Don't do something right and 44 years later, it will bite you.

Jun 03, 2009 8 Replies

Don't do something right and 44 years later, it will bite you.



A 66" water main that broke in December and sent a river of water down River Road in Bethesda Maryland, washing cars down the road in two to three feet of rushing water, ruptured because it was installed against jagged rock 44 years ago, instead of on a layer of gravel, as it should have been, according to a consultant's analysis released on May



  1. A four-foot tear was found in the part of the pipe that had been laid against the rock.



The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission has 5500 miles of water pipes and serves 1.8 million people in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties.



Paraphrased from the Washington Post, May 21, page B1.


I found two articles, both said the cause of the break is unknown. What is your source of information?

His source? The line written right above this one.

Here's the full story.

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R

From the article:

"The utility is pulling 1965 records for that pipe segment to determine what, if anything, the utility's inspector noted about the installation"

That's a lot of records for one pipe segment.

I think you're misconstruing that. It's not 1965 different written records. The inspector's notes are on vinyl albums made in the year

1965 - this was before MP3 players. R

SNAP We installed POP the SNAP pipe per the CHESH specifications CLICK specifications CLICK specifications POP listed on SNAP CHESH page 14.

Dick Nixon...? Is that you?! ;)

R

LOL

ROTFLOL

BTW, my own small n'hood of 109 houses has had 3 or more water main breaks because the contractor disn't use "flexible" or "bendable" or whatever kind of metal pipe bends a bit, I guess when ground settled or a heavy truck drove on the street above. The first two were 1000 dollars each iirc, or was it 10,000? Who remembers? :( and one was quite a bit cheaper.

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