Last night Anne and I wound up listing the movies that we've seen in the theater so far this year. We don't do this much, not being a fan of crowds and rude theater patrons. In fact, three in a year is an abnormally large total for us. Anyway, I realized that I'd mentioned The Dark Knight in the blog already, but not the other two. For completeness then:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: This was pretty good. We enjoyed it, and put it up there close to the first Indiana Jones movie in terms of quality. Check it out. It's a fun romp, but don't ask questions about lead lined refrigerators or the like, OK?
WALL-E: Another good movie. My dad thought it was too slow, but Anne and I enjoyed it. Visually it's stunning until the humans appear, then it becomes more or less just another animated film. Check it out too, and be sure to note the references to HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Neither if these is nearly as good as The Dark Knight, but they're both good none-the-less. We'll wind up owning both on DVD. The wait for The Dark Knight on DVD will be much tougher, though.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Mountain Living - Green Waste Disposal
We live on a couple of acres of land. It's mostly very old pear orchard, so old the trees are slowly dying despite our care. We have redwoods along the street side, and a mix of things - mostly oaks - scattered about and along the drainage ditch the real estate listing for the house amusingly called a "seasonal creek".
What do you do with that much land? Mostly you mow it to keep the weeds down. That's it. Sometimes my wife plants a new tree to replace a dead one, or to fill in a space she thought was empty. Mowing around trees is a pain - particularly with a 400 pound high weed mower - so I dislike the new tree thing, but I don't get a vote.
In addition to mowing, however, we toss our green waste out there. We're don't throw anything nasty out - we don't want rats - but vegetable trimmings and the like do get tossed out into the orchard. A day or two in the sun makes most of it dry up and disappear. The rest is eaten by the deer or turned into mulch by the mower.
Nothing about this is offensive. Tonight, for example, it was some onion skins and the trimmed bits of a few peppers. I suspect most of those living up here do the same sort of thing. Mother nature will break this stuff down quickly and it saves room in the garbage. We have a friend - who will remain nameless - who readily admits this behavior, but she's also said she will never be allowed to live in town again. She's thrown whole pumpkins off her deck.
But I digress, and believe it or not there is a point to this story.
About a month ago we discovered that our vegetable peeler was missing. That's not a normal thing to have go on walkabout, and given the introduction you've probably already figured out what happened. We weren't that smart.
We checked all over the kitchen and found nothing. Eventually we gave up, and just yesterday Anne bought two new peelers. (We're going to be processing pears soon, and two peelers will make that go faster.)
This morning I did some repair work on my weed whacker and headed out into the yard to take down the tall grass on the slope near the house. Some time after starting I found the vegetable peeler laying on the ground, in perfect condition, having been thrown out there who knows how long ago.
The usual greet waste disposal event goes like this: the trimmings are gathered on a cutting board or in some vessel, taken out onto the deck, and tossed over the railing. Apparently someone - almost certainly me - piled lettuce trimmings or something on the cutting board, covering the peeler and rendering invisible, and tossed it out into the night.
Now we own three OXO vegetable peelers, a lifetime supply if I don't throw them away again.
What do you do with that much land? Mostly you mow it to keep the weeds down. That's it. Sometimes my wife plants a new tree to replace a dead one, or to fill in a space she thought was empty. Mowing around trees is a pain - particularly with a 400 pound high weed mower - so I dislike the new tree thing, but I don't get a vote.
In addition to mowing, however, we toss our green waste out there. We're don't throw anything nasty out - we don't want rats - but vegetable trimmings and the like do get tossed out into the orchard. A day or two in the sun makes most of it dry up and disappear. The rest is eaten by the deer or turned into mulch by the mower.
Nothing about this is offensive. Tonight, for example, it was some onion skins and the trimmed bits of a few peppers. I suspect most of those living up here do the same sort of thing. Mother nature will break this stuff down quickly and it saves room in the garbage. We have a friend - who will remain nameless - who readily admits this behavior, but she's also said she will never be allowed to live in town again. She's thrown whole pumpkins off her deck.
But I digress, and believe it or not there is a point to this story.
