Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Water main leak

Get rid of the copper. But even our stupid town keeps preaching copper... even though they know the city water will pinhole it in years to come...

I would be betting concrete and copper issues adjacent to the foundation or a footing for your porch. Type K copper will last a long time as long as its not in contact with concrete or lime. You didn't say how old the water service is.

If you've never run an excavator before, now is not the time to learn. Digging that close to the building looking for a water line requires a gentle touch gained from years of experience.

House is built in 2006, pretty sure it’s in dirt through the yard and under driveway and trees to foundation wall where it hits concrete. No water in sump pit, French drain ain’t drippin.
It’s a puzzler.

The keyword is how the pipe is bedded sand or small material around pipe to prevent failure in the future.
Service line replacement around Anchorage can run as high as 10K to replace in the winter. 10ft depth of bury steam set to thaw before you dig in the winter. And disturbed soil will usually give you problems in the future.

Most utilities you are responsible from the key box to your house, have water utility come out and shut off key box. If you can still hear leak it may be there responsibility if its a leak at keybox valve or utilities side.

Most insurance likes to stop at footprint of the house look at your exclusions.

Insurance stops at foundation exterior. I checked docs page
Leak is after water shut off at street and before house based on meter flowing when house is shut off and meter is on running 0.8 g/m

If you replace your service, Use PEX .Its more forgiving than pvc and you may be able to get an entire length (one continuous piece) to get from the meter all to your house unlike PVC.

Edit: if you are concerned with Codes, put a sleeve through your foundation two pipe sizes bigger than your line. So if use 3/4 service, use 1 -1/4 sleeve . I think thats right.

If it were me I’d re-route the line so it’s not under the concrete porch and then run it internally to where it comes in today.

A few times we have managed to tie the new line to the old and pull it under a sidewalk or driveway. Success depends on soil conditions. Knew a guy that would push a cable thru the old line, tied it to the new line, pulled it thru with the backhoe bucket. Worked sometimes.

Soil is heavy wet clay, not real rocky. May try and run new not under driveway or porch

Rented a mini excavator today after the leak detection guy was here last night. Got down to the water line on the side of the driveway where he identified leak, he marked about 5-6 feet in from edge but thought it might be closer to the edge.
It's not in the 2 feet out or the first 18" inside the driveway edge (as far as I was willing and able to dig without worries of collapsing a driveway soon.

Thinking a new line on the side of the house opposite the current service.

Do you run copper or blue poly. Excavator I talked to today said chinese copper was more porous and was having problems and the blue poly 1" would be in a 2" sleeve.


No matter what I put in yard, I'm debating running pex from the new inlet side along some joists and then against them to the far corner and hooking into the main line with a sharkbite or some other pex to copper connector.

Basement is unfinished, trying to save some money and pex would be way easier in one leg than sweating copper every 10 feet and 8 90's or so.

Who's worked with pex, love it? Hate it? Any advice?
Thinking of buying a 100' roll and using about 70 feet of it to make it in one run.
Are there tools I'd need? Is the sharkbite the best connector to copper? Do you trust it for the main line. I use them on the sprinkler vacuum breaker and just take the whole thing off each year, been holding for 5-6 years or so.


If I use poly in the yard and pex inside, is there a good connection for between those? Do I need to disconnect the ground that's on my current copper line right as it comes into the house?

Thanks for helping make this easier.
Jon

run the pipe as far as you can, rent or buy the correct the correct tools for the type of pipe you choose.

Or run the pipe and hire a plumber for the final connections.

I would not use a shark bite on my main water supply inside of my basement.

I have personally seen issues like this so many times, don't speculate and assume, get a Pro to fix it and make sure its clear to him you dont wanna ever have such an issue again. because the more it keeps leaking the more who whole area becomes fragile and this may continue.

Use pvc, copper erodes on the inside from the velocity of the water.

Copper in cold climates if you ever have to thaw line, I would use whatever materials a good contractor would use in your area and guaranty there work. Lots of materials have been tried and later found to have issues. All pipe will have issues if it is not bedded right. Go talk to your utility and see what they recommend.

If by blue poly you are referring to cts there is a specific type of fitting for it. Sleeving the full run is fine, we usually only run a sleeve thru the foundation sealed with foam. Just inside the foundation you'll want a ball valve for a main shutoff. At the valve you can change over to pex. I would avoid brass fittings underground as I have very little faith in the quality of any brass or copper fittings anymore. If your panel ground was bonded thru the original copper line you need to establish a new ground. Our inspector requires two rods ten feet apart.

Anyone who direct burys copper should be castrated. Been digging ditches and burying lines for 30 years.