$1420 Richer and/or Titanic Found

Well, Fernando did it with a little help from me. . .his helpmate. (confused? check out My Limit post a few days back) We have running water. Luckily for us, this water problem happened on his post call day which bumps straight into post post call which is a fancy term for the day off. With all the know how given to us the night before from the water company people--->

WAIT-
I need to give a shout out to the 3 men on call that night from the water company. All they had to do was check the city's side of things, but then the dug down in search of things we didn't even know existed. Then proceeded to convince us how easy, but time consuming the job would be (step by step instructions) and that the plumber wasn't needed. One guy even offered to come by and do it for us at a fraction of what it cost our other friends who had paid out for the same problem: $150+ parts compared to $1600.

RETURN TO OUR SAGA--
Fernando had come home from the hospital eager to become Mr Roter Rooter himself. Tiago and him headed of to Lowe's with big ideas and tool hungry feelings.
After jimmy rigging a few things like a box fan (if it was 85 degrees at 6:30 am the other day, imagine the temperatures at 2 pm and blue skies), we started our plumbing project that wouldn't find its end until 9 pm that night.



The kids would come and go excited for a few moments to see the process and play in the nearly 2 full wheel barrel amounts of dirt. Fernando and I got the chance to laugh and sweat and conjure up revengeful letters to the builders for their sub-par plumbing that wasn't even close to code. It was great! Working in glasses. . .dumb idea.


Several hours later through feet of San Antonio clay we found a part of the Titanic:

Ok, not really. It really should be a PRV (pressure release valve) that wasn't corroded beyond all recognition. I did feel pretty tough when I broke the "metal" (or what was left of it) with my bare hands.

Fernando headed back to Lowes with a better idea of what we would need and I got a chance to pause our fine babysitter named Nemo in order to feed the kids. When he returned, we started in on cutting pipes and preparing to refit our home with a normal PRV and return to the life of indoor plumbing we had been missing.

At this point, our neighbor, curious as to why we were waist deep in digging out our grass, came over to tell us that he had also lost pressure and had to get it fixed. He also told us that one quick call to the home builders was made and promptly a plumber came for free to make the repair. I ran inside and started googling our builders, but it was 15 minutes too late. Even with generous offers from friends to stay in their vacant homes, living with the hopes of repair wasn't good enough. We had come this far and we were going to finish it.

Here is the final product:



The glue was given the chance to dry, Fernando returned all the undesired tools while I mowed the lawn, and PRESTO:


This cost us $80 in parts, $130 in tools (probably could have been much less, but Fernando loves him some tools), and an afternoon of self-reliance discovered.