plumbing

What a great day, with some excellent updates

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I am really happy with how things have turned out today!

First, we have the cat isolation shelter.

It took all day, but it is now useable! It has been moved close to the house, and the cats love it. Here is a short video I took to post on Instagram.

I was able to make the sliding doors, but one of them turned out to be a real pain. The wood lath covering the insulation on the other side, were not all the same widths, with some sticking out further than others. There was no way the panel could slide over it. So I made a stopper, instead, and it can only slide the other way. We’ll just have to be careful not to slide it out so far that it’ll fall out.

The other side was downright easy, after that!

Once those were in, I got my daughter to hold the front window in place while I drilled some pilot holes and put screws into the corners. Once that was done, she could let it go, and we added more screws to secure it.

Then, finally, we could put the roof pieces on.

Which turned out to not be as long as the boards they were being attached to. We have excess wood sticking out, front and back The back is the “handle” to lift the roof, anyhow, so I’m not too concerned about that, though at some point we’ll want to replace the strip of wood lath across the back with something sturdier. As for the pieces sticking out the front, I ended up using them to help steer as we moved it. We might cut them flush with the roof later, though.

I had to abandon my daughter part way through moving it, as my brother arrived with another load to drop off. After greeting him and he went to unload, I had a chance to take a short video of the isolation shelter. My daughter had left it in an open spot for me to do that. Eventually, I will put together a video of the entire process, which dragged on for so much longer than expected. After that, I moved the shelter closer to the house.

The door/ramp doesn’t have a latch, though – the ones I had were not large enough – so it kept dropping open, even though we’d taped it shut. The down side of using salvaged materials. One of the boards of the ramp cracked after hitting the ground. I had to add a couple more screws to fix it. Which was fine, but it required closing the door to do it.

The kitten that was inside the shelter was not happy about that! 😄

The last thing that really needs to be done is to find a latch for the door/ramp. We also need to get more paint, but that’s mostly cosmetic.

Once we work out exactly where it will stay for the winter, we’ll hang the clamp lamp with the heat bulb under the roof and get that ready for plugging in for the winter, preferably with a timer. I’d also like to attach handles to make it easier to move. The handles I had that I thought we could use are not strong enough.

After moving the isolation shelter closer to the other cat shelters, I grabbed a couple of winter squash as a gift for my brother, and went to join him while he worked. While we were there, we started hearing a noise.

A noise he identified as splashing water on metal.

From the septic expeller.

I couldn’t believe that’s what we were hearing, so we went to take a look. Sure enough, there was water coming out of the pipe!

It was not coming out as well as it should have been; it was almost dribbling down the outer pipe, and the sheet of metal that’s there to prevent erosion at the base was being partially missed. The pipe itself is leaning a bit back and to one side, instead of being straight up, which I’m sure isn’t helping, either.

I’m amazed that it was working at all. I was just there earlier today, taking photos, and saw no sign that water was being ejected from that pipe.

Oh! I completely forgot to mention!

With the one septic company ghosting us, I called the other and left a message this morning. The owner called me back less than half an hour later. They will be able to do the job for us. They are really busy and he couldn’t tell me when they can come out to fix the leak – it might be 3 or 4 weeks – but he told me that they could do the work even if the ground were frozen.

So that was definitely good news!

He asked me for photos of the expeller. While I was there, I made a point of looking to see if there was any sign that greywater has been flowing over the sheet of metal. That fact that there is some water flowing out the pipe, and not all just seeping into the ground, is actually a bit of a weight off my shoulders, making the timing of getting the repair done is not quite as urgent.

So that was more good news.

My brother had been able to come out sooner than he expected. It was still light out when he was done unloading, so he and I did a walkabout, including out to the car graveyard and the old farm equipment. I now know which things he wants to keep, and what can go to the scrap dealer – and it’s added a lot more to what the salvage company can come out for!

Oh, it’s going to be good to clear out this stuff.

My brother then came in to take a look at the bathroom, and the rot on the walls.

In the end, he said it’s not actually that bad. He said he wouldn’t bother taking it out at all, which would require taking the tub out. He suggested we just fix the taps from the other side, then cover it all with the new tub surround we already have.

Then we went around to the other side of the wall to talk about cutting an access panel. He’s pretty sure there is more aspenite under the paneling. We could take off the entire panel, but that would require removing the molding that’s over it, too. He suggested drilling through from the bathroom side to mark where to cut. Which is what I had been thinking, but only after cutting away the rotted aspenite around the taps. We have to figure out where the joists are; they should be 16″ apart, but the bathroom was installed while he was away in college, so he never saw how things were done.

So that is more good news. We don’t have to remove the tub and cut more of the walls away. He recommended we treat the aspenite with bleach, but we have some anti-mold product specifically for bathrooms we can use.

We can now put together a plan of action to get things fixed so we can use our tub and shower again!

Then my brother got his meter and we went to check the hot water tank – after shutting off the breaker! He tested the elements, and it turns out that it is the top element that is burnt out. The bottom one is working fine.

So we’ll be looking into getting a replacement for the top element.

I told him about the powered anode rod we are getting. Looking at the outlet near the hot water tank, I mentioned my thought of unplugging the extension cord that goes into my husband’s closet, then moving the plug for the well pump up, so we have room to plug in the new rod.

He advised against it.

As he put it, we’re already on borrowed time with that well pump, and he wouldn’t touch anything if it can be avoided.

We looked at the other outlet, where the sump pump is plugged in. He suggested running an extension cord from there, instead.

I will trust his advice and do that.

So we’re still without use of the tub and shower, and have only tepid water, but we now have a better idea of what to do next.

Which will be to get at the plumbing for the faucet set from the bedroom side and get that working, first. Then, even if it takes longer to get to the point we can install the tub surround, we can temporarily put plastic over where it’s cut open, so we can use the tub and not have to keep sponge bathing!

So… I rate that as more good news.

There was only one hiccup in the day that is more strange than anything else.

While my brother was unloading his truck, he got a voice mail notification on his cell phone – but his phone never rang. He joked that it was our vandal, because that’s who it was the last time this happened.

Well, after he left our place, my brother checked the voice mail, and it really was from our vandal!

I’ll get a copy of the message later, but it was much the same as last time. He’s wondering why my brother is “catering” to me – and we have no idea what he’s talking about. He also said that his doctor told him that the reason he got cancer is because of us, and that we are evil, evil, evil! He’s dying of cancer, and it’s our fault.

???

I’d say, he was drinking behind his wife’s back again.

