Repairs

This morning I went to help someone discover why their water pressure had suddenly decreased on the front two stations.

As you would expect I was looking for broken risers or water bubbling up and suggesting broken pipe under ground. After 10 minutes of running the system there was nothing to see.

I checked the solenoids and they looked fine. It wasn’t as if water was being obstructed.

The customer had told me that the rear stations were working fine so I went and had a look. They did appear ok, but when I pushed down on the shaft of one of the pop-ups it retracted a little easier than it should have. Hmmm… I began to wonder if it was actually just the front that was playing up.

I returned to the front and went to the water meter. It was making a hissing noise…

I thought it was a faulty meter

Everything else had been eliminated and it was the only option left. I explained to the customer that this had been the case in two other repairs this summer and that it would be the first port of call before pulling solenoids apart and digging pipes up.

Just out of curiosity I ran the front tap to check the pressure and it wasn’t good. While I was doing that the customer leant down and turned the tap on the water meter…

And can you believe it… the pressure came back with a rush.

It seems someone had thought it would be fun to turn this person’s water meter down and leave them to figure it out.

I have had two other occasions where a turn of the meter has changed everything, but this morning I assumed that (being obvious) this would have already been checked.

Obviously not…

So from here on in I won’t be making assumptions…

For help with any of these issues call Andrew on 0400044236 or email brightonreticulation@gmail.com