A Day in the Life of a DIY Investor

A few months ago, we bought our latest project and had to wait until now to begin construction because funding was tied up in another project.  When the house was vacated, I only had electric turned on into our name since I knew there would not be a need for the water or gas for months.  We received letters from the city's water dept addressed to "Occupant" that the water would be shut off if no payment was received.  Well, that was just fine and dandy.  Saved me a phone call in having to tell them we don't need it on any way.  

We began working on the house this past weekend.  My husband tested the faucets and they were all off.  He asked me twice if the water was turned off and I told him the story (again) about the city doing it for us.  We proceed with demo and of course the pipe broke, water spraying everywhere!  I grabbed the dishwasher hose from the dumpster outside and my husband shoved it on the broken pipe. I held both pieces together while he scrambled outside to find the shut off while the water emptied into the backyard. He couldn't find it, so then we switched and I remembered to look for blue markings in the road to find water (like fire hydrants).  I located the blue spray paint mark on the curb and buried in about two inches of dirt in the front yard was the water meter & shut off valve.  We couldn't ever find the shut off to the house itself.  My husband turned the water off and we dried out the house.  The bright side is that this happened now and not when we had new cabinets in.  That would be a true disaster.

We can laugh about these things, or cry.  We choose to laugh, most of the time.  ;-)   And learned a few valuable lessons:

Don't believe everything you hear

Always check the water shut off 

Good teamwork solves problems!

Have you had any "oops!" happen to you before?  What lessons have you learned?