At least he didn’t threaten us with “retribution” so extreme, even the Pope would be reading about it in a magazine, this time.

We are perplexed as to what triggered the call. Particularly since my brother was here when the voice mail was left. My brother thinks our vandal has been watching us, and saw that my brother had arrived, but I don’t see how.

Whatever the reason, my brother has our vandal’s number blocked, so he shouldn’t have been able to leave any voice mail message at all. The phone company is going to be getting a call about it, that’s for sure!

One thing else is for sure. When the scrap metal company comes to clean things up, we will have to watch out for our vandal, because he is going to go ballistic. He believes all this stuff rightfully belongs to him – but then, he thinks the entire property rightfully belongs to him.

Well, we’ll deal with that when the time comes. I’ll just be glad to get all this stuff cleaned out – and I’m sure the renter will be glad to see it gone, too, since his cows graze around almost all of it!

Oh, and I told my brother about the guy that wants to buy a couple of cars for parts, and how he will need to bring in special equipment to be able to get them out. I also told my brother that I’d arranged for him to use part of the money for the cars to pay back the guy that put a down payment on the old Farm Hand tractor, since I could see my brother wasn’t happy with the sale. My brother was happy to hear this.

So good news for him, too!

It’s just been a good day, overall, I’d say!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: a surprise harvest! Plus updates

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Okay, so the garden is pretty much done.

The red onions have been left, since they can handle the cold nights, and still aren’t quite ready for picking. With various distractions related to our plumbing issues, the potatoes still need to be harvested. The sunchokes are still green and growing, so they won’t be harvested for a while. Mostly, the beds are ready for winter clean up – once we can get to them!

What I wasn’t expecting was this.

That’s right. I harvested tomatoes this morning!

When my daughter harvested this bed, she left behind the really tiny tomatoes, or the damaged ones. However, as more of the foliage died back, I could see some green tomatoes that looked fine, and seemed to have gotten missed. The foliage in this bed was so dense, that’s no surprise. I basically ignored them, though, figuring they were frost damaged by then.

This morning I could see they had continued to ripen! Hidden in the middle like that, it seems they got protected from our first frost and following cold nights, too.

So I picked them and added them to the bins and boxes of green tomatoes in the old kitchen to ripen.

We have quite a few things slowly ripening. Yesterday, my older daughter grabbed all the ripe hot peppers, cleaned and prepped them, then set them in the oven to dehydrate. Eventually, they will be made into a powder.

Now… my older daughter is pretty much the only one that can eat these. My husband used to love spicy food, but the medications he’s on have really messed with his ability to taste or tolerate foods. My younger daughter can handle a bit of heat, but not as much. My, I can’t tolerate spicy food at all.

So she has taken over preparing the hot peppers as they ripen and, once dehydrated and powdered, she will have enough to last a very long time! We won’t need to grow hot peppers for some years. 😁

Now, these are hot peppers, but not exceptionally hot peppers. They’re not the kind where you need to wear gloves or anything.

Normally.

It turns out that, after processing about a dozen remarkably large hot peppers, that becomes a problem.

Not right away, though. My daughter had no issues at all while working on them. She was careful about washing her hands before touching things, too.

Then she made herself a sandwich.

The pepper oils from her hands – even after being washed – got onto her sandwich, and it was so spicy, it started to burn her mouth. She ended up having to drink straight cream to reduce the pain!

Then her fingers started to burn.

It happened slowly, over several hours, but eventually she could barely even use one hand.

She sprung for take out for supper, so I went into town to pick up the food. By the time I got back and she regaled me on what had happened, I could see the tips of all her fingers were bright red!

Lesson learned. Even mildly hot peppers can become a problem, if you’re processing enough of them at once!

Gloves needed!

Meanwhile, even her lungs were starting to burn!

These were being dehydrated in the oven. We had the kitchen window open and the fan running. The house smelled amazing, but we still had to stay out of the kitchen as much as possible, so as not to breathe too many of the hot pepper fumes. Even the cats were staying out of the kitchen!

Speaking of cats, they added another distraction. My younger daughter tried to go to bed early, only to discover a cat with a messy butt made a mess on her bed. She had to wash all her bedding.

We had been working to clear my husband’s bedroom, and started doing his laundry, too, so that was already set up (yes, we are still running the hose out the window for the washing machine to drain into the yard). The girls were going to start the laundry and my younger daughter was going to use her sister’s bed for the night.

Which is when they discovered more mess in the middled of her sheets, from a cat or cats that squirmed its way under her covers.

So they were both up all night, doing load after load of laundry. Some things needed to be washed twice, just because of their size. They didn’t get to bed until past 6am.

We’ll be more laundry today, too. My husband has set up his CPAP in my bedroom so he could sleep with me.

Sleeping in the same bed as my husband! Imagine that. 😄

That will give us a chance to strip his hospital bed and wash things like his pillows and body pillows, along with the extra blankets he puts under his sheets. The mattress for the hospital bed has a sort of thick vinyl instead of fabric, so it’s easier to clean. Unfortunately, it doesn’t breath, and causes my husband to sweat. The extra layers under the sheets help prevent that.

I did finally find an XL twin fitted sheet on Amazon for his mattress, which is several inches longer than a standard twin mattress. We’ve confirmed the new sheet fits properly, so we’ll need to get a few more. For now, though, he has only one fitted sheet that actually fits the mattress on his hospital bed.

We’ve been working most of yesterday on clearing his room so we can access the corner behind the plumbing for the tub. This is where we will be cutting an access panel, but it’s still covered by the wardrobe. My husband doesn’t really use the wardrobe, and the girls have said they’ll take it upstairs – but they will need to move out their little bar fridge for the space. They don’t use that much anymore, so we were already talking about moving it to my room. I’ll have to find space for that, though.

Once we get that figured out, we can start moving things around but, for now, we still have one more corner of husband’s room to clear and clean, where has his own tiny fridge to store his injections. This will give us the opportunity to defrost and clean it, too, then move it to where it will be more easily accessible.

The bonus of moving the girls’ fridge out from upstairs, to make room for the wardrobe, is that it frees up a grounded outlet.

That means they can get an air conditioner and actually be able to plug it in! The upstairs gets so insanely hot in the summer, they really need one up there.

That will not happen for a while, though, since my daughter will be paying for what we end up needing to get the bathroom walls repaired.

So all of this rearranging and cleaning and figuring things out is happening at the same time – all because the hot water tap in the tub broke.

