A day without water

In the ongoing sprinkler installation project ( now on week 5), yesterday was a key moment, when our newly-replaced main water line was to be hooked up to our plumbing. Much excitement. The inspector came in the morning, and certified that the new water line was sufficiently deep enough that it wouldn't freeze in the winter. The water to the house was shut off, the old plumbing disconnected, and....

Apparently our house is plumbed with pipe that has never before in the history of mankind been used for indoor plumbing. 1/2 inch galvanized pipe, in case you were wondering. It is also so gunked up that on a cross-section of the pipe, less than 1/4 will actually allow water flow.

The unique pipe diameter (the rest of the universe uses 3/4 inch) made it extremely difficult to connect it to the water main using any fitting presently manufactured in the US. Our contractor went to 5 different plumbing supply places, each of which independently told him that our house could not actually be plumbed the way he said it was. He then whipped out the actual pipe from our house and listened to them say things like "never in my 30 years in the business have I seen anything like that!" Finally, some old store had something suitable sitting on a shelf and gave it to him out of pity (and because it wasn't in their inventory and they had no idea how to price it). We now have water again, although he had to construct a gasket out of a piece of bicycle tire tubing to stop it from leaking. I think replacement of the indoor plumbing has just moved waaaaay up on the priority list for home repairs.

Ashley