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torquill"You're not gonna believe this," said the smaller of the two plumbers, about three hours in.
"What?" I said, braced for just about anything (this is an old house, with somewhat irrational plumbing).
"We're almost done."
"...No way."
"I told ya!"
The replumbing work is done. The main now comes into a modern, straightforward set of fittings and valves, branches into the new sediment filter, then heads off into the house. They weren't *quite* finished when they turned the water back on; Conrad's keen ear detected a leak at the clamp on the main, and they had to fix that. They also managed to put the Shippen on the filter, which wasn't what we intended, but it doesn't use a whole lot and that might keep its sink faucet from silting up. At any rate, Conrad and I agreed it was "good enough", and far better than the byzantine mess we had before.
The filter overhead seems to be about 10%, which I find acceptable. It has an easy bypass, in case we *really* need full flow for some reason. When they turned the water on, as the air bubbled through the pipes I could see the indented rings on the filter cartridge go brown one at a time, marching up the side... it stabilized after a minute or so, once the turbulence of turning the water back on passed. I expect we'll see a lot of silt once the rains really start up, and I should probably get a replacement cartridge now...
I'll also put replacing the Shippen faucet on my short list. It's a quick and easy fix (especially with the shiny new cutoff under the house!) and it's gotten to the point where the "drip" is a significant hissing stream. Then maybe I can flush the silt out of those pipes.
I'd like to cut an access hole into the top of the water box screen for cleanout purposes. The intake holes stop about a third of the way up the barrel from the outflow, and they're only barely 1/2" each anyway; the only other way to clear the silt is to stick a 5' piece of rebar or stripped stick up the outflow and root around. It clears the immediate problem, but most of the screen is still full of mud, and it plugs up again in a few days. While I could find out just how long a handle I can get on a bottle brush, the better solution is to drill a 2" hole just behind the forward wall of the barrel so that I can get real tools in right at the trouble spot -- something like a long dandelion fork, a rockery trowel, or simply a stout piece of angle iron would move a heck of a lot more mud than just poking at it with a stick. I could plug it with a bathtub stopper, and use the ring on the stopper to attach it to the screen (or the dam) so it doesn't get lost if it pops loose. Not that I think it would; there's not a whole lot of pressure there. But that may be the only way to break the cycle of having to hike to the box every 5-7 days.
The pitcher pump arrived, and now I can actually put my hands on it, I get to figure out how to mount it to the front porch. The flange is quite large, and any support has to accommodate the pipe under it, so it's probably going to resemble a couple of chunks of 2x4 mounted to the porch pillar with a slab of plywood on top to support the flange. That will let me strap the pipe to the 2x4s for extra stability.
In other news, Conrad agreed that moving the little Christmas trees out of the pasture makes sense. He had planted something like 35 Doug firs out there, and we're now down to something like 8, and those 8 are not really growing; he managed to pick some of the poorest soil on the property. So the choice is to either fence them off from the sheep and feed them heavily, or dig them in early spring and move them. I can easily get a decent rootball on these, as they're maybe two feet high at most. Jenny suggested putting them along the south edge of the lawn, next to the satellite dish, and I agree: that soil is fertile, has excellent drainage, and is easy to supplement with water. It's also out of the way of the sheep and very much in sight, so they're unlikely to be forgotten enough to get out of hand. The nature of Christmas trees is that they won't be there for many years, so this can easily be a temporary solution.
He also agreed that getting sheep in six months is probably feasible. I do need to go down and talk to Joseph and crew; he has a pickup truck, we've met already, and I have the excuse that I want to get a gate for this place and he has the skills and equipment to make the metal frame. Maybe I can reestablish contact enough that I could at least get a little help bringing lambs up, even before any work begins on the gate.
The smoke continues. It seems to have thinned a bit at ground level, though it still stings the nose; at least the humidity is back to a reasonable level. As I look out I can see that we have moved from the mistlike pale eggshell to the golden glow of previous days. There is no definite end in sight, as the weather patterns aren't shifting much and all fires are still 0% contained. With the winds having died, maybe they can start working on that.