There is nothing we can do in the bathroom itself right now. The fan it still running to dry the rotted aspenite. My brother will be looking at it when he comes out on Friday evening (today is Wednesday).

We will have to pull out the tub to be able to find and cut away all the rot, and I’m not even sure how that will be done. It does seem like the tub is in two parts; the tub itself, resting on top of a flat panel that hides the underside of the tub.

Well, we’ll find out when the time comes.

Until then, we’ll just take advantage of the disaster and do the clearing, cleaning and rearranging we need to do, anyways.

On the one hand, I’m glad this has happened now, and not in the middle of winter.

On the other, this keeps me from getting outside stuff done, and from finishing the cat isolation shelter!

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get some of that done today, since there’s only so much I can do in my husband’s bedroom before I need my daughters to help out. It’s so close to being finished, too!

Ah, well. It is was it is.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

A few updates, and I’m not sure about this kitten

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

It was a nice, crisp and cool morning as I was doing my rounds. I made sure to get the kibble for the outside cats to soak in hot water before I headed out, so they could have a nice warm breakfast.

There is one kitten that I noticed last night; a friendly little tabby. It had been curled up in the cat bed at the bottom of the shelf in the window. While topping up their kibble at the end of the day, it basically didn’t move, while all the other cats and kittens came running as soon as they heard kibble hit tray.

This morning, it was still in the same spot, but meowing strangely. It reminded me of how eye baby used to meow, when he was pretty much completely blind and wandering around the yard.

Eye baby seems to be doing quite well, btw. The one eye is still shaped differently, but he can blink it and seems to be able to see out of it.

I was able to get the kitten out and tried to bring it near the warm food. It did not seem interested in the food at all.

It was very interested in attention, though.

I cuddled it a bit, but had to continue my rounds. As I was making my way back to the house, I could here it meowing, and found it following a couple of other kittens into the old kitchen garden. I went to pick it up and it really enjoyed being carried, started to purr and knead the sleeve of my shirt.

I tried to put it near food again and managed to free myself long enough to bring a water bowl into the sun room. It’s one of the working heated water bowls (at least I hope it’s still working!), and we will have it plugged in during the winter, so they’ll have a heated water bowl both inside and outside.

As I moved the kitten to different places, as much to get it out from under my feet as to show it where the water bowl and food trays were, it seems to me the kitten is not very steady on its feet. It does seem to be having vision issues though, as far as I could see, the eyes are clear and dilating normally.

There’s nothing we can do about it, other than monitor the kitten and see how it does. We do still have antibiotics we can give it, if it seems warranted.

Meanwhile…

My brother was finally able to get back to me on Messenger, this morning. With great hesitation, I had told him we would need help with the bathroom, as we don’t have the tools we need to cut away the rotten chip board – aspenite is the proper name for it. I never remember that, but my brother mentioned it.

He asked what tools we needed, but I honestly don’t know. What tool is the right tool to cut away the aspenite, without damaging what’s on the other side of it?

He did mention something that should have been obvious, though we hadn’t thought of it yet.

We’re going to have to take the tub out entirely. The rot extends down the wall where the water pipes are, and in the middle of the back wall.

*sigh*

That is not going to be an easy job. Not just because of the size of the tub in a rather small bathroom. This tub is old school. I’m pretty sure it’s enameled cast iron. When you first get into it, it’s absolutely freezing, but once it warms up, it holds heat so much longer than a modern tub.

Gosh, I miss being able to take a bath!

We basically went from, the taps and faucet need to be replaced, to a major repair and replacement job. The more we uncover, the more we find will need to be done.

My brother barely remembers what’s behind that aspenite. We know there’s log behind the two walls, and that there are more pieces of whatever was handy, like we found under the fake tile paneling, used to try and level the walls.

We’ve still got the fan set up on the bath chair to get things as dry as we can. Every now and then, I’ve been using more CLR on the rust stains under the taps. May as well try and clear that as best we can, while we’re at it.

As much as I like this tub, if we had the funds for it, I would replace it with one of those walk in tubs. The kind with a door on the side, and a seat at one end. This would allow both my husband and I to be able to get in and out safely, and get the hot, soaking baths that would give us at least some temporary pain relief. Especially for him, when his back starts to spasm.

A plain walk in tub with a seat starts at over $3600 at Home Depot. There are slightly cheaper walk in tubs, but they don’t have a seat which, for us, completely defeats the purpose of having one.

If we did get one, we would probably have to add more structural support to the floor in the basement. Which is not that big of a deal. I think we even have an adjustable steel pillar somewhere around the farm that could be used. The only down side of that is, it would make it harder to get at the well pump, sump pump and pressure tank, as well as the plumbing, that are all under the bathroom.

Ideally, we would be hiring someone to do all this and renovate the entire bathroom in the process. If we were to include installing a walk in tub at the same time, though, that would easily cost at $10,000. Probably more like $15,000 since we’d also be getting at least the walls around the tub tiled. When we looked it up before, the cost to tile the bathroom alone was in the $5000 for a room the size of ours.

*sigh*

If we had that kind of cash available, we wouldn’t have truck payments right now.

Well, we’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile, my brother plans to come out here with another load, after work on Friday, and he will take a look at the bathroom while he’s here.

So today’s priority will be working on my husband’s bedroom. I’m hoping we can set his computer up on his leatherworking desk in the living room first. Then we can start clearing and rearranging his room, so we can access the corner on the other side of the tub and look into cutting an access panel.

One of the things we need to take out of his room is my late father’s wardrobe; it matches the vanity and nightstand I’m using in my room. In talking to him about it, he said we could take the wardrobe out completely and leave it out, as he doesn’t use it very much, but we have nowhere else to put it! It’s pretty darn big.

It seems like every thing we discover that needs to be done requires something else that needs to be done to do it… which requires something else to be done so we can do that…

When my mother asked us to move out here, we knew it wouldn’t be easy, and the house wasn’t “perfect” like she claimed it was, but my goodness, we never expected it to be this bad.

Well, it is what it is. We will deal.

It’s not like we have any choice!

The Re-Farmer

Bathtub progress. Ew.

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

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.

This is how it looks now.

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.

Ah, well.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Okay, we did know this was going to happen

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Did it have to happen now?

For those who have been following this blog for a shorter time, I’ll give a bit of a back story.

When we moved into this “perfect” house, at the request of my mother, we of course found all sorts of problems all over the place.

One of those was the hot water leaking in the bath tub. The rust stain below showed this was not a new problem.

