Monday dry. On Tuesday I get a call from the concreter, they are going to come in with an excavator and complete the bulk earth works. Fine I say. Some progress. (I have not completed the concreteing post yet - so this may be a bit obscure).
So "Lefty" duly appeared with his excavator and started moving dirt around and laying road base, all according to plan. Then the air turned blue as a stream of swear words were injected into the atmosphere. I had a look and saw the excavator tilted over with its right hand side wheels sunk about a foot (300mm) into the earth. Right on top of the new storm water pipes.
So yes it sucked. Between the invective I worked out that Lefty considered the plumber had not back filled their trench correctly and that they were a bunch of cowboys and that he had heard the storm water pipe break. So there was a period of frenzied digging to expose the pipework and sure enough the pipe had broken at a join.
I then had to put up with a self righteous justification of why it wasn't Lefty's fault that the pipes must already have been broken and the plumber broke them, etcetera.
Quite honestly it does not matter, I expect that I am going to pay for it one way or another and when I looked at the damage and causes, I could see that Lefty could not have anticipated how soft the ground was. Also that the pipes were perfect before the ground collapsed under him as I had watched the back filling and know that no undue pressure had been applied to the pipework. After the rain the area was a muddy mess, it was almost pre-ordained that there would be issues. Lefty maintained the theme that the pipes were already broken for the rest of his time there.
 |
| Wet sloppy mud and broken pipes. |
Ultimately the pipes were repaired and the final bit of earthworks completed.
The Bludger almost didn't care, water off a Duck's back, these things happen.
It is raining again. Heavily.
Sigh
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