About 20 or so years ago I went out into the back yard and here's water bubbling up out of the ground. Dug around the spot and sure as hell water pipe had rusted through. What was even worse was the gas line next to it was leaking too. I was working midnight shift at the time and when I got home started back on the trench. Local rental place refuse to rent me a trenching machine, sorry I forget what they call them and he felt the caliche in my area was too deep and too hard and would damage the machine. He wasn't kidding.
My daughter was telling one of her boy friends about with no heat and water and he told his dad who was a plumber. He came out, told me how to finish up the trench and gave a list of supplies. The city and gas company had turned the gas and water off on the first day and now this is a week later. Well, the kid and is dad came over when the trench was ready and repairs/replaced all the old rusted out piping and put the lines up under air pressure. It took three more days before an inspector came out to certify all was well. We got heat and water on Christmas Eve that year.
The father refused to take a single penny for his work. I gave him $200, all I could spare and said put it in his son's college fund. Kid went to that gunsmithing school in Colorado and several years later did a trigger job for me on one of my rifles. The kid is good but dropped out of doing gun work and is into something else now. Too bad as he was darn good.
Paul B.
