Connections

Connections can refer to many different things: how a front porch connects a house to the sidewalk, how neighborhoods relate to each other to become a community, how the planning of the built environment shapes the relationships of the people who occupy the buildings, or, what we discuss today- the connection of water and sewer lines. It's exciting stuff!

DPW guys marked the road to show where the service hook ups are located. The road was ripped open and the village's water and sewer lines were located and tied into. Trenches were dug back to the house site. Pipe was connected through sleeves in the concrete foundation wall. Shale and fill were compacted back under the road, and the cut in the road was re-paved.

Digging up the road

Locating the services under the road

The pipe under the road!

 

Drilling in the muddy water to make the connection

Services enter into the crawlspace of the house

Tamping a layer at a time for road patch

There has been a lot of talk around this election/budget time of year about "sharing of services" to save money. In a village or city, residents do share services- as opposed to a more rural development where each house will typically have its own well and septic system. Like we were taught in Kindergarten, sharing is good!

Tivoli got its water and sewer services from the good works of the one and only First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in the mid 1930s. As I've mentioned in this blog, this area has very heavy clay soil. Clay is bad for gardening and for septic systems for the same reason: it doesn't drain. And sewage that is not disposed of properly makes people sick. So, for public health, Eleanor worked to get a public system for the residents of this village, which according to her autobiography, she spent a happy part of her childhood. Thank you, Mrs. Roosevelt!