It’s a good thing I know how to touch type! 😄 I’m home from my eye appointment, and my eyes are still massively dilated.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I had quite a surprise when I did my evening checks in the basement. In the morning, everything around the well pump was almost completely dry, after pipes and fittings were replaced.
In the evening, there was a significant amount of water.
I took some pictures, emailed them to the plumber, then phoned him. It was later in the day, but this is a 24/7 plumber, and he actually answered the phone.
We talked for a while as he looked up the photos I sent him and was really surprised by how much water there was. He said he wasn’t able to come out tomorrow (meaning, today), but I told him that was fine, because I had my medical appointment. He did have a suggestion for me, though, after I described where the leak seemed to be coming from. He suggested I try tightening the screw clamps. The plumber that did the work had used an impact driver to tighten them, so I never even thought that they might be loose, but I was certainly willing to try!
He even told me what size socket I needed, which meant I didn’t need to bring the whole tool box down. 😄
I was quite surprised by how much I was able to tighten them – and I tightened all of them, on both pipes, just in case. When I’d tried it before, after the new pump was installed but it still had the old pipes, I had tried to tighten the clamps with a screwdriver after spotting one of the leaks, but couldn’t even budge them.
Once done, I swept away the water into the sump pump reservoir, then left it for the night.
Happily, this morning, everything seemed to be drying. I sent a picture to the plumber and let him know. I checked again just a little while ago, and it still looks fine.
The first picture in the slideshow above is what I found last night. The second is the one I took a little while ago, so maybe 20 hours later.
Hopefully, it will hold this time!
As for today, my daughter and I headed out after having a late breakfast. My daughter is coming down with something and her lymph nodes are all swollen, so she could barely talk, but she could still drive me home. We left early enough to stop at a grocery store right near the eye clinic to pick up a few things my husband asked for, then I popped into another store briefly, just to see if they had anything we needed. Even with all that, then taking the time to eat lunches in the truck, I was at the eye clinic early.
They were good with that, and even got me started early!
I got the pre-tests done, first, then only had a short wait before the doctor called me in. With my regular vision test, there was very little change. I could get a new prescription, but it really wouldn’t make much difference.
Then she did the drops to dilate my eyes.
Ouch.
I joined my daughter in the waiting room for the 15 minutes it took for my eyes to dilate, then I got a series of photos taken. I have the tiniest of hemorrhages in my eyes that they are monitoring with these.
After the photos were taken, I had a few more minutes to wait before the doctor called me in and we went over the images. Minor changes. Some of the hemorrhages were gone, some faded, and some tiny new ones in other places. Nothing of concern.
Then she did the direct examination, under a bright light.
Ouch.
Everything is checking out okay, though.
That done, I went to book my next appointment in 6 months – that one will include a field of vision test – and settle the bill. I wasn’t sure how it would work with the change in our insurance, and there was only so much information she could access in the system. In the end, I just paid the bill in full ($60) and got the receipt for my husband to submit to the insurance company later.
I thought I was doing fine until I stepped outside in the the bright sunshine! I was almost completely blinded, and had to get my daughter to lead me to the truck. The first thing she did when we got there was get my sunglasses that fit over my regular glasses on me.
What a sweetheart.
(My husband submitted the claim, then we talked about his insurance changes. It turns out that we have the same policy numbers as before. Which means, even though they don’t send out a physical card anymore and want us to use an app, I still had all the information needed on the old physical card that I could have shown the receptionist!)
I’d considered things like getting gas on the way out, or stopping at my mother’s to drop of the cushion I think she was asking me about, but nope. Not today. We went straight home!
Things are a lot better, but my eyes are still burning. I did manage to feed the outside cats while my daughter put away the groceries we got, and gave my husband the receipt for the insurance company, but I think that’s about my limit for the day.
I’m happy to say that both Slick and Adam showed up at feeding time, and I was able to pet Slick a little bit. I was able to pet Adam a lot! She even let me fuss in her fur to try and get a burr out of her side a little bit.
