water main replacement

[herm0016]

i have to replace my water main, its about 130 feet from the meter to the house, i have a 2 gpm leak and its not coming to the surface. duplex with one being slab on grade where the water comes in the middle of the slab. there is a T somewhere in the main that splits to the 2 sides of the house.

1 quote so far from a good contractor that has done other work for me to dig a new trench through the gravel drive way and cut a slot in the concrete in front of the house to install new line, 8800 bucks.

trying to get a quote to pull a line as well, but I am thinking we should dig and bed in sand, we have very clay/rocky soil at the base of the rocky mountains. i'm about 5 miles from where the uplift starts to longs peak, a 14k+ ft mountain. Im afraid we will hit a rock and then have to dig anyway and it will cost even more, and i dont know where the water is going. also requires running a new line through the unheated garage attic to the apartment. insulate the line and run heat tape, about 40 feet of unheated space. easy to run but worry about freezing when its 20 below 0 outside.

any one have experience pulling new water lines as opposed to trenching and replacing? i called another contractor and he said the 8800 is a great price for the job.

anyone just always feel defeated in life when they are trying to get in a better financial position? TBH we do fine, good income and have investment property that is slightly positive, but damn life just keeps kicking you when you are down. just had our cat diagnosed with diabetes. so that was expensive and had another huge expense a few months ago.

and we have already spent almost 40k on mechanicals and utilities on this property in the last year.

 

[Greenman]

Have you tried a leak detection service? If they could locate the leak it would save you a lot of money.

 

[herm0016]

Have you tried a leak detection service? If they could locate the leak it would save you a lot of money.

275 an hr. but i just want to replace the whole thing. its from the late 60s. patching may save me money now, but replacing the whole thing saves me more money later.

 

[Greenman]

275 an hr. but i just want to replace the whole thing. its from the late 60s. patching may save me money now, but replacing the whole thing saves me more money later.

Sounds like you're going to spend $8800 then. That price sounds high to me, but without knowing all of the conditions and what's involved it's impossible to say. I'd be inclined to shop around a bit. Stay away from the franchised shops, they tend to have pretty huge overhead.

 

[Micrornd]

Here (central FL) what you described would cost about $2k and would be all PVC.
Of course we don't really have to worry about the freezing aspect and we'd have to import rocks if we wanted to hit one (except for coquina now and then)

Seriously, I'd rent a walk-behind trencher (or a ride-on, depending on the depth you need and the availability) from the rental store for the ditch, and then do the rest myself.
None of the work you described is that complicated or technical, and I'm guessing even with the "out west" cost, you would still come in at 1/3 -1/2 that estimate.

Are you 100% sure the leak is outside the house?

 

[Greenman]

Here (central FL) what you described would cost about $2k and would be all PVC.
Of course we don't really have to worry about the freezing aspect and we'd have to import rocks if we wanted to hit one (except for coquina now and then)

Seriously, I'd rent a walk-behind trencher (or a ride-on, depending on the depth you need and the availability) from the rental store for the ditch, and then do the rest myself.
None of the work you described is that complicated or technical, and I'm guessing even with the "out west" cost, you would still come in at 1/3 -1/2 that estimate.

Are you 100% sure the leak is outside the house?

Rocks are a problem for a trencher, unless it's a really big one. Based on what he said about conditions, a backhoe would probably be required.

 

[herm0016]

Here (central FL) what you described would cost about $2k and would be all PVC.
Of course we don't really have to worry about the freezing aspect and we'd have to import rocks if we wanted to hit one (except for coquina now and then)

Seriously, I'd rent a walk-behind trencher (or a ride-on, depending on the depth you need and the availability) from the rental store for the ditch, and then do the rest myself.
None of the work you described is that complicated or technical, and I'm guessing even with the "out west" cost, you would still come in at 1/3 -1/2 that estimate.

Are you 100% sure the leak is outside the house?

trenchers don't go 4 feet and home owners cant get permits for utility work. frost line is 4 feet here. you have to have an excavator. This also requires cutting a slot in my the concrete pad in front of the house ( which i would like to replace anyway) trencher would be hard pressed to even get through our clay and rock soil around here. they are going to use some kind of direct bury pex it sounds like, its what my rural water district wants. the second guy i called, who does a lot of work for my brother in law's commercial GC business said he would be a few thousand higher, and 8800 is a great price.

we have not had a night above freezing for the last week.

 

[Micrornd]

trenchers don't go 4 feet and home owners cant get permits for utility work. frost line is 4 feet here. you have to have an excavator. This also requires cutting a slot in my the concrete pad in front of the house ( which i would like to replace anyway) trencher would be hard pressed to even get through our clay and rock soil around here. they are going to use some kind of direct bury pex it sounds like, its what my rural water district wants. the second guy i called, who does a lot of work for my brother in law's commercial GC business said he would be a few thousand higher, and 8800 is a great price.

My intent was to follow the existing path with the trencher as the last step of the process. That way if the existing line is hit it doesn't matter as you'd only be without for a day.
Here we have do available trenchers that can go 8+ feet and lay the up to 6" plastic water line as they go, although they would be overkill for residential size.
They do come in smaller sizes too.
The available rental walk-behinds go generally 3' and ride-ons 4'+.
An excavator or rubber-tired backhoe is gonna make one heck of a mess (at least one big enough to pull rocks from a 4' bury), so plan on the cost of restoration in the spring.
I'm guessing directional boring isn't possible in your area either?

