Ah... memories

I've been working on installing new windows in the house. Was looking at some older photos for some "before" shots and things certainly look a little different. Here's a quick before and after of the front of the house. It's not a true before and after, as there was just dirt at the front when I first bought the house.

Aluminum windows with plastic shutters, plus unfinished flowerbed.

New vinyl windows (downstairs too) with (edged) flowerbed all finished.

In between this, I was reminded of the disaster that was my sprinkler system shutoff valve. When winter came around, I wanted to shut off the water, but couldn't find my shutoff valve. Many days of digging unearthed the hidden valve - and instead of replacing the underground valve, I instead completely moved it inside the house. Definitely the way to go as a valve outside the house, sitting right next to the foundation with a possibility of leaking or bursting seems kinda dumb.

Eventually found the buried hole leading to the valve (completely full of dirt).

The PVC pipe that was supposed to lead to the valve didn't actually lead to anything. Had to dig down about 5-6 feet to discover this fact. Seems the previous owners had tried to fix it earlier, gave up, and buried the evidence. I found the bottom of the broken PVC pipe buried about half way down the hole.

A look at the hole completely dug out. You can see the T junction where the sprinkler system joins to the water main. The stop/waste valve was less than a foot away from the foundation wall.

A look from the outside.

Most of the work to fix things was done on the inside. Got the T junction and valve removed and all the pipes moved inside the house. Moving it inside allowed me to have easy access to shut off the water to the sprinklers, and also hook up an air compressor the the line to blow the water out of the sprinkler lines if necessary.