The rest of my day is going to be really quiet, and I’ll be trying to keep my eyes closes as much as possible. Even now, in just the time it took me to write this, the burning is increasing.
… everything is drying up nicely, and there is no sign of any leaks.
The picture is out of focus because that corner is completely dark, so the camera didn’t know where to focus before the flash lit up.
There is moisture on the floor below showing, but that is normal for this time of year. There’s a low spot where any water seeping through the concrete puddles, and I sweep it into the sump pump reservoir regularly.
Then I headed outside to feed the yard cats, and was even able to do a head count.
Twenty seven. There were 27 cats this morning!
This included Slick, who made a brief appearance.
She is no longer very round.
*sigh*
Then she disappeared.
I checked all the places we set up that I hoped she would use to have her kittens, but they were all empty.
I did find Gouda in the catio, enjoying the fresh straw on the hammock.
There is a beautiful feral tuxedo I saw this morning that I think actually lives across the road from us. He likely calls two colonies “home”.
Once the morning routine was done, I headed to the town north of us to sign the form for our taxes, then take my husband’s home for him to sign, before taking it back. It’s a half hour drive to this town, so doing this meant a total of 2 hours of driving time. Happily, the truck behaved the entire time.
Which is good, because tomorrow I have my eye appointment that my daughter will need to drive me home from.
Meanwhile, I’d messaged the rescue chat group about my count this morning, and we talked about how to at least get some of the friendly males neutered. With that in mind, I did a bit of clean up in the isolation shelter. Later on, when the ground is dry and we can set up a hose, we will move the isolation shelter away from the house and give it a through spring cleaning. For now, though, I wanted to clear out the bottom level. We haven’t been able to change the two litter boxes under there for a long time, because of the box shelter we set in front of the ramp door in the winter. It is warm enough that I moved it out completely and left it set aside, so we’ll be able to access the bottom regularly now. I left the emptied litter boxes out, only one of which will make its way back into the shelter. The other will go into the cat cage in the sun room, where I hope any mamas will bring their kittens.
The straw that was put in the lower level for the winter was thoroughly pooped on. I had to use a garden hoe to reach the far corner and drag it all to the ramp door. That all went to the litter compost behind the outhouse.
It was so warm, I shut off the heat lamp in the isolation shelter as well as both of them in the sun room. With overnight temperatures looking relatively mild from now on, we shouldn’t need to turn them back on again until the fall.
By the time I was done with the isolation shelter, I was starting to hurt again. Definitely something wrong going on in my abdomen. I would not be at all surprised to learn I’ve developed another large cyst. Doctor’s appointment is in the first week of May. We’ll see how it goes from there.
With my eye appointment tomorrow, I won’t be able to work on the garden beds I meant to, but I should be able to gather the materials I’ll need later today. The days are getting so much longer, I’ll have time for that. I think I’ve figured out what I want to use to protect the dwarf peas in the wattle weave bed from the cats, once the straw mulch is removed. Once I’ve got everything I need handy, it won’t take long at all to get the beds cleaned up and protected.
The plumber made it to our place today, to check out the leaks at the new well pump. I had checked it again this morning and, using a flashlight, could see that most of the water on the floor was coming from one of the pipes leading from the pump to the well (there are two).
Along with the leak at the well pump, I had also asked to have the taps replaced at the old laundry sink, install the shut off valve on the cold water pipe, plus repair an occaisional leak on the shut off valve on the hot water pipe.
I just checked the security camera time stamps. They were here for three hours.
*sigh*
They charge a base price, plus materials, for the first hour, so we’ll have two more hours of labour on top of that. I haven’t received the bill yet. It will be emailed to me.
We also got some bad news, but I can’t say it was unexpected. I’d already talked to my brother about this, but he had disagreed with me that it was a problem.
We’re going to have to replace our pressure tank. He hooked up a machine to the tank’s valve while it was still full. It had only 2.5psi! For this pump, the psi should be 28.
