We get lots of critter visitors.  Yesterday, we got a people visit!

My oldest brother came by briefly.  Being the sweetheart that he is, he brought along his mechanics stethoscope, and we checked out our van.  The first thing we did was check the coolant.  This was not an easy job, as the radiator cap on our vehicle is off to the side and under a hose.

We also discovered that I am very low on coolant.

I had the vehicle serviced before we drove out here.  I should not have been low on coolant.  Which means I likely have a leak somewhere.  I have never seen signs of a leak under the vehicle, but it’s possible that any leak was happening only while I was driving, after the engine was warm enough for the coolant to expand into the overflow chamber.

He got as much as he could into the tester, and as best as we can make out, our coolant has enough anti-freeze to handle temperatures down to about -22C to -25C.  Without being able to fill the tester fully, however, we can’t say that definitively.

We’ve been hitting temperatures of lower than -30C.  Wind chills brought us to the -40C, but we didn’t drive in that, and the van was in the garage, so it was protected from the elements, at least.

Then we fired it up and waited until the noise started, which took about a minute.  Using his stethoscope, we were able to pinpoint the source as the water pump.  Likely a bearing.  And yes, the cold could have caused this damage, with our coolant as low as it was.

On the plus side, if the water pump needs to be replaced, the part itself is not that expensive.  Labour, on the other hand, could easily be much more.  It all depends on how hard it is to get into there.  It could cost anywhere from $300-$400 to fix.

Also on the plus side, when funds come in, we should actually have room in the budget for that.  It’s do-able.  As long as it doesn’t end up costing  more. :-(  Meanwhile, we will continue to NOT use our van, because driving it would likely cause more damage.

It’s a good thing we don’t need to go anywhere.  And my other brother has told us to just leave his van at our place for now.

That done, my older brother’s next task was to salvage the parts he’d put into the old hot water tank.  He’d spent quite a bit of money on that thing, and the parts are still good, so anything that can be salvaged will be useful.

The first thing he did was take out the bottom thermostat and remove the new heating band he’d installed at the bottom.

This photo shows that heating band.  It had been in pristine condition when he put it in, but in the short time it was there, it got this corroded!

You can see an the bottom of the photo, what he’d used to McGyver the band in place, when it turned out to be too short.

That was one heck of a job.  And it did work, for a short time.  It was the last thing to try.  Once that failed, there was nothing left to do.

In the next picture, you can see the top thermometer he’s about to remove.

The tank itself got dented up (you can see that a bit at the top left of the second photo) when the plumber dropped it down to drain into the sump pump reservoir.  There were more dents all in a line.  The bottom of the tank had started to rust quite a bit in one patch.  It was weakened enough that the entire bottom had started to come loose!

That thing was way overdue for replacement.

Getting it out of the basement is going to be one heck of a job!

The visit also gave us the opportunity to talk about the house in general, and some of the work he’d done over the years, from what he had to do to get the pump to the septic tank working a few years back (you can see part of it in the background of the top photo), to fixing doors and the like.  He even brought printouts of the historical data for the electric bills for this place!  This will help me with budgeting a bit.  Our usage is, of course, going to be higher, since the house was empty during the time period in the printouts.  However, this was before the new windows were installed, so it would have been bleeding heat in the winter like crazy.  I’d hate to think how much our current bill would have been if the old windows were still in!  Hopefully, over the next while, we’ll be able to continue improvements to make the house more energy efficient.

Little by little, we’ll figure it out.

The Re-Farmer