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Old Irish Water stopcock packed with mud and rocks

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  • 13-02-2019 2:25pm
    #1
    Zab
    Registered Users Posts: 1,931 ✭✭✭


    The house has an oldstyle hookup through a shared Irish water stopcock at the end of the row.

    I have a mains leak which is under control but there's no on-property shutoff so i need to use the external one.

    Opening it I'm met with rocks packed down with mud. Any tool suggestions for this or am I stuck using my arm? How deep are these things usually?


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    #2
    blackbox
    Registered Users Posts: 4,101 ✭✭✭blackbox


    About 30cm. Unlikely to be more than 60cm.


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    #3
    Zab
    Registered Users Posts: 1,931 ✭✭✭Zab


    Okay, that's not so bad. I had done a bit of hand evacuating but it wasn't clear if it was feasible to do it by hand.


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    #4
    Dtp1979
    Registered Users Posts: 12,727 ✭✭✭✭Dtp1979


    Zab wrote: »
    Okay, that's not so bad. I had done a bit of hand evacuating but it wasn't clear if it was feasible to do it by hand.

    Often had to do it. Be careful there isn’t pieces of glass in there too. You’ll also need the tool to turn it off when you get down there


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    #5
    K.Flyer
    Registered Users Posts: 8,565 ✭✭✭K.Flyer


    Hire a water vacuum (wet-vac) from the hire shop.
    Pour some water into the hole, use something to loosen up the rubble in the hole and extract it all using the wet vac.
    You may need to repeat the process to get down to the valve depending on the depth, but this is the cleanest and safest way to do it.


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    #6
    Zab
    Registered Users Posts: 1,931 ✭✭✭Zab


    Thanks to all replies.

    Ended up doing this with a pair of thick rubber gloves. The stopcocks were at different depths with the deepest being a little under 60cm, just deep enough to require getting my elbow into the tube.

    Had to dislodge some stones with a pry bar, but other than that it wasn't too difficult and not really that messy.

    The wet vac sounds like a decent method


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