That will have to wait.
As for the well pump, he had his super bright light to check it out, and found both pipes to the well were also seeping at the fittings. This is on top of the small leak on top of the pump, at the pipe leading to the pressure tank.
He ended up replacing three sections of pipe, two brass fittings attached to the pump itself and two plastic elbows.
This, of course, meant we had no water while it was being worked on. I even had some water bottles available that he could use to prime the pump again when he was done there.
I already had new taps and a second shut off valve for the laundry sink. Getting the old taps off took quite a bit of effort – and a blow torch. The taps I got were designed to simply screw in place, but these old pipes weren’t threaded. Which is why he needed a blow torch to remove the old ones! Once he got those off and the copper cleaned off, he got the new ones on and soldered them in place.
As for the shut off valved, he ended up needing to add some copper pieces to get them to join right.
Once all of that was assembled, we ran the water in the laundry sink and full blast. There was SO much grit that came out, as well as a period where the water was rust colored and completely opaque.
One of the things he did after the well pump’s pipes were all back was use his compressor to bring the pressure tank up to 28psi. Hopefully, it will last a while, because it’s going to be some time before we can replace that.
After he was done and gone, I went to all the taps upstairs and ran the water until it was clear. The only taps left to clear is with the washing machine. We’ll run it through a tub clean tomorrow – then do a whole lot of laundry! I suppose the old taps in the basement that the washing machine had been hooked up to, before the laundry was moved to the entry, should be cleared, too. I leave a hose attached to the cold water tap there, for when I need to clear the floor drains to the septic tank
The first photo in the slide show is of the two pipes leading to/from the well; a suction pipe and a pressure return pipe. New lengths of pipe, new brass fittings at the pump and new elbows to the well. The second photo in the slide sow shows the new pipe to the pressure tank, which did not need new fittings.
The next picture is of the new taps at the laundry sink, soldered in place. I’ve put a short length of hose on the cold water tap again, and will look for another to add the the hot water tap. Without those, the water sprays quite a lot. I did have one set aside already and tried adding it, but it has a plastic rather than metal fitting, and it leaked. It’s just too old. We have old hoses around that I can scavenge later on.
Last of all are the shut off valves. You can see the copper fittings he added, to make up for how much pipe he had to cut away to ensure the Shark Bite valves had something to grip on and not leak. He ended up moving the hot water one completely over by a few inches.
There are two other pipes that have leaks; one at a shut off valve on the hot water pipe to the bath tub. The other in a really hard to reach spot in the cold water pipe going up to the bathroom, where it is now a PEX to copper join. It was so hard to reach into there to crimp the join. By the time he was finished what needed to be done, I wasn’t going to get him to do two far less urgent jobs. Those can wait.
With how long things took, and the time of day, I decided not to go to the town north of us today, to take care of getting our tax forms signed. I will do that tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I’d sent photos and updates to my brother. They are still in Spain doing their pilgrimage. With the 6 hour time difference, he was actually able to see them and respond to me. He’s still surprised about the pressure tank. He says it’s about 20 years old. Their pressure tank at the property they sold was over 30 years old and still working fine. Now that it’s at the right pressure, though, we will monitor things. We should even be able to check the pressure ourselves using a tire pressure gauge; it’s the same type of valve stem.
Hopefully, it will be a long time before we need to call a plumber again!!!
On a completely different note, after doing my morning rounds, I took my April “garden tour” videos. I got one of those “X years today” things in my FB this morning, this time from 2023. It was a photo of the snow we got on April 19 of that year. We had a storm with winds high enough they knocked over the gate trail cam’s stand again. That was when I finally found something heavy I could set across the legs at the base. It hasn’t fallen over, since!
We are now entering a very warm spell, and the forecast has changed, yet again. Last I looked, we were to get 4 very warm days, followed by a major drop in temperature together with rain in the day, snow in the night. Now we’re looking at only one evening, later in the week, with possible rain. We might actually be snow free before the end of April! Wouldn’t that be nice!
