Turf Trends At WGCC: Jack of all trades....even when we don't want to

The last week was very trying for us here at the green department. We had noticed the buildings water use was steadily increasing and never had any idea why. One day last week we noticed water starting to show itself at the end of our driveway to the shop.

After several attempts to find the source of the water, we decided it was time to dig. At the same time, the building toilets and sinks all started to clog up from sand and sediment. All at once we had a full scale leak on our hands.

The only problem was we had no idea exactly where the problem was, only that it was coming from under the concrete surrounding the building. Normally this is where you call in the plumbers and let them at it. Unfortunately, their answer was, well, we will have to dig up everything and here is the charge; $2500/day to look for the leak.

Well, being the industrious types we are, and the understanding that we are as good as anyone exploring water systems, we undertook the job. Boy was this an adventure. We first had to start cutting 7" thick contrite slabs out to find the piping. No as built drawings accurately labeled where the water was, in addition we knew the main power to the buildings was in the same location. Maybe we should do some archeological digs when the time is right.

After locating the pipes, we then had to find the leak, which in this case turned out to be about 12 feet from our starting point and about 4 feet in the ground. A small hole in a plastic fitting had worn itself into a nice sized hole. Of course the fix was not as simple, since all the pipes did not line up, nor did they want to go back into the same location.

After a lot of head banging, we came up with the solution to repair the issue and get things back together. Needless to say, a large undertaking , with the staff being very patient with no water service for a week. Because of the hard labor of Johnny Niccola and Trevor Garbow we were able to get this problem corrected with far less outlay than any service would have charged.