When we had septic backing up into the basement (again) a few years ago, we had a plumber come in to auger the floor drains. While he was here, I asked him about the leaking tap. He asked me some questions I couldn’t answer, like whether or not the pipes could be access from the front, of if they had to be accessed from the bedroom on the other side of the wall.

There is no access panel, there.

When my father got running water and an indoor bathroom for the house, in the early 70’s, the bathroom walls were covered with waterproof paneling make to look like tiles.

The tub surround was installed on top of this paneling, with arm bars added later on.

The caulking for the tub surround was coming loose, and we had no idea what the state of the caulking on the fake tile paneling underneath was like.

The plumber gave us an estimate of $400 to replace the taps – he thought he could fix them, but we wanted to replace them – but he told us the tub surround would have to be removed, and that was not something he did, so we would need to be prepared to replace that.

With this information in hand, we got a replacement faucet set with level taps in stead of knob style – something better for arthritic hands.

We also picked up a new tub surround, adhesive and caulking.

Which has all just been sitting there all this time.

After the illegal lockdowns and various economic disasters, I eventually called the plumber to ask for a new estimate, but he never called back. Considering all the hits to our finances recently, from now having payments on the truck, replacing multiple desktop computers, etc., it really didn’t matter much.

Of course, over time, the leak just kept getting worse. The strangest thing was that, if only the cold water tap was turned on, the hot water tap would start leaking!

Well, today, it finally happened.

My daughter was just finishing her shower, went to turn off the hot water, and the tap just kept spinning and spinning!

Which bring us to another problem with the plumbing in this old house.

A severe lack of shut off valves.

To shut the water off for the tub, we had to shut off the water for the entire house.

Once she was able to get out of the shower, my daughter started working on taking off the taps and faucet.

Yikes.

The one with more rust on the inside was the hot water tap.

Click through to the next photo, and you’ll see the inside of the faucet.

The rust and scale I can understand, but cobwebs???

My daughter then had to start tearing off the tub surround, starting with the one behind the taps.

That was a messy and difficult job.

We then learned three things.

First, we would have had to access the taps from the other room to be able to replace them. We might still have to.

That will require almost emptying by husband’s bedroom. The only thing that wouldn’t need to move would be his hospital bed.

Then we’d either have to remove an entire sheet of paneling – which is what I think has been done over the years – or cut an access panel. Either way, it’s going to be a major issue for my husband.

Second, the rot in the fake tile paneling is really bad. I expected it to be bad, but… yuck.

No, I’m not going to post picture of it.

The water damage extends all around the tub, but the other two walls are not as bad as we feared.

Still, we’re going to have to cut off at least the bottom 16″ of the paneling (4 “tiles” high), then see how bad the damage is, behind it.

Third, this is going to take a long time to get fixed. We don’t even know what we’re going to need to do to get it all useable, yet, anyhow.

Meanwhile, the entire house is without water.

That meant a trip to the hardware store for a couple of Shark-bite style shut off valves.

My daughter then spent almost 3 hours installing them, with me as her flashlight holding assistant. It was incredibly awkward, and hard to get at.

Once they were finally installed, we added a sealing tape around each end of the valve, then went over that with electric tape, just to be on the safe side. We had to install a shut off valve in the hot water pipe to the laundry sink, and it now leaks every time we turn it on to use the tap. That on is an actual Shark-bite brand, and one end never gripped properly.

So we wanted to play it safe.

The first image above is the cold water pipe. That one had to be installed directly above the sump pump reservoir, which made reaching it a bit precarious. It was the easier one to install, though!

If you click through to the next photo, you’ll see the hot water pipe, which is just off where it branches to the kitchen and laundry, and next to the pipe that goes up to the toilet tank, and next to the furnace duct…

That pipe didn’t have as much play in it, either, and my daughter ended up having to cut off more pipe just to be able to get it into the valve end.

To top it off, there was all the water to deal with. My daughter did the hot water tap first, and after the first cut, the water just wouldn’t stop flowing! We ended up having to drain the hot water tank and open other taps, and still had to kept lifting the pipe at a bend to try and get more water out of the pipe. The cold water pipe did that, too, but not as much as the hot water pipe!

Needless to say, my daughter was feeling wet and gross by the time it was all done.

The important thing, though, is that they work. We could turn the water back on for the rest of the house!

While my daughter was finally able to leave, I stayed to monitor the refilling of the hot water tank. We couldn’t just turn the valve on all the way, as it would drain the pressure tank faster than the well pump could fill it again, which causes problems for the pump.

Yes, that still needs to be replaced, too.

Every now and then, I’d have to shut the valve off completely and let the pump finish filling the pressure tank before opening it up again, to stop the grinding noise it was making!

After the hot water tank had time to fill for a while, my daughter turned its breaker back on, so it could start heating up, too.

Then we had to run all the taps in the house to get the air out of the pipes.

That will be all we do about the tub for today!

While we figure things out there, we’ll all be sponge bathing for the next while – and I can’t even guess how long it will take for us to be able to use the tub and shower again! I supposed if we are at least able to install the faucet set, we could use the tub to wash in, and make sure not to splash. We just won’t be able to use the shower until this is all done.

*sigh*

It’s a pain, to be sure, but right now, I’m just thankful that the rest of the house has water, and it’s just the tub/shower that’s out of commission! We’ll just have to deal with things as they are.

It’s not like we have any choice in the matter!

The Re-Farmer

First frost

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Well, it finally happened. We had our first frost this year, on the night of October 3 – well past our average first frost date of September 10.

It’s still earlier than last year. A year ago today, which was our Thanksgiving day (this year, it’s next week), we had just had a lot of rain the day before, and were still harvesting from the garden, and not needing to cover anything.

Also, our another hot water tank died on us.

We have nothing to complain about. We still have a couple of beds in the garden we could cover that, if the forecasts are at all accurate, can continue to be covered at night and kept going for a few more weeks, if we want.

Also, no snow. We might get rain tomorrow, but the earliest we’re currently expecting snow is a little bit overnight, more than two weeks from how.

Last night, we did go below freezing, and had our first morning of using warm water from the house to give to the cats, instead of filling their water bowls from the hose.

The kittens were quite happy when I added the warm water on top of the ice! All those crackling noises had then entertained. 😁

The cold was enough to finally do in the mighty, mighty Crespo squash!

I’m still amazed by how huge those plants got!

This morning, the septic guy came to empty the tank for the winter. After he did that, he adjusted the weight next to the float/pill switch he replaced for us this summer. He tried adjusting the line from the basement first, but had to do it from inside the tank.

