If you read yesterday’s post, you know that I had a moment of stupid and managed to poke a hole in one of the pool pipes, thus draining part of the pool and flooding the yard. Fortunately I was able to divert much of the water into the drain line that dumps the water into the sewer instead of into the yard. When I got home from work today, I got right to work on fixing the damage I had caused.
I dug up the pipe and found that it comes out from under the concrete walk about seven feet where it has a 90° elbow then runs another thirteen or so feet back under the walk. I hate that kind of lazy, half-thought-out construction. If the pool installer had cut the pipe before it came out from under the walk, installed a 45° elbow, run the pipe about 14′, installed a second 45° elbow to connect to the next water outlet, he would have saved about six feet of pipe and not subjected the pipe to the kind of damage I caused yesterday. Oh well, I should have realized that no one seems to take pride in their work anymore so I should have taken a more cautious approach to installing my trellis. I would take the time to dig this up completely and redo it correctly but that would involve killing my onions, shallots, garlic, chives, cucumbers, some carrots, and our beets – not gonna happen.
Moving on… I cut the pipe out as close to the pool on the broken leg of the pipe and as close to the elbow as I could. I dry fit a union, a new section of pipe, and a new elbow then got to priming, gluing, and assembling the pieces. I glued the elbow on the new section of pipe first so I could get my quarter turn in as I glued it together. Then I glued the union to the section of pipe still in the ground. I let those set for awhile then I glued the new section of pipe to the union – I kept the elbow turned 90° out of position as I fit the pipe and union together which allowed me to turn the pipe a quater turn once the pipe was seated in the union. I let that set for a bit then I glued the elbow to the second piece of pipe in the ground – there wasn’t a way for me to get that quarter turn here so I made sure I got and held a good connection.
Those freshly glued joints have to cure for twenty-four hours so I guess I have to leave the pool partially filled for now; I hope it doesn’t turn green on us.