Meanwhile, I need to do some editing and upload the garden tour video. My project for this evening!
In between checking on the pumps and tanks in the basement throughout the evening, just to be sure there are no more leaks!
It’s a good thing we’ve already arranged for the plumber to come back next week.
One of the things he instructed my daughter, after the new pump was installed, was to keep an eye out for leaks. Which is a bit difficult partly because there tends to be a lot of condensation on the pipes. That well water gets really, really cold!
As this basement was built before weeping tile was a thing, it’s pretty normal for there to be water on the floor in the spring. Sometimes all summer. We have oscillating fans and blower fans to try and keep it down, and switch the winter window to the summer screen window for air circulation. That frequent wet is part of why the well pump, pressure tank and hot water tank are all on an elevated concrete slab.
I am starting to see water in the floor drain, from the weeping tile under the newer basement, but for now, the concrete is dry. This is all from the pump. One spot, where I can feel a drop of water under the brass fitting, seems to be the only leak. The steel screw clamps are tight.
The plumber is coming out on Monday or Tuesday. I had mentioned the leak at the pump, plus the cold water tap at the laundry sink. He will be replacing both taps for us, since the hot water tap started leaking long ago and we could only install a shut off valve to stop it. He’ll check on the leak at the well pump as well.
Otherwise, the pump is working just fine.
In other things…
I made it out to visit my mother, though I had to turn around and come back. I had some stuff she asked for ready in bags and forgot them at home. Thankfully, I remembered before I reached the highway, and messaged my daughter to meet me at the gate with them.
When I got there, my mother was sitting on her walker in the hall as her room was being cleaned, so we went to the common room. It was a pretty quiet and calm visit. My mother had complaints, of course, but nothing unreasonable, really – even the ones that turned out to be based on her not understanding something she’d been told. I stayed until she was done her lunch, then talked to the nursing station for a bit – an opportunity to clear up one of her misunderstandings – before heading out.
From there, I drove to the town we usually shop in. My husband had a list and his own budget for me this time. Some of what he wanted I wouldn’t have been able to find at the grocery store in my mother’s town. It was a fairly short list, so it didn’t take long before I was done. Then I had to get more gas before heading home. That part was painful.
Throughout all that driving, I’m happy to say the truck behaved. After what happened with the differential, there were a few times on the highway where I was second guessing things, but it seems I was just driving headlong into the wind and being buffeted. More importantly, that oil pressure gauge was having normal readings. Hopefully, the mystery readings are now at an end! The real test will come with city trips, though, and those probably won’t happen for a couple more weeks.
For now, though, I feel ready to drop. For some reason, I just couldn’t fall asleep last night, and I can only partly blame the cats or pain levels. I was mostly just… awake. It was past 6am when I messaged the girls, asking them to take care of the morning routine for me. I did finally get a few interrupted hours of sleep after that. Enough that I was safe to drive, at least. I headed outside to do the evening rounds not long ago, and felt like I was ready to fall asleep the whole time. Now, I am just crashing.
It’s not even 4:30 as I write this.
It’s a gorgeous day out, though. We’re just below freezing, but it’s bright and sunny, and things are melting. The current forecast has us going from a high of 0C/32F tomorrow, to a high of 14C/57F on Monday! We no longer have a high of 20C/68F before the end of the month, though. That’s been pushed back until May. Still, I should have a few days next week to take the mulch off the exposed pre-sown beds and get them protected from critters. The garden beds in the main garden area are still fully covered with snow.
I’m quite looking forward to getting at it!
Hopefully, with more fresh air and sunshine, I’ll be sleeping better, too.
