Bogpipes

Our house came with a deck, but it wasn't original equipment. When they built the deck they covered over the faucet from the house. To make up for it, they attached PVC pipe to the faucet and ran it under the deck out to the yard. Then someone else (our house has had at least two other owners)removed the second faucet and extended the pipe along the deck rail over to the garden area.

I suspect the second pipe extension (and the garden, for that matter) were recent additions by the previous owners, as they also installed the raised bed garden along one side of the deck. This meant filling in one deck exit, as exiting there would put you in the carrot patch.

I also suspect the second pipe extension is recent because it started leaking this Spring. You see, the line under the deck is parallel to the ground, but the addition runs up to the top rail of the deck, then parallel to the rail over to the corner. This means that the pipe does not drain well. Water collects in the elbow joint connected to the vertical section.

And while I shut the water off before the weather got below freezing last Fall, I didn't beat it by much. I suspect the water had not evaporated out of the line (I left the faucet open) by the time it started to freeze, and that one elbow joint is the place most likely to still be full of water. Not coincidentally, I think, it's that section that leaks.

Or leaked. Last night I fixed it. I cut off the vertical section (that's just asking for more leaks) and installed a new faucet at the end of the line under the deck. I'm hoping that will not only fix the leak (it should, as the leaky part got cut off), but make the line drain better.

In the process I got to do a little archaeology, which is partly why I think I know the history of the deck and the pipe extensions. The deck was originally gray. Now it is white. Right below where the original line comes out from under the deck there is a concrete slab with children's handprints and signatures, dated 2000. Before the deck was built it would have been in the middle of the yard (bad place for a concrete slab), so I suspect it was placed there when the deck was built.

I also suspect the slab was placed there to catch the faucet run-off, so I think I've clearly established that the deck and the main faucet line were built at the same time. What is more, the water line has gray paint on it, but only as far as the vertical joint that I removed.

When I removed the vertical and deck-rail sections of pipe, the paint under the mounting brackets was also gray. The only reason to even run the faucet to the far corner of the deck is to water the garden, which didn't exist until the raised beds were installed. So I'm betting the second extension to the garden corner, the filling-in of the south-side exit from the deck, and the white paint were all part of the same project.

I know the raised beds had to have been used for at least one year, as they were full of garden when we moved in. The names on the slab do not go with the family we bought the house from. The deck was built in 2000, but the extension and gardens had to have happened sometime between 2001 and 2005. I don't know a lot about PVC, but I suspect if it were added in 2001 it would have cracked before last winter, considering the design. I'm placing the extension at circa 2003-2004.

Okay, okay, I'll stop. Just remember where to come back to if you ever suffer from insomnia. Bookmark this post!