Good news and bad news.

Well, the good news is Abigail bounced back quickly and nobody else has gotten sick, yet. We had planned to do quite a bit today, but because of Abigail, we just stayed home and took it easy.

For the most part it was a pretty uneventful day. We did our normal things, but watched a little bit more TV than because of Abigail.

During the kid’s rest time, the plumber came to check out our leak. After talking about the problem, he did a quick check to verify if the things I told him were accurate. The first thing he checked was the shut-off valve going into the house. I had told him I checked it and it indeed shut the water off because I had tested it in different faucets in the house to make sure. However, when he shut it off he tested it with the spigot directly above the shut-off valve. Water did not stop coming out of that spigot even though the water was supposed to be shut off. It wasn’t a lot of water, but enough to know that some water was making it through the shut-off valve. The reason my checks didn’t catch this were because the faucets were higher and gave me the perception that no water was making it through when it was just not making it through enough to keep them running, if that makes sense. Anyway, this was a bit scary because it meant that the leak could still be somewhere under the house. It didn’t have to be in the front yard. The first thing he would have to do is to install a new shut off valve, which would then be able to give him an accurate idea of whether or not the leak was in the yard or under the house. I had him replace the valve at which point he confirmed the leak was indeed in the front yard somewhere. While this still isn’t great news, it’s definitely better than having a leak under our slab somewhere. He informed me that he didn’t have the necessary tools to pinpoint where the leak is coming from exactly, but could refer me to someone who could possibly, and I emphasize possibly, find the location of the leak. Turns out, this is a bit trickier then you may expect. The main issue is that the line can be made of two different materials, either copper or PVC pipe. The person he referred us to could pinpoint the leak exactly if the line was copper, but he wouldn’t be able to give us a location if the line was PVC pipe. And in order to find out whether your line is copper or PVC pipe you basically have to dig it up. But you can’t just dig it up by the meter or by the shut-off valve because those areas have to be copper or metal, but they can be changed after a distance of 5 feet. Compounding on top of that there’s no way to know exactly what route the pipes are taking through the yard so you either have to just dig a 5-foot line from one of the entry points or make an educated guess as to where it’s going, dig there, and hope you’re right. I didn’t want to pay the money for this man to come out only to find out we had PVC pipe and he couldn’t help us, but I also didn’t want to miss the chance that the fix would be easier if we could pinpoint the exact location of the leak. Oh, let me jump back a little bit. There are two main options for fixing this problem. We can either replace the entire line, which they recommend if it’s PVC pipe, or we can perform a patch if it’s copper. So, we were hoping for copper. I decided that I would do some digging before we made any decisions, so that I could try and find out what type of pipe we had. I went for the option of guessing where the line was going and hoping I’d hit it. I did, and it turns out it’s PVC pipe. Not what we were hoping for. Looks like we’re probably just going to have to suck it up and replace the entire line. Definitely not good news, but not as bad as it could have been if the leak was under our slab somewhere.

Here’s a pic of my digging partner.

Our friends, the Clarks, sent us over some delicious pizza for dinner. You can never go wrong with that!

Elijah’s also been getting a lot of mail lately. Thank you to everyone who has been sending him cards, pictures, and gifts. He loves getting mail and opening up his own letters!