About a month ago we discovered that our vegetable peeler was missing. That's not a normal thing to have go on walkabout, and given the introduction you've probably already figured out what happened. We weren't that smart.
We checked all over the kitchen and found nothing. Eventually we gave up, and just yesterday Anne bought two new peelers. (We're going to be processing pears soon, and two peelers will make that go faster.)
This morning I did some repair work on my weed whacker and headed out into the yard to take down the tall grass on the slope near the house. Some time after starting I found the vegetable peeler laying on the ground, in perfect condition, having been thrown out there who knows how long ago.
The usual greet waste disposal event goes like this: the trimmings are gathered on a cutting board or in some vessel, taken out onto the deck, and tossed over the railing. Apparently someone - almost certainly me - piled lettuce trimmings or something on the cutting board, covering the peeler and rendering invisible, and tossed it out into the night.
Now we own three OXO vegetable peelers, a lifetime supply if I don't throw them away again.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Mountain Living - Water Part III
The next update in the water saga, but first, a recap. It's been two weeks since the last post on this topic.
You'll recall that our water quality was bad, and that the production from our reverse osmosis unit dropped off. That started the cascade of events that lead to the discovery of a low water level in the tanks and no water being pumped into the tank from the well. Then we found the blowout in the well pipe, the slime all over the well, and then we left on vacation with the well disassembled and the well pro fixing it the next day after the acid treatment was done. Remember all that?
So we actually got home on Wednesday, but the story resumes about 2.5 hours before we got home. My cell phone rang with the news - from my friend Alan who'd been watching the place and watering the garden - that he'd found a water leak down by the tank. He thought it was in the line to the garden and shut it off. OK, not a big deal. I can fix that in a day or a week or whatever, so we proceeded on home and I didn't bother to run right out and examine things.
That changed when Anne determined we had no water in the house at all.
Meandering down to the tank I saw that Alan had shut off the water to the entire house. OK, I turned it back on and immediately heard the hissing of a small leak nearby, in a joint in the main line to the house. What to do? Obviously we start by turning it back off again and pondering the options. Fixing it in short order - before the hardware stores close - seemed the best choice.
So I got out a shovel and dug up the area around the leak - so I could get at it and see what needed fixing. Then I rooted around in my stash of PVC pipe fittings to see if I already had the right parts. Fortunately, I did. 45 minutes later I've cut out the damaged fitting, replaced it, and have the water back on. All good.
The next task is to flush all the lines to the house, since whenever we lose water pressure the gunk on the inside of the lines comes loose and we get filthy brown water for a while. Not fun, but relatively simple. Except for the toilet fill valve that is now partially plugged with that gunk, but I've hated that valve ever since I installed it some time back and now I've got a reason to replace it real soon.
At this point there is just one little detail I've left out. While working around the tank I noted that we had a new pump controller. It had been changed while we were gone. That's odd. Why would that be? The well pro must have found something was wrong with the one we had and replaced it. Not good, but I'll call him and find out the specifics as soon as I get a chance.
This morning he told me he was coming out today to make sure things were still working right. Interesting. Worrisome, but interesting. When he arrived a while later we talked. Putting the pump back into the well was no problem, but when he started things up, the controller wasn't shutting the pump off properly. Not wanting to burn it out, he'd installed a new one, but it had taken several visits and some time to properly calibrate it to shut off the pump at the right time.
Apparently, in addition to everything else, the water production from the well is dropping off. That's why it took so long to calibrate the controller - waiting for the well to recharge. Not good, but we are in the second year in a row of low rainfall, so not entirely unexpected.
All this extra work does not bode well for the bill, but water is a necessity, and even with a big bill it will be cheaper than trucking water up here all the time. As it happens the damaged pump controller has been sent off to the manufacturer. If they decide it was their problem, they might send me a new replacement, and that would take that cost off the bill. I'm not counting on that outcome, but we'll see.
The good news is that the well is slowly catching up again - the water level in the tank is rising - now that the pipe is repaired and the pump is working. At the current rate it will take a while, but it is catching up.
And that's where we stand. Still no samples sent off for testing. Still no idea what I will be doing about filtration. Nadda. That'll all have to wait for next week. At least, I hope nothing comes up to interfere with that plan.
