Things are going to be slow when it comes to dealing with our water problems in the tub.
Today, we were able to cut away the bottom of the fake tile paneling, to see the damage behind it. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect back there. Especially with the two walls that are log.
On the one hand, that’s really gross. Especially around the taps, where quite a few bugs were uncovered. They looked a bit like pill bugs, but I really didn’t want to look too closely! Others were too small for even that much of an identification.
There were so.
Many.
Nails in that paneling! My guess is, before the tub surround was added, the paneling was coming loose from the wall, so it was very thoroughly nailed in place before the surround was installed. The problem is, the nails were very hard to see. While I was cutting through the paneling, I kept hitting nail heads in the intersecting lines. Then, as I tried to pull the paneling off, I had to pry it off more nails. Some of them pulled right out. Others, the paneling broke around it.
The back wall and the section of wall on the right are the log walls. I’m hoping that chip board managed to protect the logs somewhat. My brother had told me that shims were used to level the walls so the paneling could be attached.
I didn’t expect there to be scrap pieces on top of the chip board. I even recognize some of the pieces as scraps from the paneling used on the rest of the ground floor of the house. You use what you’ve got!
For now, we have the bath chair set up to support a box fan to dry the rotted walls.
At this point, in updating my brother about all this, I had to ask for help. We simply don’t have the tools to cut away that rotted chipboard.
I am rather afraid to find out what’s behind the wall around the pipes.
Once we get to a point where we can actually install the new taps, we will probably cover the open sections with plastic. That would allow us to turn the newly installed shut off valves, on, and we could use the shower as we get the materials we need to patch and repair. My older daughter has told me she will cover the costs, but we don’t even know what the costs will be. Plus, she’s a freelancer, so the money comes when the jobs get done. Thankfully, she has a pretty steady stream of commissions for her digital art.
With how things are going, though, I expect it will take weeks to get it done, as we slowly uncover things and figure out how bad the damage is, and what we will need in order to repair it.
Until then, we continue to sponge bathe!
Meanwhile, we’ve had a change in schedule. My husband called the clinic about his CT scan tomorrow and cancelled it. He’s in too much pain to handle the drive.
So that frees up the day though, under the circumstances for my husband, I would rather have had it otherwise.
I was so excited when the phone rang, and I saw the plumber’s name on the call display.
Then confused, when there was nothing but dead air.
It took several calls like this, until I finally made sure my cell phone was on Wi-Fi calling (it keeps turning that off of me!) and got through to him that way. He’d tried calling another number in our area, with the same prefix, and had trouble there, so it seems like it’s a regional problem.
The important thing is, he was able to come over shortly after calling, and get the new tank installed.
Here, you can see his handy little pump draining the tank. We had turned off the breaker but never drained it or shut the water off, so that if we happened to turn on the hot water tap out of habit, it would still work. We just wouldn’t have hot water.
Looking inside, he thought that maybe the bottom element had burned out and said it could possibly be fixed, but I saw no point in that. This tank has already lasted two years longer than expected!
The weird thing was this.
This is where the electrical wires are tucked in, after the tank is hooked up. The plumber could not understand how water got in here!
After switching the tanks and starting to fill the new one, we talked about our well pump. It turned on while the tank was being filled, of course, but was having a hard time filling the pressure tank fast enough, so it started to make that grinding noise that worries me so much. I told him, we have a new pump ready and waiting, but with the possibility of the foot valve breaking, no plumber has been willing to change switching it out, because we’d end up with no water. He agreed with that assessment! I asked if he happened to know of any companies that serviced hand pumps, but he couldn’t say for sure. It’s entirely possible, we can change out the well pump and not have any problem at all, but when I said I didn’t want to risk it until we got the hand pump checked out and working again (if all it needs it new leathers), he thought that was a good idea. If we find ourselves with a worse case scenario, we at least can haul water to the house! Part of the problem is that the pipes in our well are a size that isn’t used anymore, so if the foot valve goes, we’d have to either find the old size somewhere or, if there are none to be had, get a new well drilled.
While the tank was filling, he was careful about using the valve to slow down the flow of water, giving the well pump a chance to catch up.
It takes quite a while to fill a 40 gallon tank!
Once it was full, he got me to turn on a hot water tap – which we have right in the basement, where the laundry used to be – to get the air out of the pipes and the water flowing. Once that was done, we could turn the breaker back on.
It takes a while for 40 gallons of water to heat up!
But heat up it did, and we now have hot water again! He recommended to check it a few times to make sure nothing is leaking, which I’ve done. Hopefully, this tank will last longer but, just in case, I’m hoping that we can pick up a “spare” tank, because we won’t be able to replace a warranty tank with a warranty tank again!
The whole thing ended up costing just under $235, after taxes. Thankfully, my daughter had already provided funds for most of that. Otherwise, I would have had to go into funds set aside for a down payment towards a new vehicle! We’re good, though, and I am very grateful!
