Lofall: A Water Line Burst and Water Is Everywhere

Why this happens in Lofall

In Lofall we check a freeze before anything else, because a power bill that climbs is how it shows up here. A shallow or exposed line that froze and split, leaking when it thawed. Roots and till along Pioneer Way makes the signs misleading, so we confirm rather than assume.

Next: old pipe that finally gave out. Galvanized at a thread, polybutylene split along its length, brittle poly at a rock. With bluff clay on the Hood Canal shore under small farms off Pioneer Way, the symptoms can look identical to the first cause, which is why the meter test and the locate matter.

Don't overlook ground movement. Clay on Bainbridge and the bluffs shifts rigid pipe until a joint lets go. On Lofall properties from 1970s-to-2000s acreage homes and small farms it comes up more than you'd think.

Before you call

Waterfront cabin lines are galvanized and copper transitions.

Do this before anyone digs beach deposits below the bluff in Lofall: don't dig. Shut off the water: house main, meter valve, or well breaker. It takes minutes and it tells us whether the problem is on acreage along Lofall Road or inside the house.

What happens next

The repair side is emergency water line repair. On waterfront on Hood Canal that means secure and pump, then backfill and follow up in hardpan a foot down on the uplands where the problem actually is, then repair and restore water. If what we expose is 200- to 400-foot poly well lines at the end of its life, we say so with the pipe in your hand.

From the Hood Canal Bridge to Pioneer Way and out around Hood Canal, water line burst is a regular Lofall call for us. About half an hour north of Poulsbo, and emergencies on small farms off Pioneer Way dispatch immediately, any hour.