With that, the three of you tracking this story are now as up to date as I can make you. Stay tuned, or keep those RSS readers going, and I'll get you more when I can.
You'll recall that our water quality was bad, and that the production from our reverse osmosis unit dropped off. That started the cascade of events that lead to the discovery of a low water level in the tanks and no water being pumped into the tank from the well. Then we found the blowout in the well pipe, the slime all over the well, and then we left on vacation with the well disassembled and the well pro fixing it the next day after the acid treatment was done. Remember all that?
So we actually got home on Wednesday, but the story resumes about 2.5 hours before we got home. My cell phone rang with the news - from my friend Alan who'd been watching the place and watering the garden - that he'd found a water leak down by the tank. He thought it was in the line to the garden and shut it off. OK, not a big deal. I can fix that in a day or a week or whatever, so we proceeded on home and I didn't bother to run right out and examine things.
That changed when Anne determined we had no water in the house at all.
Meandering down to the tank I saw that Alan had shut off the water to the entire house. OK, I turned it back on and immediately heard the hissing of a small leak nearby, in a joint in the main line to the house. What to do? Obviously we start by turning it back off again and pondering the options. Fixing it in short order - before the hardware stores close - seemed the best choice.
So I got out a shovel and dug up the area around the leak - so I could get at it and see what needed fixing. Then I rooted around in my stash of PVC pipe fittings to see if I already had the right parts. Fortunately, I did. 45 minutes later I've cut out the damaged fitting, replaced it, and have the water back on. All good.
The next task is to flush all the lines to the house, since whenever we lose water pressure the gunk on the inside of the lines comes loose and we get filthy brown water for a while. Not fun, but relatively simple. Except for the toilet fill valve that is now partially plugged with that gunk, but I've hated that valve ever since I installed it some time back and now I've got a reason to replace it real soon.
At this point there is just one little detail I've left out. While working around the tank I noted that we had a new pump controller. It had been changed while we were gone. That's odd. Why would that be? The well pro must have found something was wrong with the one we had and replaced it. Not good, but I'll call him and find out the specifics as soon as I get a chance.
This morning he told me he was coming out today to make sure things were still working right. Interesting. Worrisome, but interesting. When he arrived a while later we talked. Putting the pump back into the well was no problem, but when he started things up, the controller wasn't shutting the pump off properly. Not wanting to burn it out, he'd installed a new one, but it had taken several visits and some time to properly calibrate it to shut off the pump at the right time.
Apparently, in addition to everything else, the water production from the well is dropping off. That's why it took so long to calibrate the controller - waiting for the well to recharge. Not good, but we are in the second year in a row of low rainfall, so not entirely unexpected.
All this extra work does not bode well for the bill, but water is a necessity, and even with a big bill it will be cheaper than trucking water up here all the time. As it happens the damaged pump controller has been sent off to the manufacturer. If they decide it was their problem, they might send me a new replacement, and that would take that cost off the bill. I'm not counting on that outcome, but we'll see.
The good news is that the well is slowly catching up again - the water level in the tank is rising - now that the pipe is repaired and the pump is working. At the current rate it will take a while, but it is catching up.
And that's where we stand. Still no samples sent off for testing. Still no idea what I will be doing about filtration. Nadda. That'll all have to wait for next week. At least, I hope nothing comes up to interfere with that plan.
With that, the three of you tracking this story are now as up to date as I can make you. Stay tuned, or keep those RSS readers going, and I'll get you more when I can.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Dogs and Travel
Getting back from a vacation these days means a huge pile of email that you're behind on. In my case, the damages were slightly reduced by the fact that I had connectivity for part of the trip. My wife, on the other hand, came home to 1200 messages needing review. That's after a bunch had already been filtered into various files and others had been automatically discarded.
What I hadn't considered was that dogs fall behind too. We took our usual walk this morning for the first time in 2 weeks. Walking the loop we quickly discovered that the dogs were trying to catch up too. There was much news to be read (smelled) and many messages to be left in response to things other dogs (or cats, pigs, dear, etc.) had left in our absence.