"What?" I said, braced for just about anything (this is an old house, with somewhat irrational plumbing).
"We're almost done."
"...No way."
"I told ya!"
The replumbing work is done. The main now comes into a modern, straightforward set of fittings and valves, branches into the new sediment filter, then heads off into the house. They weren't *quite* finished when they turned the water back on; Conrad's keen ear detected a leak at the clamp on the main, and they had to fix that. They also managed to put the Shippen on the filter, which wasn't what we intended, but it doesn't use a whole lot and that might keep its sink faucet from silting up. At any rate, Conrad and I agreed it was "good enough", and far better than the byzantine mess we had before.
The filter overhead seems to be about 10%, which I find acceptable. It has an easy bypass, in case we *really* need full flow for some reason. When they turned the water on, as the air bubbled through the pipes I could see the indented rings on the filter cartridge go brown one at a time, marching up the side... it stabilized after a minute or so, once the turbulence of turning the water back on passed. I expect we'll see a lot of silt once the rains really start up, and I should probably get a replacement cartridge now...
I'll also put replacing the Shippen faucet on my short list. It's a quick and easy fix (especially with the shiny new cutoff under the house!) and it's gotten to the point where the "drip" is a significant hissing stream. Then maybe I can flush the silt out of those pipes.
I'd like to cut an access hole into the top of the water box screen for cleanout purposes. The intake holes stop about a third of the way up the barrel from the outflow, and they're only barely 1/2" each anyway; the only other way to clear the silt is to stick a 5' piece of rebar or stripped stick up the outflow and root around. It clears the immediate problem, but most of the screen is still full of mud, and it plugs up again in a few days. While I could find out just how long a handle I can get on a bottle brush, the better solution is to drill a 2" hole just behind the forward wall of the barrel so that I can get real tools in right at the trouble spot -- something like a long dandelion fork, a rockery trowel, or simply a stout piece of angle iron would move a heck of a lot more mud than just poking at it with a stick. I could plug it with a bathtub stopper, and use the ring on the stopper to attach it to the screen (or the dam) so it doesn't get lost if it pops loose. Not that I think it would; there's not a whole lot of pressure there. But that may be the only way to break the cycle of having to hike to the box every 5-7 days.
The pitcher pump arrived, and now I can actually put my hands on it, I get to figure out how to mount it to the front porch. The flange is quite large, and any support has to accommodate the pipe under it, so it's probably going to resemble a couple of chunks of 2x4 mounted to the porch pillar with a slab of plywood on top to support the flange. That will let me strap the pipe to the 2x4s for extra stability.
In other news, Conrad agreed that moving the little Christmas trees out of the pasture makes sense. He had planted something like 35 Doug firs out there, and we're now down to something like 8, and those 8 are not really growing; he managed to pick some of the poorest soil on the property. So the choice is to either fence them off from the sheep and feed them heavily, or dig them in early spring and move them. I can easily get a decent rootball on these, as they're maybe two feet high at most. Jenny suggested putting them along the south edge of the lawn, next to the satellite dish, and I agree: that soil is fertile, has excellent drainage, and is easy to supplement with water. It's also out of the way of the sheep and very much in sight, so they're unlikely to be forgotten enough to get out of hand. The nature of Christmas trees is that they won't be there for many years, so this can easily be a temporary solution.
He also agreed that getting sheep in six months is probably feasible. I do need to go down and talk to Joseph and crew; he has a pickup truck, we've met already, and I have the excuse that I want to get a gate for this place and he has the skills and equipment to make the metal frame. Maybe I can reestablish contact enough that I could at least get a little help bringing lambs up, even before any work begins on the gate.
The smoke continues. It seems to have thinned a bit at ground level, though it still stings the nose; at least the humidity is back to a reasonable level. As I look out I can see that we have moved from the mistlike pale eggshell to the golden glow of previous days. There is no definite end in sight, as the weather patterns aren't shifting much and all fires are still 0% contained. With the winds having died, maybe they can start working on that.
