Last Friday (February 20, 2015), we drove out a big banquet right after work to celebrate Chinese New Year – the year of Ram/Goat/Sheep. Upon coming home and getting ready to sleep, I heard the sump pump underneath the bedroom was activated on and off. It hadn’t rained for several weeks already, how could there be enough water for the sump pump to turn on, I asked myself. My heart just dropped when I thought of the word: “burst.” Is it another water pipe burst? It’s the horror of most homeowners as the consequence is normally some kind of serious water damage and a huge water bill. I took my flashlight out to investigate in the cold night in my pajama.

To my relief, there was no standing water outside next to the house but the flower bed was very wet and the lead hose that connects to the drip irrigation valve came off – disconnected. The water had been shut off. Wonderful! The good news was that this happened outside the house – no water damage to the house. The bad news was how long was the water running before it was shut off.

Mmmm, did my good neighbor shut it off? I walked to the front door and saw a note attached to the door handle. Sure enough, my good next-door neighbor had shut it off after seeing the water flowing to the street, pumped out by the sump pump. On the next day, I walked over to thank my good neighbor of the good deed. I would’ve done the same for them too.

In this video, I went over how I re-arranged the sequence of the irrigation valve, the anti-siphon and pressure regulator. Hopefully, this configuration would keep me from encountering the dreaded water burst again, having learned the expensive lesson.