Early Retiree DIY Repairs Saves Money

Early Retiree DIY Repairs Saves Money and it is all possible because a retiree has the time to do it. I am not saying that non-retirees on the path to early retirement won’t save money by doing repairs themselves. Or that they shouldn’t. However some repairs can’t wait for the weekend. There were times when I was working long hours that I would have to hire out home or auto repairs to get things up and working.

Case in Point – Plumbing.

First off I want it made clear to everyone. I hate everything to do with plumbing. But there are times a home owner has to do what needs to be done. In my recent case it was the front yard sprinkling (irrigation) system.

It had been hot and I set the sprinkling system’s auto timer to do its thing while we were away on a week-long vacation. Isn’t that naturally when stuff is supposed to break? When we got home there was an obvious dried out front lawn. So I ran the front system and only 2 of the three heads popped up. It was definitely low water pressure. Funny there was no water gurgling up or flooding from the depths of the front lawn. This was my first clue that I was going to need to grab a shovel and start digging things up.

Early Retiree DIY Repairs Saves MoneyWhat were those who installed this system thinking or maybe smoking?

I started by digging around the head that wouldn’t pop up and sprinkle. Maybe I will get lucky and it’s just a busted riser. Or the head itself is plugged for some reason. Nope. I am not that lucky. I dug deeper and deeper. The head came off of a 4 inch riser. But there was a connector to another length of riser below it. How long is this riser setup? How deep is this going?

Allow me to paint the picture of this loads-of-fun. This head was a few feet away from a 30 foot Austrian Pine tree. The tree and the system go back to when the house was first built in 1988. I didn’t come along and buy this house until 1995.

What I finally dug to was a tree root with the girth of my arm pressing against the bottom riser. With a tangle of roots wrapped around everything. Who in their right mind would run a main water line right under what would be a massive tree?

Do People Purposely Make Things Difficult For Later Repairs?

I pictured them chuckling at the idea the home owner would be calling them back in some years to repair their designed-to-fail installation. This head didn’t even water the tree. It is pointed toward the lawn. The tree is watered off of a different valve and line.

I turned on the system and stuck my hand in under this massive root and could feel mud. As I scratched away with my fingers where I couldn’t reach with the small hand-held garden shovel. There it was. Water gushing up now and flowing out into the world. I could never reach the pipe for the source of the leak so that I might dig it up and repair the break. It was really deep and roots were everywhere.

The only thing I could think to do was find the pipe somewhere away from the tree roots and bypass where the current system is broken. It appears the roots have crushed and cracked the pipe or broke a joint.

Early Retiree DIY Repairs Saves Money 2Finding the pipe to bypass the tree.

I found a head that had been capped off towards the valve and dug it up. Then traced it back to the source pipe. The SOBs buried this thing nearly 2 feet deep. I then tried to figure out where I would run a pipe to feed that area by the tree which was a mistake. I needed to think where the Jack-Holes who installed this ran the pipe. I dug several deep holes and never found it. So I had to go to the functioning head and dig and trace back from there. It was deep and at an angle that makes me think the initial installers were paid by the foot of pipe laid. I was able to finally run 40 feet of new pipe and bypass the tree and all of its glorious roots, once again irrigating the front yard.

Conclusion- I hated every minute of it.

Working for 3 days in the heat of summer, digging trenches and 2 foot deep holes. Dealing with mud and plumbing in general. Is not what I call a Leisure Freak life. But leisure has to be put into perspective against the occasional labor.

I have to figure if I hired this out they would have the job finished a lot faster. Especially with all of their up to date tools and equipment. But I have to assume it would have cost at least $1000 to do it. At least that is what I would charge to do it for someone else and hoped they said I was crazy and got someone else to do it. I will keep saying to myself that I saved $1000 and be happy with my accomplishment.

This would have been worse spending 2 weekends of time finishing it up and putting in a 40 to 50 hour work-week in around it.

Early Retiree DIY Repairs Saves Money but sometimes it’s saving money the hard way. I was glad to have the time to do it too.

Have you had similar nightmare repairs that saved you lots of cash?

2 thoughts on “Early Retiree DIY Repairs Saves Money

  1. I have a similar situation going on now. The problem is the entire length of pipe runs under what is now a hedge with heads all along it. As the hedge grew I put 90 degree elbows and ever longer riser pipes. It has been successful until 4 years ago. Now it has broken where I had repaired it before. Damn it!

    1. Thanks for the comment Ralph. My guess is you will have to look at a total reroute as I did. There was some angry thinking going on before I just gave up and did the dirty work to get it done so it would last another 20 years. I was then rewarded with finding out they laid the pipe 3 feet deep and used a non direct meandering route when they installed it back in 1988. It made NO logical sense. Good luck with your project.
      Tommy

Comments are closed.