I cut a live cold water pipe once by mistake...

[LeftyFingerPop]

due to the fact that my local water company did not shut off an old supply from the street.

I cut it with a reciprocating saw, and there was no shut-off valve.

Cold water with amazing pressure shot out of the pipe and began to flood my basement. I tried to hold the water off with my thumb, but the pressure was so great, that it misdirected the gusher.

I then grabbed a brick of duct seal (which is like clay),and molded it around the leak. This worked only a little better than my thumb.

Then I finally remembered something about a hose that I had heard.

I cut a 4 inch piece of rubber garden hose. I slit it lengthwise. I placed it slit-side down over the leak in the horizontal pipe. I placed two radiator hose clamps over each end of the hose and tightened until the spray stopped completely.

In regard to the oil spill...see what I'm sayin'?

[elias49]

1. Not really... nt

[taterguy]

2. Read it again

[elias49]

16. I know how to read. I still say "No" Thank you very much. nt

[John N Morgan]

3. The kinked pipe is acting like the hose. If pipe blows off, the spill becomes the worse case.

[Vincardog]

4. Ok scale it up 1000X and do it a mile under water by robot.

[madokie]

5. Been doing that for years on everything from gasoline lines

to hydralic hoses to get me out of a bind of some kind.

[Duer 157099]

6. I see what you're saying about the pipe and hose

But I don't know what's happening with the oil gusher so don't know if this is applicable. But it's an idea I'll have to file away in my brain in case I ever run into a situation where it's needed.

[eleny]

7. A bigger bandaid wouldn't work on a giant, gushing cut

See what I mean?

But I think your quick thinking to fix your basement leak was great thinking.

[izquierdista]

8. And suppose you had sawed it clean off?

Because this is not a pipe with a boo-boo, this is where a hydrant has been sheared off at ground level.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. I don't think the oil leak is a broken pipe.

It is a well, a hole going more or less straight down. The problem is capping a failed wellhead, not repairing a broken pipe.

[LeftyFingerPop]

13. dig down 20 feet around the entire "hole" perimeter...

thus exposing sunk pipe?

[Warren Stupidity]

15. 20 feet? I don't think you quite understand the dimensions.

Here is a blow out preventor - the wellhead cap that failed.



That is a one story 'cap' on top of the well head. You can't 'dig 20 feet around' the well, it is seabed floor, likely sand, and any digging you do will simply collapse around you as you dig. And of course this is all one mile down under extreme pressure.

[LeftyFingerPop]

17. OK....100 feet...

And I believe there must be a way to dig or even drill around that pipe. After all, they did manage to sink it into the sea floor.

[truedelphi]

10. Good solution for saving your baement fromfurther flooding.

However, I don't think it would work for BP - there is just too much pressure on the leaks resulting from that ruptured oil rigging.

[LeftyFingerPop]

12. Probably greater PSI measured relative pressure on my pipe than the oil pipe.

[truedelphi]

23. But are you encountering the hydrates and the ice crystals in your

Home environment?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8298838#8298854

[jdlh8894]

11. What would they splice to?

The rig and all pipe is gone.How do you make a splice with nothing to work with?

[LeftyFingerPop]

14. I'm thinking that the hole is actually just pipe cut off at ground level.

Dig around the hole to expose the pipe.

[customerserviceguy]

18. Good for you that it worked

but you're comparing stopping a pissed-off hamster with stopping a charging angry rhinoceros.

[tekisui]

19. You should send this idea to BP. I bet they haven't even thought of it.

[pintobean]

20. That's a standard shoring procedure

Every sailor learns it early and often. Between all the sailors and oilmen working the problem, I doubt that they're hurting for people who know how to patch a leak. Patching a leak a mile under water is the problem.

[Loudmxr]

21. That's a great idea. Except there is no way for Halliburton to make millions off of it.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. Slap it on the side, jiggle the rabbit ears a little.

Turn off the power, remove the cartridge, blow on the contacts, smack it three times against the palm of your hand, return it to the console, press power, resume playing absent gray screen.

Works every time.