OOPS!

So, inspected a house for termites a few weeks ago and the crawlspace had standing water in it. My salesman, being quick to sieze an opportunity, sold the client a sump pump installation and a termite treatment.

In installing the sump pump, our technician ran the discharge through the wall and into a drain leading away from a gutter downspout. (Logical way of doing it).

The client called and was concerned because they were sure that drain was blocked or stopped up and water would not flow through it.

That's where yours truly comes in. I go out, look over the situation, hook up water hose, put it in the drain, and turn it on full blast. Water is going in but I don't see it coming out anywhere. I hunt all over the yard, no water, but a few damp places in low spots.

Sooooo, I think, hell, I need to put some kind of marker in this. So, I hunt through my tool box and come up with a bottle of blue staight line chalk. Dump some in the drain, run more water. No blue spots in the yard.

I jumped the fence in the back yard, go about 50 feet through some high weeds and find a small creek that meanders along through the woods and down through some yards on the lower side of the hill.

Yep, that sucker was sky blue by the time I got there. Didn't take me long to shut the water off, and get out of dodge. I got the MSDS on the chalk and there are no environmental concerns but I am guessing the downstream neighbors are wondering WTF happened.

Drain must have run 150 feet to the creek and there wasn't much slope there. The drain was emptying about 5 feet down the bank.

Scared the crap out of me at first, but seems pretty funny now.

Wire $100,000 to my bank account or I'm sickin' the EPA on ya...

Every storm drain in that neighborhood went to that creek. My chalk was the cleanest thing in it.

That story reminded of something my wife told me about her grandfather. I will keep it short.
When he died, her grandmother decided to sell the house. After it was sold the new owners discovered they did not have well water like they thought, they had city water, but had no meter. Her grandfather had secretly tapped into the city water line and never told a soul, even her grandmother didn't know, (so she says). No one knew how long they were getting free water.

I wouldn't tell either.

Lol, Wildbill. There were some folks like that a few generations back on my mom's side of things.

first dishwashers...now THIS!? lol

That is funny chili!

I can just see the news at 6 "Termite inspector causes fish kill in local stream....wife nursegoodbody comes to jail to bail out husband and holds oranges hostages until he pays fine!"

I know...that is stupid...but it is early

LOL....Chili, years ago I was working for a sheet metal and Insulation contractor. We were doing this HUGE office in Savannah GA. The Engineer had designed the storm (roof drains) to where they went into the Sanitary system.

The problem was that one night the rain just poured down. In this part of the city the Sanitary and Storm was not separated but the sanitary had a backflow preventer. What you need to understand about Savannah is it, due to topography and relation to the Ocean, floods readily during high spring tides.

Well the Storm system had backed up from the rain the backflow preventer on the office building had closed. And the PRESSURE from the roof drains was being released out of the most available location, specifically the toilets and urinals on the first two floors. (LOL) You walked into the bathroom and there were FOUNTAINS coming out of the urinals

So that's why we find blue crawdads!

LOL....

LOL..when the blue Gatorade first came out...one of my scouts walked into the leader site and we were sitting there with some of the premix in our Nalgene's. He looked at it and said, "COOL where did you get that? The other scoutmaster looked at him and said, "The toilets in the gas station had a full tank of it."

these are fun!