What a guy. He was actually on the ground, his upper body leaning right into the tank to reach.

As if that weren’t enough, he showed up with an eye patch and sunglasses over his regular glasses! He somehow detached a retina and, while it is healing well, without the eye patch, he was seeing double. I can barely even lean over the open tank to see inside without feeling like my glasses will fall off, and there he was, hanging head first right into the tank. He did take off the sunglasses for that, but yikes!

He got it done, though, and now the weight will no longer get hung up on the inside of the grey water side of the tank.

I’m really glad he was able to do it. It had gotten caught again this morning. I’d brought the hose from the garden to the house. The tap is in the wall next to the septic tank. I’d shut off the tap and left the nozzle open, so water could drain out rather than freeze. Not much drained out, though! When I turned the tap on so I could use the hose on the weight inside the tank, it was barely a trickle. There was too much ice in the hose. Still, it was enough to get the weight free hanging again, and I could hear the pump shutting itself off in the basement, as soon as it did. The hoses will be put away, soon, so we wouldn’t have been able to keep this up for long.

Now that the tank has been emptied, we can start preparing to cover it for the winter – but we still need to have the company come in and repair the expeller out by the barn. I’ve called and left another message, and still no call back!

After the septic guy was done, my daughter and I went into the root cellar. After wiping down the shelves and covering most with paper, we brought in the onions and garlic, then assembly lined it to bring the winter squash down. They had all been sitting on the washing machine, and we need to use that today!

While my daughter finished in the basement (there was no way my knees could handle going up and down those stairs!), I got the drainage hose for the washing machine set out the storm door window again. We’d been leaving it set up for at least the past month, but with temperatures dropping below freezing, we wanted to be able to close the inner door.

It won’t be long before we’re going to have to start using the drain to the septic tank again. Between the expeller needing to be fixed, and the state or our pipes, we’re hoping to delay that as long as we can.

Last night, I did the first treatment with the Free-Flow Drain and Line Maintenance stuff.

The instructions say to start at the drain closest to the tank, so that anything loosened in the pipes doesn’t end up clogging things further down. The closest is the access pipe in the floor of the basement. Based on the diameter of the pipe, that took 4 tablespoons of product in a cup of warm water. A cup of water isn’t enough to get the stuff to where things get hung up in the pipe, so I had to chase it down with more water.

We can do the next treatment tonight. That will be the bathroom sink, toilet and tub. The main drain pipe from under the bathroom is as large as the floor drain, but the product has to go through much smaller pipes, first, so we’ll do a smaller amount, but do all three at the same time.

Depending on how this works out, we might do these drains more than once, before moving on to the next furthest drain.

Once we’ve done the treatment with this stuff, we’ll start using the Septic Remedy stuff for regular tank maintenance.

None of which will make much difference at all, if that ejector pipe doesn’t get repaired!

In other things, I finally got a call back from the place that does Meals on Wheels in my mother’s town. After a bit of back and forth conversation, my mother is now set up to get meals delivered, instead of having homecare come in to do batch cooking. They only deliver three days a week, though. They no longer have enough volunteers to do five days a week. If I were living in the same town as my mother, I could have arranged to pick up meals on the other days myself and bring them to her, but it’s just not possible to do from where we are. The cost of gas would be higher than the cost of the meals!

One of my follow up calls to my mother, while arranging this, happened to be just after my sister left. She had come by for a visit, and to drop off some vegetables from her garden for my mother.

Including tomatoes.

My mother isn’t supposed to eat tomatoes.

*sigh*

It does mean I won’t be going over there to help her with her grocery shopping until after the weekend, though, which is helpful.

As for today, I’m going to have to make it a day of rest. It seems all the stuff my daughter and I were able to get done yesterday was pushing it for me. Last night, I rolled over in bed and got hit with a Charlie horse. Thankfully, I was able to message my older daughter and she was able to come help me. It was several hours before I could get back to sleep. My attempt at napping after my daughter and I finished with putting stuff in the root cellar, then setting up the laundry, was a failure. Being aggressively cuddled by cats was something I could get used to, but that’s when the Meals on Wheels lady called. By the time I was done all the phone calls, sleep was just not going to happen.

My every joint still and sore, though. The temperature fluctuations are not helping! Neither is the brain fog from lack of sleep.

Hopefully, we’ll get caught up over the weekend, but we do have warmer weather coming, so hopefully we’ll be able to get quite a bit more done.

I need to reign in my expectations, though. I keep forgetting how broken I am.

I think it’s time to make an appointment with the doctor and see about applying for disability. My last doctor said he felt I wasn’t at that point, yet, but that was a few years ago, and he’s moved on to another clinic. We’ll see what this other doctor has to say about it.

Something to do next week, though. The clinic doesn’t take calls on Fridays.

As for right now, it’s all I can do to stay awake, so if this post sounds disjointed and rambling, that is why!

My apologies!

The Re-Farmer

Trying something new

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

With all the problems we’ve been having with our plumbing and septic system, we’re doing everything we can to find ways to not just fix them, but to prevent them from happening again.

Once of those things is the use of enzymes, both for the septic tank and for the drain pipes.

The drain pipes are one of our biggest problems. There’s a section that needs to be cleared. We have the commercial drain auger, but access to the pipe is almost directly over the sump pump reservoir and hard to get at, between the mess of pipes around it, and a wall. We will get that done, eventually, but I will be doing it with the help of my brother, when he is available. The alternative is a $300 minimum visit from a plumber so he can use his commercial drain auger, instead… 🫤

Until then, we are doing everything we can to get the drains clear using bacteria and enzyme products. Since I had to go to the town north of us to pick up kibble at the feed store anyhow, I went to the hardware store there that carries a produce we’ve been using quite a bit.

After looking over their display, though, I decided to try something different.

One of them is specifically for the septic tank, so we won’t use that until after we get the tank emptied for the winter, which is a call I need to make today.

Looking at the instructions for the other one, I decided it was worth trying. It is to be used in stages, starting from the pipes closest to the septic tank. Which would be the accept pipe in the floor, right next to the pump. That’s where I’ve already been having to shove a hose through on a regular basis, to clear what feels like two bottlenecks between the opening and the tank.

The next closest would be the bathroom. Tub, toilet and sink are all really close to each other, so any one of them can be used to apply the product.

After that, it’s the drain for the laundry, and finally, the kitchen sink.

