AnotherAnother Ditch Witch® Ditch Witch® FX ApplicationFX ApplicationCity of Riverbank

Water Leak Repair

Typical Leak Repair Protocol

• 90% of their water leak repair jobs are in older neighborhoods and are usually at the water meter.

• For obvious safety and damage reasons they can only to use a shovel to dig around the meter down to the leak (while the water is still flowing) as they cannot shut off the main to the whole neighborhood.

• Once the dig a pit big enough to work in to repair the leak, they have to continuously use buckets and shovels to extract the water while trying to repair the pipe. In this case, the water would have been up to their waist.

Street-side of residential water Street-side of residential water metermeter

It usually takes them an hour to It usually takes them an hour to dig this type of pit. It took the dig this type of pit. It took the

FX60 7 minFX60 7 min

• The exposed water meter and pipe revealed a large crack in the aging conduit.

• A new flexible line has to be installed between the meter and the crack while it is “Hot”.

Note:

• I couldn’t photograph this while I was vacuuming but the FX was needed not only to excavate the pit to find the leak but also to suck out the rapid filling pool of water in the pit long enough to be able to clamp the conduit shut with a crimper tool.

• Otherwise, this would usually be done under water and in muddy conditions and takes about another hour to perform

• Another good example of safe excavation is this unmarked fiber optic line that was exposed but unharmed while excavating the pit.

The Conclusion-

• From excavation to installation, we showed the City of Riverbank what usually takes 1-2 days (due to the amount of time it takes to dry out the pit to be able to safely work in), can be done in under a half hour.

• The Ditch Witch® FX60 demonstrated that they can work more effective, more efficient, and most of all more SAFE!

• I would definitely recommend seeking out the water leak department of your municipalities and exploring this option with them. Good luck!

Respectfully Submitted by Eric Arcia