Some of the old valves leading into homes

In my last post, I pointed out how all of our houses were being fed water from aboveground hoses. That was the setup as of Friday (October 9th) morning.

But what's weird is that on Thursday, they were re-digging out a bunch of the sidewalk squares where the household valves were and digging them really deep, much deeper than the first time. Below, I'll post some of the pictures. I wonder if whatever they discovered here was what made them decide to go with the hoses?





It's been really wet for the last week and after the machine got down to a certain depth, the men had to go in and dig with a shovel. It was pretty muddy and they had a pump set up on one of them to push the water out.

Here's a close up of two valves going into one of the apartment blocks at the south side of our block.



And here is a big thick complex pipe structure that I guess is bringing water into the commercial building here. This is on the other side of the street than ours (where they aren't using the aboveground hoses).



I think if you are confused by the end of this post, then I am probably accurately reflecting my own state of mind. I know real life is rarely neat and engineering jobs often reflect this, but there seems to be so many different ways of getting the water into the houses that I just can't make head or tail of it. I've been busy at work this week so haven't had the time to talk to any of the workers. I suspect they won't be around this weekend (especially since it's a long one), so expect the ignorance to remain for the time being.

I will post this final image, of a worker lollygagging, chatting up local young women!



Actually, this guy is a pretty hard worker and is one of the guys who has been quite friendly about explaining stuff. He was further protecting the trees, strapping them with 2x4s and this young Montreal woman stopped to ask him some questions just as I was heading back up my front stairs. A much deserved break for a working man!