The guy across the street saw me bailing water with buckets and large containers maybe 1.5 years ago and offered to lend me his Ace 40003 pump, the same model I then bought. He showed me what was done on his property. He has two pipes running under the sidewalk, one larger than the other, both draining water to the street gutter. I'll see if I can remember what he said, I'm not clear on it. One was probably runoff from a roof portion, the other from some other source, something like that. I am pretty sure he contracted it out. Was he in compliance with city ordinances? I don't know... I assumed so, don't know.
It's hard to imagine that my town forbids runoff to the gutter, isn't that what gutters are for? Hard to stop that, really.
There's another thing that crossed my mind last night. Around a dozen years ago I had the sewer line replaced by a company that did it trenchless. That line runs right under the driveway, basically (I think) under the center, but not sure. At the driveway up-ramp there's a small steel mini-manhole cover (about 8" in diameter, I'd estimate) that has "Sewer" embossed on it in steel. Of course, I'm wondering if it's legal to pipe the runoff into the sewer line itself. That line is well below the puddle. It's a thought.
At the time that the trenchless sewer work was done they showed me that my water main, which was right next to the sewer work had broken, it was very old (this house was built in 1910), and they broke it inadvertently. They refused to give me a break on repairing it, nonetheless, they said it was in such bad shape it was difficult not to have broken it, was their argument. I had no reply to that, I needed a good water main, obviously. The crew chief offered to replace it on his own time for a bargain rate but I opted to have his company do it and they did, ultimately after much negotiation about the details. They offered to include a pressure regulator installed as part of the water main work for an extra $100 or so but I deferred. The pressure here is somewhat high when I measured it (later), around 90lb, but it's not terrible.
I just looked in my data, where I detailed this stuff extensively... didn't recall it much off the top of my head. Until I could get the water main replaced I got my water on a temporary basis by virtue of an arrangement with my next door neighbor... a couple of garden hoses attached to their outdoor spigot! A creative arrangement suggested by a plumber I talked to over the phone when I was dealing with the leaking water main at the time!
Edit: Actually I think my new water main wound up going under the house, not under the driveway. I'm reading the data I entered at the time, a mini-novel, it was a regular saga. I talked to a lot of plumbers, agencies, a knowledgeable friend, posted at alt.home.repair, just a bunch of stuff. Around New Years 2007. Hopefully I have all important details in there (my data).
Edit2: Yeah, the new water main went under the house. I documented the odyssey extensively. Didn't want to have the water main down the middle of the driveway for one thing because it would leave the option open of putting in a solid concrete driveway in the future. You don't want your water main under solid concrete in case you need to get at it!
Now, it might seem sensible to put that solid concrete driveway in now, grade the whole thing down toward the front of the house. However, from my admittedly not-knowledgeable perspective, it might not be easy because the house has settled so much in the middle. I say "might not," don't really know. It might be doable, might be the thing to do. However, I remember the guy who did my garage roof a year ago saying concerning this basic idea, "concrete work is expensive."
Reading my notes from then, I made note of the fact that it was a major mistake to consider making a deal with the workers of the company that did my trenchless sewer work to work on the side to do the water main work. I should never have sounded them out and negotiated with them on the details of how they would do the job, what it would cost me, etc.. When they did the work as employees of the company (not on the side) they were sulky. I have no reason to think they screwed up the job, but they weren't happy, they wanted me to know, if unconsciously. It was the crew chief, he tried to get me to do the water main on the side, under the table as it were. But if I'd had them do it on the side, they wouldn't have been contractor(s), it would have been illegal, they wouldn't have been insured. People at the newsgroup frowned on that majorly. They would have had the know how and experience, but I decided it wasn't the way to go and had the company do it. I should never have considered it, rebuffed the notion immediately, but I was very inexperienced dealing with contractors and their crews.
Facebook
Twitter