It all started when I was walking around the yard on Thursday and noticed a strange hole in the grass. A piece of the turf was missing, and I could see a white pipe underneath:
More to the point, the pipe was cracked. That’s roughly a one-inch gap between the two pieces of PVC. I dug a bit and learned that it’s a 4-inch pipe, meaning it’s probably being used for drainage. Sure enough, a bit of investigation revealed that it’s attached to a drainpipe from one of our gutters. But… cracked? There’s no way a 4-inch pipe filled with water and froze (it rained a few days ago, but it hasn’t been below 40). After more thought, Pepper came up with the theory that the ground has settled over the past 20 years and the pipe was just pushed under immense pressure until it cracked and chucked up a little piece of the ground. But… where’s the piece of grass that’s missing?
So it’s all very mysterious, but the fact remains that I had to fix the pipe. I didn’t want to dig everything up, install another section of pipe, seal the ends, yada yada. Been there, done that. Instead, I bought some silicone tape used for wrapping pipes and started digging. As I excavated the pipe, I found a wire going right through it.
What the…?
Even better, as I kept digging I found another pipe– this one maybe an inch across– beneath everything.
We’re pretty sure that’s a sprinkler line, and I’m guessing the wire is for locating the wire from aboveground (I know they do that sort of thing with gas lines). But somehow, the wire goes straight through the drainage pipe. Maybe it popped up when the ground heaved or something? No, wait, looking more closely at the 4″ pipe, it shows signs of being sawed, rather than cracked. What’s going on here? I don’t know.
In any case, the repairs commenced. I wrapped the whole thing in duct tape, then wrapped that in silicone tape, and then applied another generous layer of duct tape. The final result looks exactly as professional as you’d expect.
Whatever. If it leaks a little bit of rainwater, it’s no big deal. I covered everything back up and called it a day.
But I’m still scratching my head about the whole thing.