After the well pump stopped working, we had to make do with a few things. Thankfully, we already buy drinking water in 5 gallon jugs, though we soon switched to our last one. We didn’t have any water to wash with, but we did have wet wipes to help keep clean. Using the toilet was out of the question, but with so many problems with our septic, we’ve used a honey pot more than a few times. What we found here when we moved in was a toilet seat that fits over a 5 gallon bucket, which is really uncomfortable and not particularly stable. We’d bought a camping toilet – a foldable base a bag could be fit into, then a cover with a toilet seat set on top. The design is slightly elongated in the front, and the seat is padded.
This was the first time we’ve had to use it, and wow, was it so much more comfortable!!!
Still, not fun to have to use.
Using stove pellets as litter has come in handy again. Whenever the honey pot was used, we’d pour a small scoop of pellets in, which would absorb moisture and keep the smell down at the same time.
All in all, we were pretty well prepared for something like this. In the sort term, at least.
Last night, of the three places I called, one plumber called back. After explaining the situation, he said he could be here around 11:30-12:00 today.
I was already planning to go into town to refill more water jugs, stop at the garage, pick up a few necessities, then meet with someone from the rescue to return our cat carriers, so I wasn’t going to be home in that time frame. I went through the basements with my younger daughter, who would meet the plumber for me, to show her what she needed to pass on to the plumber. The new well pump my brother bought a couple of years ago was still in the box, and he also had a bag of all the fittings and fixtures he thought might possibly needed. He even had Teflon tape in there.
There is a bit of an issue with the light that’s over where the pump is. The light is turned on with a pull chain, but one day the chain got stuck after being turned on, and it took a lot of fighting to be able to turn the light off again. Which is when I discovered the fixture itself is starting to come loose. So we simply don’t use it. My brother has suggested we just put in an LED light bulb, turn it on and leave it on, but I’d prefer not to do that with a fixture that is starting to fall apart!
We figured the plumber would have is own lighting, though, such as one of those head lamps.
Oh, and we’ve discovered the door to the old basement steps won’t open anymore. For a while, it would only open when the knob was turned in one direction, but not the other. Now, it just won’t. My daughter fiddled with it and says the latch isn’t moving anymore. Ah, well. We need to slowly replace all the door knobs with lever type handles, anyhow.
Meanwhile, we were all being careful about using as little water as possible, and avoiding dirtying any dishes. Which meant we were eating a lot of chicken salad sandwiches and using paper towels as plates. Thankfully, my daughter had done the dishes before we lost water, so there were no dirty dishes already in the sink to worry about.
We all tried to go to bed early but, of course, I couldn’t sleep! I finally fell asleep somewhere around 3 or 4 am. I still woke up at the usual time, which is basically once the sky starts to get light. This time of year, that’s around 6am. My older daughter was up working all night, so she came to talk for a while before going to bed for the day, then her sister came by later. She ended up doing the outside cat feeding for me, so I could try and get more sleep. She couldn’t refill the water bowls, but they didn’t need to be. With so much snow melting, the cats prefer to drink out of puddles right now, instead!
I did call the garage shortly after 8am and left a follow up message about the oil sensor issue. I mentioned I’d be in town in the late morning, so if they didn’t call back before then, I’d swing by to talk.
It was getting to around 10:30am when I gave the truck a once over, then started heading out, making sure to leave the gate open for the plumber. I was in the last mile before the highway when I saw a commercial van coming in the opposite direction. I knew right away, it had to be the plumber and, sure enough, it was. As I pulled to the side to let the van pass and realized who it was, I came to a stop and waved him down. He’s been to our place before, but I don’t think he’s ever seen the truck we have now. He did recognize me once he saw me.
This gave me a chance to tell him a few things about the situation, the new pump we already had, and past concerns we had about the foot valve, but that I’d since discovered we have fantom flush, not a leaky foot valve. The toilet was why the pump would go off, even when no one was using any water. Something that stopped when I simply moved the refill tube out of where it normally runs into, so that it just fills the tank directly. He understood what I meant. He did ask if we had water to prime the pump with and I told him, we only had one big jug of drinking water right now, and that I was on my way to town to refill our empties. He said he thought he had enough water in his van that he could use. After we parted ways, I paused to message my family to let them know he was going to arrive early, and continued to town.