We really need to get things cleared up. We’re still draining our washing machine through a pipe running out the storm door window and into the lawn. When a large amount of water drains out of the kitchen sink, like draining a sink full of wash water, we can hear the water gurgling and backing up to the drain pipe for the laundry, with is just a few feet away. The pipe from the kitchen to the corner of the basement has already been cleared by a plumber. It’s the rest of the pipe, from the corner of the basement to where it goes through to the septic tank, that hasn’t been done yet, and that’s the one that needs to be worked on the most until we can get it augered.

We also have to consider the pipe from septic pump to the ejector, out by the barn.

Which still needs to be repaired.

Another call I need to make today!

While at the hardware store, I asked about a septic pump. With all the problems we’ve been having, and with how often it’s been running dry, it’s going to wear out. It already sounds wrong, but at least it’s working. I’ve been searching online to find out where we can buy one, and I’m even saving my Canadian Tire dollars towards the cost of one – but have had no luck. Any searches bring up septic pumps that are designed to be installed in the tank itself. Ours is in the basement.

It turns out, they are marketed as utility pumps, though when he was looking through his computer, he ended up having to search under sump pumps, which is something else entirely. The hardware store does carry them, but none were in stock that I could see. He was able to give me a printout, though.

As for the price, it turned out to be pretty much what I was expecting. $500

A quick search at Canadian Tire, though, and it seems they don’t carry the type of pump I need. The closest they have is a transfer pump for irrigation. It’s designed to pump water from a pond, creek or lake into an irrigation system. My sister has one of those her husband set up to water their garden from the creek their home is next to. I suppose, technically, it would do the job, but that’s not what it’s designed for.

So… we’ll have to come up with $500 over the next while, so we can pick up a “spare” before the current pump wears out!

Until then, we will be going everything we can to keep the system maintained as best we can, starting with using these new-to-us products.

Here’s hoping they do the job as promised!

The Re-Farmer

What a day

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

We’re at 27C/81F right now, with the humidex at 33C/91F It’s sunny, hot, humid, and there’s virtually no breeze at all.

A perfect day to be fighting with our septic system again, right?

*sigh*

I actually wasn’t feeling very good this morning. The girls took care of the usual outside stuff for me so I could go back to bed. They’d been up all night, of course, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures for my older daughter to work on her commissions, and do things like their laundry. We’re still running the hose out the storm door window, so at not to add more wear and tear to the septic system.

When I finally got up, I thought I was hearing a pump running, but we’ve got so many fans going, I wasn’t sure. I went down to check and, sure enough, the pump was running dry again.

I tried the usual things. Priming the filter and turning the pump’s switch on again, only for it to still start running, draining the filter and continuing to running dry. I even stuck the hose through the floor pipe, but there were no blockages. I checked the tank, and everything looked normal, there. The grey water side was pretty full, but not so full as to trigger the float yet.

So I grabbed a particularly strong hoe that we have. I actually remember using it as a child. At some point, the original handle must have broken, and the head was welded onto some steel pipe. That thing is practically indestructible. I also grabbed a flexible drain cleaner meant to be used in sinks, thinking it could be used on the outflow pipe.

I also made sure to be wearing my rubber boots!

I went through the barn’s back door to go around the outflow pipe from the far side. This gave me a chance to see the state of things on the downhill side.

I look forward to when the renter’s cows are here. The grass is chest high right now!

The outflow pipe has a sheet of metal roofing material under it, to guide the flow of water away and towards a sort of pond; it’s a low area that is dry most of the year, but hold water in the spring.

Before I could even get to it, I was using the hoe to cut away a forest of burdock. None gone to seed yet, thankfully. Just really tall and lush growth!

[sidetrack: after water was used again, I turned the pump back on. I had to prime the filter again, but the pump did finally start to actually draw water from the tank, then ran and shut itself off, as it’s supposed to. Yay!]

I eventually found where the sheet of metal was buried and started clearing that off of mud and crab grass – and even a bullrush! That cleared off the metal fairly easily, but I found that the entire sheet had been shifted at the end, likely from cows walking over it. I also found a spot where the metal had rusted away completely.

Once I got it clear of gunk and could move it, it was obvious it needed to be replaced. In between where the outflow is, and the barn, there is a lot of stuff, including leftover sheets of metal roofing. I started through the tall grass towards where they were and conveniently found a long sheet that the wind had blown closer. Even better, one end of it was curled, while the other was flat.

How perfect can it get?

While I pulled out the old sheet, it basically folded in on itself where it had a corroded chunk missing. I set the folded end to one side of the outflow pipe, partly to keep things from growing back beside it, and partly to make use the curled end of the new sheet didn’t end up flopping in that direction. With the way the water had been flowing, it was draining towards that side, and pooling by the collapsed log building behind it.

Once the new sheet was in place, I dug around in the grass and found some old branches that I lay on it, to weigh it down. I don’t want it to blow away, the next time we get high winds.

That done, I popped the cap open and pulled out the outflow pipe (it’s all one piece). It’s quite long, and the overhanding willow branches got in the way. I’ll have to go back with the loppers and cut them away.

At the bottom of the pipe is what my brother called a Venturi. I had to look it up, and I guess he meant venturi pipe? Anyhow, it has a section at the bottom that comes almost to a point. I went to clear it with the drain cleaning rod I brought – it has bristles at the end, like a bottle brush – but couldn’t get very far. It was clear, anyhow. So back it went, and I made sure I felt it pop into position at the bottom.

So at this end, at least, things should be working better. I’ll have to check it to make sure it’s directing the flow to where it should, properly, or if the metal sheet needs to be shifted or something. I even made sure to walk down the middle of it, to the flat end, to create a bit of a hollow. The roofing metal already has ridges to directed the flow of water, so it shouldn’t be an issue, for the amount of water that flows through at a time, but I’d rather take the extra precautions! The only real issue I can think of is that the renter’s cows will probably walk on it. There used to be a barbed wire fence around it, and the low area the water is supposed to drain into, but that collapsed long ago.

That done, I went back and tested the pump again, and it still kept just draining the filter and running dry. I finally primed the filter and just left the pump off.

Getting back into the house, however, was a challenge.

The sun room was blocked!

Driver was not only nursing her four, just inside the doorway, but Button was in there, too! Driver would have only four active nips, though, but Button was quite aggressive about getting access to one of them!

