Why we took the deck off (needlessly...)

One of the main reasons we decided it was time to do something about our back deck was because we discovered that we had a leak in our main water supply line to the house. The line ran right under the deck and we figured it would be a lot easier to dig it up if the deck weren't in the way. Well, as you know, last week we tore the deck off and so all that remained to be done in terms of preparation for rebuilding the deck was replacing the water line. Jesse had done some major preliminary digging last weekend and yesterday I got down to business.

Right off the bat I made a major discovery. After digging just a little bit more I found out that our problem was not the line itself but a coupling in the line. I figured that it would be a simple matter of splicing a chunk of 3/4 inch water line on to the existing line. Then I found out that the splice I needed to replace was directly under the 4 inch black ABS line that whisked sewage from the suite to wherever that stuff ends up. I went to the hardware store, got the parts I needed and got to work. I had to dig it out a little more in order to get the room I needed to finagle everything in. After digging, I found out that I didn't need the parts that I had picked up. It turns out I needed a "T" since whoever installed the sewage line figured that they would save time and labor by running the supply line to the suite directly under the 4 inch transport line. Back to the hardware store... Then the old "T" broke off in the pipe.... Grrr! Did I mention that I had to do a lot of this in the rain? I did. It took me all day but I got it done.

So in the end, it was pretty much unnecessary for us to tear off the back deck.... Now, of course, we have to do something back there. At least the water feature in the backyard is gone. Our ducks don't like that but we do.

This is how I spent my Friday.

This is what I looked like when I was done.

(You can tell everything worked because I'm smiling...)