Along the way, I found myself stuck behind a slow moving vehicle that I couldn’t pass for a while, so it took a bit longer to get to town. That little bit of a delay was enough for that oil pressure gauge needle to drop to the line between “low” and “normal” before I even reached town.
*sigh*
So the garage was my first stop.
When I got there, I saw the owner go outside while talking on his cell phone, so I knew it might be a while before I saw him. I went into the office and the other mechanic – one of our neighbours – came over to see what was going on. I told him about the oil pressure sensor, and he did mention that this is pretty common this time of year, with the temperature changes and moisture getting into the system. Minor fluctuations, I would expect, but I told him that the needle was dropping to the point that it would set off alarms before I could drive much further than the nearest towns. I brought up that the owner had mentioned getting a different sensor, but he wasn’t part of that conversation, so he said he would let the owner know I was waiting to talk to him, then got back to working on vehicles already in the shop. I made sure to tell him to let the owner know I wasn’t in any hurry.
When the owner came in, he was apologetic for not getting back to me. He’d gotten my message, but just didn’t have a chance to call me. We talked about what is still going on with the sensor – he mentioned he’s now got several people with the same problem! – and confirmed the truck is running fine, oil levels are fine, but I just can’t be doing normal driving if I let it drop to the point of alarms going off. He understood.
I brought up about the GM sensor he’d mentioned – an OEM sensor, he clarified – and he started looking it up. Then I heard him saying, oh, that’s why we didn’t go with it from the start! Turns out it costs $160, compared to the $80 for the off market version.
With part of the problem being seasonal, and moisture getting into the system over the winter, I mentioned that I’m less than 2000km to the next oil change. Would getting an oil change help? Yes, he said, it probably would. What he suggested is that I just keep driving it until it’s time to do the oil change, then he would do an engine flush to remove the moisture, replace the sensor and do the oil change all at the same time.
Which I agreed to. Until then, though…
He then offered to disconnect the sensor until then. I told him, yes!! I had even suggested something like that in one of my messages. The gauge would be at 0, but no alarms would go off.
So he got my keys and asked the mechanic to quickly do that for me. He was done with the truck before I was done in the office!
In the middle of all this, I got a message from my daughter, saying that the plumber was almost done, and we had water again. I mentioned to the mechanic that our well pump stopped working last night, and his reaction told me he knew exactly how big of a deal that was! I’d say, he lives with a well system himself. 😄
As I was leaving, I told him, I feel almost like I’m being a pain in the butt about this sensor, but for something like this, if it’s going off for a legitimate reason… which is when he started knodding his head enthusiastically. We’ve already gone through this, and it could have been really bad on our engine! He completely understood. How can we know for sure if it’s just the sensor, or if something is going really, really wrong?
I love my technology, but sometimes, it makes things more difficult, rather than less!
That done, I was already hearing from the cat rescue lady. She was on her way. That gave me time to head across the street with the truck, to the grocery store parking lot where we were going to meet, with time to head inside. I got my water bottles refilled, plus a couple of little things, then waited for her in the truck.
When she arrived, we commiserated. She’s having troubles with her vehicle, too – and they are a lot more expensive than mine will be! Like, 10 times more expensive! In the end, she’s going to get a new engine, because it’ll cost about the same as doing the repairs.
As we were transferring the carriers over, I was greatly appreciative over the fact that they had been cleaned! We keep them in the sun room so that cats can be used to them and use them as shelters. They had been pretty much covered in muddy paw prints. She told me they were cleaned and disinfected, since all the cats we brought in were sick with something or other. Much appreciated!!
Then she brought out another carrier – a donation for us!
It’s really big, and reminds me of a space capsule or something. 😄 So we are now back up to 6 useable hard sided carriers.
Then she gave me a couple of bags of kibble, too!
They are just amazing.