 

[herm0016]

i know from work that boring crews are months out.

at least most of the mess will be in a mulched area and in my gravel drive way. so a simple load of gravel in teh spring and i am all set.

have not seen that large of a trencher on a residential job before. i do know that the guy that did my septic, who i have not hired to do this does a good job and he owns all his equipment.

i have a small tractor with blade and loader, so ill try to scrape back some gravel to a safe place before we start.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Yes, I had the misfortune of having to replace my water line two years ago. My water line runs diagonally under my three-car driveway for a total or roughly 60 feet. I decided to go with a contractor that proposed to pull in a new water line.

They dug narrow trenches where the old water line went under the driveway on both sides. Next they cut into the old line and snaked a wire through the old pipe. They attached a pipe spliter (my original line was PVC) and a new (supposedly better) PVC (or whatever) line to the wire. Used a pickup truck to pull the new pipe in (the pipe spiltter pushing the halves of the old pipe out of the way). A little more minor trenching to attach the new pipe ends to the meter and to the house piping (in my crawl space) and I was back in service. Done in half a day. Total cost about $2500.

No regrets.

 

[Scarpozzi]

This is different, but when I was trying to get a new sewer line run and get my copper pipes upgraded to 3/4" copper, I had a really good plumber quote me $5k-5500 for the job...I don't really remember...I just knew it was more than I wanted to spend. I bought the copper pipe and ran all new lines( minus the connection to my water line....plan is to upgrade those connections in the next few years when I replace all my old bathroom plumbing)...

Anyhoo...I had my lines marked....dug by hand in the yard 3-4 feet down to those lines....dug by hand in the middle of my yard where I estimated my sewer line to be *6' deep.... I hit it dead center....then rented a mini-excavator to trench 60' in a line with the proper pitch. I ended up spending $1300 out of pocket for the plumbing fittings and the rental. My only regret is not keeping the excavator an extra day and using it to backfill after. The moral of the story is, you could probably do the job yourself with a rental if you're not dealing with steep grades on your lawn and know where all your buried lines are. I'm not a fan of trenchers because a mini excavator doesn't cost much more and you can do wonders with a 12" bucket when it comes to rock removal or obstacles. I ran a ditch-witch 350' for water and electrical at my lake house to my boat dock and it was brutal getting the correct depth. At least with pressurized lines, you don't have to worry about drainage pitch.

 

[herm0016]

yea, renting crossed my mind. problem is time and expertise. these guys started this morning and are halfway done digging in just a couple hrs. plus cutting concrete, and its more complicated because of the T in the line.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I'm not sure I understand the difficulty in replacing the service entrance water line. Back in 2014 the wife and I came home from an overseas 3-week holiday to discover our water bill had doubled. Some 10,000 gallons disappeared and was never seen at the surface. The failure was about 18" from the exterior side of the poured concrete basement wall. While the line was only about forty feet being replaced, it included a new back flow preventor and pressure reducer and that job was only $1600. No concrete cutting. The plumber had to dig down 3, the entire length of the trench except for where a small concrete walkway way, which is dug underneath.

Any reliable/seasoned plumber should be able to do the job for you.

 

[herm0016]

its done. actually 150 feet. thanks. we never actually found the failure, the old line snaked all over the damn place in the yard. we just trenched a streight line and laid the new pipe. price is for Colorado, where everything is way more expensive. job took 2 pretty full days.

 

[skyking]

did they come up with big hunks of frozen soil in the process? That is the bummer in deep freeze time, dealing with the frozen soil. If you backfill with it, it makes a gooey mess when it thaws in springtime.

 

[herm0016]

did they come up with big hunks of frozen soil in the process? That is the bummer in deep freeze time, dealing with the frozen soil. If you backfill with it, it makes a gooey mess when it thaws in springtime.

was not cold enough yet to have any depth to the freeze. my driveway is a muddy/frozen mess though. they dumped one load of recycled concrete and it was not the best stuff. i guess both of the local crushers were down so it was the last load in the area. going to need to get 20 or 30 ton of 3/4 minus in the spring. its just going to be terrible all winter, not much we can do about it.

 

[NutBucket]

Man, can't imagine digging a trench that deep. Yikes!

 

[skyking]

was not cold enough yet to have any depth to the freeze. my driveway is a muddy/frozen mess though. they dumped one load of recycled concrete and it was not the best stuff. i guess both of the local crushers were down so it was the last load in the area. going to need to get 20 or 30 ton of 3/4 minus in the spring. its just going to be terrible all winter, not much we can do about it.

that blows, being forced into dealing with this in the winter. That meter flying around could not be ignored, unfortunately.

 

[Greenman]

Man, can't imagine digging a trench that deep. Yikes!

Backhoe.

 

[NutBucket]

Oh I know. Reasons to not live in the snow belt.

 

[Muse]

Sounds like you're going to spend $8800 then. That price sounds high to me, but without knowing all of the conditions and what's involved it's impossible to say. I'd be inclined to shop around a bit. Stay away from the franchised shops, they tend to have pretty huge overhead.

Get references, at the least check out Yelp.