Day 2 - the cutting continues

Well these guys must be private contractors because they are moving at a pretty zippy pace so far. Work started early this morning and we could definitely hear the cutting and chopping from our bedroom in the back of the apartment. The scene looking out from our front balcony is, I must say, a little apocalyptic. Just the the three-dimensional space left empty by the absence of parked cars gives the street a desolate feel. The torn and buckled concrete helps as well.

Below is the view looking straight ahead from our front balcony:


And here is looking to the right. That water truck goes with the concrete cutter as water is constantly sprayed on the blade while it is cutting.



Here you can see the last part in the digging process for the temporary water line which will run alongside the gutter. The hoe digs out the pierced section (separated out from the rest of the street by the cutter) and dumps the debris into the truck. That guy in the picture was really friendly. Actually, all the workers seem super positive and are happy to stop and explain stuff to you or let you take a picture.


Here's a section farther up the street where they have finished laying the temporary pipe, but haven't yet hooked it up to the homes outlets (I am sure there are specific words for all these elements; I'd love to find a municipal plumbing reference site:


Here, a little farther down, is a pipe laid in place but not yet assembled. I didn't take a very good picture, but the two pink things sticking out in the square cut out of the sidewalk are the leads that head into that building. The disassembled pipe will be assembled with a valve that will connect it to those two little outlets (they look a bit like pinkmushrooms in this picture):




And here is one of the junction valves, with a bucket of sealant. :



I guess the big cutter couldn't get that back horizontal cut, so a guy has to go in there with the hand concrete saw (Haute Tension, anyone!). He was also very friendly and in good spirits, despite that bike being annoyingly parked right in his line of work. Hey hipster college boy there's some real work going on here. Get your friggin' bike out of the way!



This was lunch time and they were already well started on the other side of the street. Here's the guy coming into chop up a section of the sidewalk that I have so lovingly swept these last 18 months. You can get a sense of the markings, with the pink lines being the cuts and the blue sprayed around the relevant valves. I talked with this guy for a bit. He has a 10.something megapixel digital camera. He only runs the cutter, so once he's done our street, he goes on to the next job. It makes you think, the scheduling for this project must be pretty intense.


So I came home from work tonight and the street is almost empty and pretty torn up. It's cool. I took the neighbour's dog for a walk and on the way back we just played in the middle of the street. I have noticed a slight drop off in water pressure in the kitchen sink. I remain cautious.