The Moleing Man (by sarah)
The Mill has spring water which is piped down from the farmers field behind the Bakery. There have been multiple issues with this water supply some of which we have documented and some of which I haven't got round to mentioning yet.
Such as the ecoli issue and the blocked tank and the cracked earthenware pipe and the blocked pipes etc...
The most recent one was that the one of the pipes that carries the spring water into the house under the lawn seems to have perished (at least I think this is what the pipe is for the system was put in by Al's granddad and seems to be a bit complex and meandering). This ment that water was seeping out in the path around the pound making it a bit of a quagmire 🙁
This also means that the water isn't gettting into the Mill (I assume there just isn't enough head) so Barbara's house is a jumble of pipes giving her a tempory water supply - unfortunatly not only is this a trip hazard but it is also a flood harzard if Barbara forgets to turn it off once all the tanks are filled etc... which has also happened a few time.
Now we weren't really sure where the pipes went, or how collapse/persihed they might be and it looked like we'd have to dig the whole lot up - making a right mess of the whole lawn. Barbara is really militant about the grass as well as anyone who has accident driven on the verges down the drive will know.
So it was decided with the plumber - (who doesn't do digging) that we would get the Mole man in. Now I wasn't privvy to this conversation so when Barbara knocked one morning to say the mole man was here to look around and so was the plumber - I thought that she was being mean and erradicating our little hill building buddies, who are admittedly making a mess of the lawn :/
Anyway I missed this visit as they were gone before I got outside and after a little bit of talking at cross perposes my error became apparent. Mole men are men who have a compressed air device which bascially sledge hammers its way through the soil/stone under the ground - making a tunnel for pipes and cabiling and what have as it goes. And all with out making a mess by digging a trench that runs the length of the pipe/cable.
Then, Thursday morning when I came back from Cheltenham there was a guy digging a whole in the lawn by the back window of the Mill. I assumed it would be the mole man or maybe the guys who are going to clean the gully out - but Barbara hadn't actually said anyone was coming so I thought I'd best check it out.
And I got to look at the fun things - and watch the metal cylinder that is the mole being fed into the ground and watch the guy line things up with a strick stuck in the whole at the other end by the Mill and a viewer with cross hairs in it (this reminded me of survaying).
All he did was basically dig two wholes - one each end and then fed the mole in - it thumbed its way across the lawn with him standing above it to check its progression (I assume he was feeling the vibrations of the thumps). They then threaded the blue water pipe through, cut it and added the connectors at each end.
When the boss arrived I asked him about the technique and he showed me other thumpers which can make wholes of different sizes - including largish ones 5 inches (around 12 cm) which are good for laying cables.
He is mainly employed by the one of the local councils to relay water pipes - this is genius as basically you don't have to dig up the road to fix a burst pipe which is wastefull from a tarmac point of veiw. Also due to how this works he replaces the whole pipe so instead of fixing a perishing pipe in one place and just shifting the leak further down the system he is fixing the system!
They seem happy with this and he is starting to get work from other councils around here.
He even goes to the effort of putting the turfs he has dug up onto boards so that they don't put mud all over the lawn etc... He prides himself on how it looks at the end - if we had dug a trench it would take ages to get rid of the little furrowed dip you get when the soil has all compacted down.
Here is what we were left with! Plus all of this took like half a day which is a fraction of the time it would have taken to dig a trench.
I was very impressed and think that if we ever get to laying the cables we want along the drive we will be employing him!
For anyone who's interested there P.C. Moleing Services Ltd. specialists in Underground pipe and cable installation.
Contact:
Phil Clutterbuck Hillview Cottage, Over Old Road, Hartpury, Glos
Tel: 01452 700523
Building Maintenance, Gardening | sarah | 
Sat 14th Mar 2009 10:52 am
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