It turned out to be a gorgeous day today – we reached 12C/54F this afternoon, which was several degrees warmer than forecast. I took advantage of it – and of having the cardboard from the box the new hot water tank was in – and started filling the trellis bed.
The cardboard almost completely covered the bottom of the bed, leaving gaps small enough that I’m not too concerned about it. After laying out, stamping down and hosing down the cardboard, I added the bark shavings from the poplar poles that will make up the trellis supports, followed by a wheel barrow load of wood chips. That got tromped down and soaked before the next layer was added – tomato, bean and melon plans pulled up from the garden. Finally, I added straw that had been laid out on this area when it was a Ruth Stout style garden bed. Another tromping and a soak, and I stopped for a while. These layers are just enough to cover the bottom logs, but they will settle down once the soil is added. I started adding scraps of wood into gaps as chinking, from the inside, so the straw could be used to hold it in place. There are more gaps that need to be chinked before more layers are added. It will get kitchen compost added, as well as leaves and grass clippings, before soil is finally added to the top. I’ll be using the soil from the melon bed and the grow bags, but those still need to be cleared.
With that in mind, I harvested the last of the onions in this area. There were just a few yellow onions left in the high raised bed, plus the Red of Florence onions sharing grow bags with the peppers. Last night’s frost was too much for the peppers, but some of the larger unripe ones were salvageable. I harvested the last of the peppers in the wattle weave bed, too, along with the two little eggplant that could be picked. We’re at 8C/46F right now, and supposed to drop to 6C/43F overnight, but there’s really nothing left to cover and try to protect anymore.
I’m happy with the progress on the trellis bed. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get that bed filled and set for the winter, and still be able to harvest more logs for the second bed. I’ll worry about the trellis supports later. That part can wait until next year, if need be.
After some 40 years or so, our bathroom fan gave out. Yesterday, our electrician friend came by to take a look. I had asked him if he could install the fan my husband bought, and how much it would cost.
It turns out the motor for this fan is still manufactured.
So he took it out to take home and see what he could do with it. It’s likely unfixable, but he would be in the city today and would look for a replacement motor, which would be much cheaper than having him install the new one. I am expecting to hear from him some time tonight about that.
Meanwhile, this is how it looked.
To be honest, I really expected it to be worse. :-D
I’ve since cleaned it out as much as I could, and washed the other parts and pieces.
I figure, if he does find a new motor for it, this is probably going to be the only opportunity to clean all this out for… oh, who knows how many years!
It’ll be nice to have a fan again. One that doesn’t scream when we turn it on, even. ;-)
One of the … fun… things about this old house has been the screaming bathroom fan.
Every time we turned it on, it would slowly start, making a whining, grinding, screaming noise, until it got up to speed. Then the noise would stop and it would be the nice, rather quiet fan it was supposed to be. Quieter than the newer fans we had in all three bathrooms of our old place (oh, for a second bathroom! LOL), in fact.
Well, it finally just up and died.
It was installed in the 70’s, so it’s had a good, long life! :-D
So my darling husband ordered a new fan.
Not just any, ordinary fan, of course.
This baby also has a heat light built in. Which should be quite nice in the winter!
Now, we’ve never installed anything like this, so I’m hoping my older brother will be able to give us a hand. He’s worked with the wiring in this house for many years, and is familiar with this house more than any other living person. I would much rather take advantage of his knowledge while we’re still so new here.
Along with the fan, a couple of other toys came in. Including this, for me.
It’s for when I’m out clearing the bush.
I can’t think of what I’d use it for with the work I’m doing right now, but…
Gosh, that’s pretty.
There was also hunting knives.
Six of them.
I’m not sure why there are six of them. I’ll have to ask my husband when I get a chance.
(I just caught him on the way by; they’re not specifically hunting knives. They’re intended to be used as throwing knives. LOL Much larger ones than the ones I’m used to!!)
On the thought of finding things out, I sent photos of the new gate we built yesterday to my brother. I also told him about the fence line I ended up pulling out along the tree line.
He tells me that the old fence line was likely more than 40 years old!
I have no memory of a fence line there, though I remember other things from that area. I guess my thoughts that this fence was added after the trees were planted was backwards. The current fence would be the one added more recently, to protect the trees from cattle, and the original fence is the one that was allowed to collapse and get buried in the thatch.
He also guesses that the old gate we replaced was about 20 years old. So I’m probably right in that the posts and barbed wire pile I found off to the side were from the older gate.
There is going to be a lot of stuff like this we’ll be finding, fixing or replacing, over the next few years!
Though I would really, really prefer to be spending our pennies on getting a second bathroom installed. :-D
Last night, when my husband went to the fridge, he asked if I knew why there was a puddle of water on the floor.
I had no idea.
We’ve had mystery puddles show up in the area before. The fridge and the kitchen sink are opposite each other. We rarely look under the sink. It’s a tight space, and the cupboard doors tend to open on their own, so we’ve got a strip of painters tape keeping them closed. I’d only go under there when I needed to refill our dish soap dispenser from the jug we keep there. I noted it seemed kinda damp before and figured there was a leak somewhere, but then it would be dry for a while, and I’d forget about it.
