ReSomething
Jun. 24, 2009, 12:00 PM
Just reporting in here, we had a frost free hydrant similar to this one http://www.plumbingsupply.com/woodfordyardhydrants.html
that began to leak around the base last summer every time you turned it on. Well, it got worse and worse, we didn't use it at all this winter, no animals so it wasn't too bad. DH was digging around the last few days and needed water for the project so he opted to see WTF was up with the hydrant. Now, this is a newer hydrant, this neighborhood didn't get city water until 2004, but it had rusted through the outer casing on the shaft AND cracked the underground pipe between it and it's shutoff (well, thank God it had one of those). As far as DH can tell, when they installed it they gave it a five gallon gravel filled bucket with holes cut in the bottom for the water in the stand pipe to drain to, BUT there was a big flat rock very close underneath, so rather than the bucket being underneath all the piping, it was halfway up the pipe, doing a lovely job of trapping the water in contact with the pipe and frostheaving the entry pipe to the point that it cracked (he thinks) We are all clay and rocks here, no perc to speak of, and the hole the hydrant was in has a small pond that is still sitting there. He is talking about "daylighting" a drainage for it as we have some slope. Anybody out there have some advice, or an elegant quick fix that would work as well? We have about 25 foot of trenching to do for a true surface drain.
TIA
that began to leak around the base last summer every time you turned it on. Well, it got worse and worse, we didn't use it at all this winter, no animals so it wasn't too bad. DH was digging around the last few days and needed water for the project so he opted to see WTF was up with the hydrant. Now, this is a newer hydrant, this neighborhood didn't get city water until 2004, but it had rusted through the outer casing on the shaft AND cracked the underground pipe between it and it's shutoff (well, thank God it had one of those). As far as DH can tell, when they installed it they gave it a five gallon gravel filled bucket with holes cut in the bottom for the water in the stand pipe to drain to, BUT there was a big flat rock very close underneath, so rather than the bucket being underneath all the piping, it was halfway up the pipe, doing a lovely job of trapping the water in contact with the pipe and frostheaving the entry pipe to the point that it cracked (he thinks) We are all clay and rocks here, no perc to speak of, and the hole the hydrant was in has a small pond that is still sitting there. He is talking about "daylighting" a drainage for it as we have some slope. Anybody out there have some advice, or an elegant quick fix that would work as well? We have about 25 foot of trenching to do for a true surface drain.
TIA