The bags were both taped up on the bottom. A lot of the bags they gave us before had some sort of taped up damage, too. I think they are getting them as donations from pet stores, with bags too damaged to be sold, but still filled with perfectly good kibble.
I am just fine with taped up bags!
That done, I was soon on my way home. My daughter had let me know that the plumber had gone. The water was very cloudy and smelled of minerals, but not something she was worried about.
Once I was home and everything was unloaded, I went into the basement to check it out, and to run water in the laundry sink. There was all sorts of crud coming out of the taps!
Running the taps set off the well pump, so I went over to check it out.
It is SO much quieter!!!!
It also finished much faster. I noticed the pressure gauge was a lot more visible, and that when the tank stopped the pressure was at 50psi. With the old pump, I never saw it higher than 40. My daughter later told me that the plumber said it was supposed to be at 50, and that the pump is supposed to be triggered at 30.
My daughter told me that he had also checked the pressure tank, as that could also have been the source of trouble, and the pressure tank is fine.
As for the old pump, it turned out to be the switch. He had told her, he could just replace the switch and we could keep using it.
Then he got it running again, and they both heard just how grinding and loud it was.
My daughter told him to go ahead and replace the whole thing!
That pressure gauge on the pump, it turns out, was one he provided. The one that came with the pump faced a different direction and we would have had to twist around to be able to read it. Now, we just have to look down. The only other thing he had to provide that wasn’t in my brother’s bag of fitting was a brass fitting.
Then he’d used some bottled water he had in his van to prime the pump and get it going.
The first picture above was taking while the pump was still running.
I got some pictures and video that I sent to my brother. I got messages from him while I was in town, too. They’re in Spain now, after walking over 190km, with another 90km to go on their pilgrimage. They are averaging 15-20km/day, depending on weather conditions and access to accommodations for the night. There have been a few times when they were walking through some poor weather conditions, and even had to jump a creek at one point.
I told him about the pump and he was very happy to hear that the one he had bought earlier was used. He paid about $400 for it at the time. Just finding this sort of pipe these days is hard enough – most have the pump down in the well itself, not in a basement, like ours – but like everything else, the prices will have gone up since then.
After running water in the laundry sink in the basement, I went to do the same in the kitchen, as that sink is the furthest from the pump.
The second pictures shows what our water looked like for quite some time!
I had to remove the aerator on the faucet, as it just kept getting clogged up. We’ll need to soak it in CLR.
I kept running the water, both hot and cold, until it seemed to be clear. It’ll probably be a while longer before it’s totally clear again. Then I ran water in the bathroom sink and tub, and flushed the toilet a few extra times. I took the aerator off the bathroom sink’s faucet before running the water, and I’m glad I did. There were some pretty big pieces of grit that came through!
All this trigged the pump a few times, of course, and I’m still amazed by how quiet it is!
The last thing we need to do is run a tub clean cycle on the washing machine.
My daughter, meanwhile, had done all the clean up and putting away of things before I got home, including the honey pot.
The dump is open for short hours tomorrow morning. Now that I know I won’t be triggering any alarms on the truck, I plan to do a much needed dump run!
I am so glad this has finally been done, after all these years of stressing every time we used water, and three different plumbers worried about causing damage to the foot valve if they changed it. The foot valve seems to have handled it just fine! I’m especially relieved because we’ll probably have to use the hoses a lot to water the garden throughout the summer. I was stingy on watering things last year because I knew how much wear and tear it was causing to the pump, but with the drought and heat, it still meant quite a bit of watering.
As much of a pain it was to lose water entirely, it wasn’t for all that long, and we were well set up for it. We had drinking water, were able to keep ourselves clean, and could still use the bathroom. The outhouse wasn’t really an option. The melting snow has created a bit of a pond in front of it, as part of the moat that forms around the garage, and the pit is probably quite full of water, too.
Another reason I want to build an outdoor bathroom, without a pit, closer to the house!
In the end, things have been working about pretty much as well as they could have, and for that, I am grateful!
The Re-Farmer 