Back work done ..but not without drawbacks

Well the back yard cement work was completed and paid for. While it looks pretty nice and complete...we had of course an incident today... because no job ever done around here goes without a hitch (see below pics)

I had not run the sprinklers since this work was done.  We didn't really need them on as we got a pretty good thunderstorm two nights ago that gave us some rain. The thunder at times was really loud (I could hardly finish saying 'one thousand' in my mind before it was noisy).  Just when I thought it was all over there was a sound like someone ripping sheets in my ear...and then a loud continuous roar from there. I don't know that I've ever heard thunder THAT eerie and weird.

So anyway this morning I remembered to turn the sprinklers back on. They came on around 9AM and I forgot about it. Later in the afternoon, hubby went out front to check something and saw the rear side were STILL ON!  This was around 1:30 PM !!  I went out back and turned the system off.  It didn't stop.  Eventually I opened the inside and turned an extra switch OFF.  Still nothing. Hub turned off the water to the house , water kept coming.  Turns out, the sprinkler system is on a different system.  I ended up calling the sprinkler company we use in a panic.  They were kind enough to send someone out at 2:30PM. I don't know how much water was wasted but they located the outdoor shut off valves which were covered in mud (which is why we didn't see them under a certain plastic cover that we were told they were under).  

We searched for the sprinkler heads near the back porch area where the guy just put a cement border up and sure enough one was buried under some dirt and has some cement right up to it which prevent it from popping up. We don't know how many other heads are covered but that likely caused a back up in the system and the other sprinklers just stayed on.  Hubby had shown him where all the sprinklers were but we should have flagged them because once he took out the old railroad ties off and the dirt fell those sprinklers on that side had basically gotten covered.  We think that is was caused the problem.

We've just had back luck with just about every project we've had done. I don't know who we're going to have upgrade our electric if it is still needed after we have the city come out and see if we have enough 'juice' to the house.  We found out AFTER the addition for my mom was built that we do not have the typical 200 amp service I assumed we had for this size house, but rather 120 amps.  I cannot turn on the hot water in that spare room without the lights in the bathroom flickering.  "Sigh".  Guess that will be another story to blog about when the time comes. I just haven't used the hot water at all out there since mom passed.