With the washing machine hose through the main entry, the storm door is locked from the inside, so the cats don’t accidentally open it and get out. The inner door at the the dining room has a security latch. We installed it because of our vandal, but we’ve since discovered that, as the house shifts, the inner and outer doors sometimes pop open on their own. The storm door, I can see, but the inner door, too? So those doors are locked and latched from the inside, all the time.

Well, I needed to hose off the hoe and drain cleaner wire, anyhow. By the time that was done, Driver had moved.

By this time, it was past noon and I hadn’t eaten yet, so after checking the pump and it still running, I just left it off. I knew it would soon need to actually empty the tank and, even if we didn’t use much water ourselves, the weeping tile under the new basement is constantly draining into there, so it wouldn’t be long before I’d need to turn it on again.

It was almost another hour before I finally settled down with some food! Since I’d slept in, I hadn’t had breakfast, and was so hungry, I was feeling sick. Especially out in that heat!

Since then, the pump has been turned back on and is working again. I’m glad we can see into the filter like that. I knew the tank should have been full enough to be emptied, so I was watching closely. After the pump drained the filter and started running dry again, I primed it and tried again. This time, I could just see water starting to flow into the filter, so I left it running. It was slow going, but it finally started to pull more water, and was at least not running dry. A little longer, and the flow of water increased, and I could see it splashing against the clear lid. I puttered around in the basement as it ran, and was happy to hear it turn itself off on its own, just like it should!

The basements, meanwhile, are still pretty wet. The old basement is pretty much wet all summer, but it’s the new basement that is the concern. It has weeping tile. It shouldn’t be so wet. I ended up moving one of the blower fans into the new basement, and set it up on a block near the middle of the basement, pointing downwards. The oscillating pedestal fan got moved closer into the wettest corner. Between the two of them, things should start drying off. It’s a shame I can only open one of the basement windows for air circulation. The other two are missing their screens.

So that’s what I’ve been fighting with all day – but I’ll leave you with more cuteness! I got this photo through the bathroom window. I didn’t want to disturb them!

Yes, they are both asleep. Button draped over that sponge (they love to play with that sponge, so I gave up trying to put it back on the shelf! 😄) is just the cutest thing, ever!

I’ve sent pictures of Button to the Cat Lady to share in her groups. We can’t bring him inside. Aside from already having too many cats indoors, as long as he stays close to the house, he’s got at least two, maybe three, mamas that are willing to nurse him, and he’s way too little to be weaned. Better a mama, outside, than a bottle, inside! But there might be someone out there willing to rescue an abandoned kitten, and willing to bottle feed him until he’s old enough to be fully weaned.

I was able to give the kittens some leftover turkey as a treat today, and made sure to give Button his own piece, away from the other cats and kittens. He does love his solid food, that’s for sure! Hopefully, he will grow big and strong and healthy.

Speaking of which, my daughter got a look at Shop Towel’s cheek while feeding the cats this morning. She says it looks like a hole! My guess is the original wound got infected and maybe abscessed? He is, however, eating normally and doesn’t seem to be bothered by it. It’s not bleeding or anything like that, and since it’s not being bothered by insects, it’s not leaking any fluids, either. It’s just… there.

What’s interesting is that he’s been really good with the kittens. Where other adult cats, both males and some of the more feral mothers, will bat at the kittens, or growl and hiss at them, he is just fine with them. I’ve seen him curled up and sleeping on the log pile by the old garden shed, with Broccoli and her two kittens curled up and sleeping on another log next to him. At night, the sun room kittens like to pile up together in different “rooms” of the cat cage, while a mama or two like to sleep on top of it. This morning, my daughter found Shop Towel curled up in one of the cat beds on the cage – with several kittens! So he’ll attack an adult cat, unprovoked, but is a cuddle bug with the babies. While I can appreciate it, it does seem quite strange!

Hmm. I was wondering if it would be worth it to try and get some stuff down outside. The temperature had dropped while I was working on this, but it’s gone right back up to what it was when I started! It’s not supposed to start cooling down until about 8pm, and it’s just past 3pm as I write this.

*sigh*

Well, it is what it is. We’ll just have to get used to it.

The Re-Farmer

First harvests, first sighting and first use

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It’s been a day of firsts!

Some, better than others.

This morning, I harvested our first garlic scapes! Not a lot, but enough to enjoy today.

The strawberries in the wattle weave bed had one ripe berry to harvest.

It was quite tasty. 😄

I also saw our first female winter squash blossom! That was quite a surprise, since they don’t usually show up until later. The flower was oddly closed, though. It wasn’t until later that I saw why. One of the vine’s tendrils had wrapped itself around the petals before they opened! So when the outer edges of the petals did open, they were “strangled” and there was no access to the inside for pollinating. I did take off the tendril which, unfortunately, broke off most of the petals. We’ll see if the remaining parts of the petals will finish opening up to allow pollination.

When coming back inside after doing my morning rounds, I saw an adorable sight.

I’m so glad the kittens like that cat cage!

Later on, I needed to make a run to the post office, and saw another adorable sight.

Barely.

Brussel and her sprouts were snuggled in the tall grass! This is the first official, confirmed sighting of her with her babies.

I am not sure if any of them have shown up in the sun room or not. I couldn’t even see how many there were. Two, for sure, but if there was more, I couldn’t tell.

The final “first” of the day was…

… using our new drain auger.

I’d gone to check on the septic pump, when I realized it was running, but no one had used any water recently. I hadn’t heard it earlier, because I have the fan going in my room, and my room is pretty much the only place where it can be heard.

— major interruption as I fought with the septic pump and tank, again —

Oh, man.

Where was I…

Right… I checked the pump’s filter, and it was running dry. No liquid flowing through. I shut off the pump manually, primed the filter with fresh water then turned it on again. Sometimes, that’s enough. The pump, when it first turns on, shakes a bit, so before turning it on, I like to grab the outflow pipe to hold it steady.

The pipe was hot.

The pump was running dry for so long, and got so hot, the pipe itself was hot!!

That is NOT a good thing!

For the last while, when this happens, I would run a hose through the access pipe in the floor. I can tell where there are some bottlenecks and, by the length of hose pushed through, can generally tell when it’s all the way into the solids side of the tank. With the water turned on, I can usually push through any blockages and eventually get it so that, when the pump it turned back on, it no longer runs dry. Which means the float has dropped far enough.

I know. This shouldn’t work. The hose is in the solids side. The float is in the liquid side. But it works.

This time, it didn’t. Instead, I basically hit a wall, and the hose would go no further.

Worse, fluid was backing up the access pipe enough to start overflowing the floor drain.

