Chasing Water ̶f̶a̶l̶l̶s̶ Leaks

We've been feeling a bit Old Testament lately here at the hospital with some multiple cases of water coming from rock. Or in our case, concrete. Water systems can be fickle creatures, working fine for long periods of time, up until you mess with them. In our case it started with water coming up through the stairs between the hospital and maintenance building. Only one line runs through the ground here and its the main line that supplies the entire hospital. We actually have a well designed water system here, featuring redundant lines coming down the mountain following two separate paths. So in most cases half the system can be taken offline with minimal inconvenience for anyone. Unfortunately the last 100 or so feet those two lines converge into a single line and that was the one that was leaking. So a message was sent out to the Hospital informing them that water would be shut off for emergency repairs. As usual the staff took it all in stride and worked around the situation while the maintenance team began cutting up concrete and digging down to find the leak. For the first attempt we tried a (to borrow a medical term) "minimally invasive" approach and just cut and replaced a section of the pipe that had cracked.

How it started. Fredy doing his best to replace the pipe that he is almost standing on.

These repairs held for about 24 hours before water started leaking from one of the couplers (likely caused by contamination during the gluing process. We were struggling to keep things clean in such a small workspace). Finally the decision was made to excavate the entire section of pipe to the distribution valves. This did the trick and the holes were filled in and concrete poured a few days later.

Where it ended up. Two holes dug out with a tunnel under the concrete connecting them.

Back to my original comment about water systems being fickle creatures. Each time water is turned off and turned back on to the hospital, we tried our best to make that a slow several minute long process of repressurizing the system and not introduce any "shocks"to the system that might cause problems. Unfortunately after we repressurized the system I got a call later that evening. More water in the hospital.

The wet floor sign kind of seemed to undersell the situation.

Thankfully this leak was just in a small "section" of the water system and we were able to close the valve to that section and not the whole hospital. Once again, concrete was cut, repairs made, and the system turned back on. The next day as Christy and I entered the hospital we were greeted with a puddle of water creeping out from under the door of one the rooms. It was hard to not laugh at this point.

The maintenance team once again got to work making repairs and thankfully we have been leak free since. Shout out to the team!

Keep after it!