteria (Hardware Store) to buy another set of 1/2 elbows, 1” to 3/4 reducers, 3/4 to 1/2 threaded reducers to try to fix our water main one last time. Rincon Construction Lesson Number 3,228: If the parts only cost $.89 each, buy extra, it can’t hurt to have them laying around the house in an emergency and it will save you $20 in gas and the embarrassment of buying the same 4 PVC components 4 times at the local hardware store.
It is a good idea to just buy glue when ever you buy pipe or fittings. It is not that much and you are guaranteed a good can.