Well, there’s a reason we got that drain auger. Now we just had to get it down the stairs.

The problem is the stairs. These are steeper than usual, with narrower steps. Just going down them, I basically turn myself sideways, using both the hand rail and the wall, and go down one step at a time.

With the help of my husband, though, I was able to get it part way down, and then I could carefully maneuver it the rest of the way on my own.

Then I spent some time reading over the manual again.

Unfortunately, the schematics in the manual did not show how the belt was supposed to be attached. The photos looked like colour photos that had been photocopied as black and white, so I couldn’t even see where a belt might be. As far as I could tell, there was only one way for it to go, and that was around the drum that the cable is rolled up in. I finally just went on my computer, looked up the order and the colour photos. There, I could actually see the belt around the drum.

The tips are secured with a screw and tightened with an Allen key that came with the auger.

It was missing.

I know it was there when I unpacked it, but it was not where I put it.

Someone will probably find it with their feet at some point, wherever the cats left it.

*sigh*

I do have a tool kit with Allen keys in both metric and imperial, so I was able to use that.

The next hour or so was spent using the different tips to clear the pipe. The water didn’t drain, though – until I remembered the pump was still off! That got turned on, and things cleared. Yay! All done!

Right?

Wrong.

The pump ran for a while, then started running dry again. So that got shut off.

I tried pushing the hose through and there was still that bottleneck a couple of feet past the wall. I ran the auger through again, then the hose. Eventually, I could determine that the pipe itself was clear; the problem was in the tank. With the pump running properly again, though, and so much well water being used to clear things up, the pump and the outflow pipe were so cold, there was condensation on them.

However, things were working again, so everything got cleaned up and put away… and there was much cleaning up to do. I had expected to find tree roots blocking things, but nope. No sign of roots. Just… solids, shall we say.

I just can’t seem to wash up well enough to feel clean again.

After I started writing about all this, I realized I had the fan going, and was I hearing the septic pump running or not? I shut off the fan, and yes, it was running.

I went to check, and discovered it had been running dry, long enough for the outflow pipe to be starting to get warm again.

This time, in pushing the hose through, I hit that barrier again, far enough from the basement wall that it had to be in the tank itself.

WTF?

This time, I got my husband to be in the basement while I went to check the tank.

After putting on a latex gripper thing I don’t know the name of, that attached to the ear pieces of my glasses and goes around the back of the head, to ensure they don’t fall off. I am forever paranoid that when I look down from a height, my glasses will fall off, and that last thing I want is for them to fall off into the septic tank!

Now, with the pump running dry, I expected to find it drained and the float visible at the liquid side of the tank. From above, you can see a larger opening over the liquid side and and a smaller opening over the solids side. A few feet above is the pipe that the float’s cord runs through from the basement, directing it over the solids side and above the liquid side.

When I opened the tank, it was over full, and just a foot below the pipe the float’s cord runs though.

This is not a good thing. Not at all!

I got my husband to the pump on.

No change. I could see some sort of bubbling on the solids side, but that’s it.

That would have been from water running through the hose at the time.

When there was no sign of the contents being pumped out, I covered the tank again, then headed back to the basement. The pump was still running, but it was running dry! At that point, I was able to relieve my husband from duty. 😉

Not only did the pump not drain the tank (we shut it off manually again), but water was backing up to the basement again.

It turned out the hose was still on.

With the hose off, I kept pushing it back and forth. It was definitely moving easier. After a few minutes, I turned the pump back on and…

It started training the tank!!!

So I hung around like a mother hen as it ran, until the filter suddenly emptied and it started running dry again. I still had the hose handy, so I primed the filter again, then ran it through and turned it the water on. After pushing it through a few times, I turned the pump back on. It started running for about half a second, then shut itself off.

Once that was done, I went back out to look into the tank. I could once again see the top of the tank, with the two openings. I could see the float on the one side…

It seems to be sitting on something.

I really don’t know what it was I was looking it. It just seemed to me like there was something in the tank.

We’re going to have to get it emptied. Especially since it overfilled the way it did.

So I called the septic guy. As I was explaining what was going on, he was quite perplexed. My using the hose like I do should not make a difference, because it’s in a different part of the tank.

After more descriptions and questions from the septic guy, he does have one theory. Because the pump does shake when it first turns on, he thinks we have an air leak. Most likely, the shaking has caused a crack, probably on the underside of where the pipe from the tank is attached to the filter. He won’t know until he sees it, though.

He’ll be coming out late tomorrow morning. A basic pump out will be $160. He won’t know if it’ll cost more than that until he sees what’s going on, and if he is able to do any repairs.

My older daughter, bless her, will be able to cover the cost. It’ll just take a few days for the PayPal funds to be transferred. (While I was doing all this, she was a sweetheart and did the cooking, etc., too)

Which means tonight, I should probably head to my bank and take out some cash to at least pay for the pump put. If it costs more, I can pay him the rest later.

Or maybe tomorrow morning. I really don’t want to go anywhere right now.

I think I’ll go wash again, then call it a night!

The Re-Farmer

My new toy

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, I finally opened the box with our new drain auger. Given the weight of it, I just went ahead and cut the box apart at a couple of corners. The box was made of very heavy duty carboard, yet it was pretty beat up during shipping!

The auger, however, was well padded and protected, and completely unharmed.

Pretty much as soon as I lowered the sides of the box, Ghosty was inside it, checking things out!

In pulling out the various items packed with the auger, included a pair of work gloves, I found the instruction manual and paused to take a look.

The manual was for a different model. One with a different frame supporting the auger, and two large wheels at the back, so it could be pushed around like a hand truck. This one has a frame that’s more compact, and four wheels that need to be attached. Two of them have brakes on them, so those would go onto the back. There are no instructions on how to attach them. I assume that’s what the Allen key is for.

I didn’t have time to fuss with it right then, so it’s been left for now. Once the wheels are on, we need to figure out how to get it safely into the old basement. My husband suggested using a rope, which might actually work out and allow us to take it down the old basement stairs securely, instead of taking it to the new basement stairs and going down that way. The old basement stairs are oddly narrow and steep, to fit in the space, and I don’t have a lot of confidence in how strong they are. The new basement stairs, however, have a door that swings over the stairs, blocking access to the hand rail, instead of into the entry. You wouldn’t believe how unsafe that makes it. When I was a kid, I never saw a problem, but now that I’m old and broken, and have a problem with stairs, it’s really noticeable.

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out, one way or the other!

The Re-Farmer