With the new puddle, I checked it out and discovered the entire area under the sink was wet. I emptied the cupboard and mopped things up, then my younger daughter – the most able bodied of us all – took a look while I ran water. It ended up not being from the pipe at all, but from under one of the sinks, and it was more of a pour than a leak. The water would run down the pipe and drip in the middle, so we put a couple of buckets under the pipe, I stuck a label on the right side of the sink, so no one would accidentally use it, then we left it until today.
Which is when my older daughter went to take a look, and actually manhandled the pipe a bit, to get a better idea of where the leak was coming from.
That’s when we discovered this.
Wow.
How long was it like this? While it may have been leaking for a while, I don’t know when it started to get this bad.
This is what it looked like from above.
Yeah, that top part came right off. And look at that rust eaten base! Yikes!
I wonder if, when I went all out scrubbing with the new cleaner to get rid of the iron stains not that long ago, I had caused it to get worse? I’d scrubbed right into the opening, which is why the piece you see to the side is actually silver instead of rust. That was a while ago, though, and while we don’t use the right sink as much as the left, you’d think we would have noticed more puddles before now!
Today we made a run to the dump, which didn’t open until 4pm, so we combined trips. I had been planning to go into town to the pharmacy to pick up distilled water for my husband’s CPAP, anyhow. My younger daughter came with me, heading to the dump first, then to town. As we got into town, though, I was noticing the time – almost 5:30 – and decided to quickly hit the pharmacy first, because I figured they would be closing at 6. I wasn’t sure when the hardware store closed, but I figured it was more likely to be open late.
When we got to the hardware store and found the plumbing section, we were concerned. This is a small store to begin with, but there just didn’t seem to be any of the parts and pieces in stock. So I found an employee at the back counter, asked for help and showed him the video and photo I’d taken. It turns out what we needed came in a boxed kit, which is why we missed it. He took us over and found it for us. As we were talking, I asked if we would need any special tools for it. You’d think, somewhere around the decades of stuff left around, we would have a pipe wrench, but I’ve never seen one. A lot of the tools that my dad had just aren’t around anymore.
The employee didn’t know about the tools needed. Were we planning to replace it ourselves?
Uhm. Yeah?
Well, he wasn’t a plumber, he told me, then joked that if he were, he wouldn’t be working there! He didn’t know. There was an older guy that came by, so he asked him. I thought this was another employee, since he had been at the counter, too. Nope. Turns out he was another customer.
A very helpful, knowledgeable customer!
They ended up taking the parts and pieces out of the box and putting them loosely together, as they needed to be on installation, and he showed us the two areas we’d need to tighten. After my daughter and I checked it out, neither of us knew of a wrench in the house that would work, and nothing in our own tool kits was big enough. So the guy – the customer, not the employee! – took us over the the tools section. He helped us find an expandable pair of pliers that would fit both areas, then walked us through how it needed to be installed. He even asked how old the sink was, just in case. Older sinks have a thicker metal, and we would have had to install it differently to make up for it. Also, how was the band on the pipe? We looked at the video to double check, but couldn’t really see if it needed to be replaced, too. We figured we’d get a new one, anyhow, just in case. It’s not like we’ll never need one at some point in the future. So he walked us back to the plumbing section and found the right size band for us, and gave us a few more instructions.
I was totally convinced this guy was an employee. He knew the store so well! My daughter assures me, however, that he was another customer. A regular customer, that’s for sure!
Everything we got cost us less than $50. Very reasonable!
As we were paying for our stuff, one of the staff members started fussing with the entry door, then propped the exit door half open.
Turns out they closed at 6 after all. We got there just in time!
Once at home, my younger daughter set to fixing the sink. It turned out to not take very long at all.
These are the old parts and pieces.
You see that part on the top right? The one with a chunk missing on one end?
Here it is.
Still very solidly attached – I tried pulling it off and it wouldn’t move!
All is fixed and tested out, though – no more leaking!
Check out the shiny new silver!
Just think; I had finally gotten all the iron stains off the sink a while back. You can actually tell it’s silver, now. Before, it was just rust coloured. But with that new piece, so shiny, so chrome, you can really see the difference!
Oh, and underneath?
Isn’t that lovely? She did a great job.
The band around the pipe didn’t need to be replaced, which was nice.
It wasn’t until I uploaded the video onto the computer that I noticed the old cobwebs in the corner. My daughter never saw them while working under there. Which is a good thing, because she’s arachnophobic!
As I was taking these pictures, I found myself wondering.
Why do we have flexible hoses leading to our taps instead of pipes? I’ve seen those hoses for things like running to an installed dishwasher or something, but not like this.
Well, that’s one more thing on the farm we’ve fixed! Too bad these fixes have almost all been unexpected ones!
The Re-Farmer 