Demo Day 3 revisited

I mentioned the water company required I install a shutoff valve between the meter and the house before they would turn the water on so I had to dig a hole.

I installed the valve.  A lovely piece of work if I do say so myself.  Anyway, I went back two days later to back fill around the valve housing I put in the hole only to find the hole filled with water!  Crap!

 Naturally I assumed the leak was due to my workmanship.  I was perturbed until I looked in the meter box and found it full of water too.   

Elevation wise, the meter box is slightly higher than my shutoff valve which means the meter line was leaking.  Now I will admit at this point to being relieved, even slightly pleased that it wasn't my valve that was leaking....

When the water guy originally came out and turned on the water he didn't stick around to see if there was a problem and I didn't look in the hole for two days.  The leak was minor but sufficient to eventually follow the pipe downward and fill the valve hole I dug.  I called and the water guy came back to look.  He apologized for not looking closer when he turned the water on.  He drained the meter box and found the leak to be on the house side of the meter....you know what that infers.....

The water guy tried to fix it by tightening the nut on my side of the meter but couldn't budge it and even got his wrench stuck on the nut.  Somewhere in there, like a good corporate employee, he subtly inferred I might have caused the leak when I installed my valve....... He said he'd open a work order to have someone come out and fix it as it likely would require the water for the whole street be turned off.   JEESH!!

The way I look at it, it's in the water company's meter box and they told me several times I'm not allowed to touch their meter.  I didn't and haven't sooooo.....to me (naturally), it's they're problem.  That's my story and I'm sticking with it.  In any case, there's no proving one way or the other what caused the leak so we'll see who gets stuck with that bill!