The high cost of legal representation

We are on a rural water line.  On Thanksgiving evening our water volume dropped significantly. I left a message with the water department. They promptly returned my call on Monday morning.  Of course they assured me the problem was on my side of the meter.  Interesting, with all my faucets shut off,  the meter wasn’t moving.  I called a plumber who showed  up 12/5.   He said the problem was on their side of the meter and charged me $95.00.  They replaced the meter, and I still had next to no water. The plumber showed up today , determined next to no water was coming through the meter. He called the water department.  They showed up. They weren’t sure where the problem was.  My plumber suggested that  it might have something to do with the pond that was forming across the township road. My plumber charged me another $130.00.  It cost me  $ 225.00 to hire a representative the water department would listen to.  Even then, they weren’t too eager.

Well... Get a well
Is that the right answer?

The answer isn’t cistern.  In Illinois they can’t be used for potable water.

At 11:00 AM my water was back to normal.   That means our water district had a leak for 2 weeks.   I have not checked out the condition of the township road. After 2 weeks of running water, it has got to be interesting.  Anyway, it’s laundry day today.

I had a similar situation where the village had a water leak and informed my neighbor and I that we needed to replace our mains.

So, instead of calling a plumber, I replaced the main water line to my house.

They ended up needing to put in a new curb stop connection in for my line and water was restored.

The next week, the pavement behind where they installed the valves started to sink in a nice three foot spot.

What a high cost lesson!

With maybe 100 yards of driveway between the meter and my house, I figured I needed a pro.  I had zero confidence as to where the leak was. The plumbers first thought was that the regulator on the meter had blown and flushed debris down the water line and partially obstructed it.  When he ruled that out, the only remaining answer was that the problem was on the other side of the meter. Anyway, at one point in my life I would have joyously grabbed a shovel and went to work replacing everything on my side.  At 75 I didn’t have the energy and knew I needed a pro. Of course, I have lived in this area since the late 80s, so I knew which pro I needed.  I set aside over $1000.00 for worse case ,so in one sense I got off light.