We get behind on email. Dogs get behind on pee-mail.
What I hadn't considered was that dogs fall behind too. We took our usual walk this morning for the first time in 2 weeks. Walking the loop we quickly discovered that the dogs were trying to catch up too. There was much news to be read (smelled) and many messages to be left in response to things other dogs (or cats, pigs, dear, etc.) had left in our absence.
We get behind on email. Dogs get behind on pee-mail.
I'm Home
Vacation is over and the long drive back from Chicago is done. That means there will be posts here again. I've got a couple lined up in my head, but right now I am digging out from beneath the email blizzard. I'll be back here soon. No, that's not a threat. I hope.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Mountain Living - Water Part II
Here we go with the next installment of the well water saga...
The well pro arrived today to acid treat the well. What's that, I hear you ask?
You may recall from an earlier post that there was a lot of iron and sulphur bacteria in the well. One way to kill that off - as well as to remove some kinds of mineral buildup inside the well and thus possibly increase water production - is to pour a lot of acid into the well. In this case he used 10 gallons of a solution that was labelled as containing two different kinds of acid. In addition, he put something like 40 pounds of dry ice down there too. That froths up the acid and water, moving things around, killing off more buggies, and removing more mineral gunk.
That acid micture sits down in the well for 24 hours doing it's job. Then the well pro comes back tomorrow, reinstalls the pump, and pumps out all (roughly) 200 gallons of water, acid and muck from the well. That stuff just gets dumped out on the ground. Then things are hooked back up as usual and the fresh water flowing into the well is pumped into my holding tanks.
The news from the well pro was pretty good. The old well pump tested out reasonably well. It's a bit less efficient than a new pump, but that's from a couple of years of use pumping water and slime up a pipe 380 feet long. So we don't need a new pump. What we have can be reinstalled, and a great cost savings.
Some things will change, though. First, the well pro tells me that it is possible the check valve built into the pump trapped an air bubble inside it. If that happened, the pump might have run and heated up without moving any water. That would not be good, since the moving water is the coolant for the pump. To get around that possibility, he's going to disable the check valve. If any bubbles get in there, they'll be able to rise up the pipe and thus get away from the pump to a place they can do no harm.
In addition, he's going to replace the bottom 40 feet of 1" PVC with 1.25" PVC. He will install a check valve between those two sections - to replace the disabled one in the pump - and a bell reducer above them to adapt back to the 1" PVC coming the rest of the way up the well. That should make for better flow out of the pump, and heavier (sturdier) pipe down at the bottom of the well.
With luck, all of that happens tomorrow while we're away. The well pro will call when he's done, and I'll update you on that later.
Assuming all of that happens as planned, it will get water flowing back into our holding tanks. But we still have to deal with all the filtration equipment issues, and they won't get worked again until mid to late August.
So look for Mountain Living - Water Part III in a few weeks. In the meantime, remember that we're travelling and I won't have much internet access, so take care and look for updates at longer intervals until we get back.
The well pro arrived today to acid treat the well. What's that, I hear you ask?
You may recall from an earlier post that there was a lot of iron and sulphur bacteria in the well. One way to kill that off - as well as to remove some kinds of mineral buildup inside the well and thus possibly increase water production - is to pour a lot of acid into the well. In this case he used 10 gallons of a solution that was labelled as containing two different kinds of acid. In addition, he put something like 40 pounds of dry ice down there too. That froths up the acid and water, moving things around, killing off more buggies, and removing more mineral gunk.
That acid micture sits down in the well for 24 hours doing it's job. Then the well pro comes back tomorrow, reinstalls the pump, and pumps out all (roughly) 200 gallons of water, acid and muck from the well. That stuff just gets dumped out on the ground. Then things are hooked back up as usual and the fresh water flowing into the well is pumped into my holding tanks.
The news from the well pro was pretty good. The old well pump tested out reasonably well. It's a bit less efficient than a new pump, but that's from a couple of years of use pumping water and slime up a pipe 380 feet long. So we don't need a new pump. What we have can be reinstalled, and a great cost savings.
Some things will change, though. First, the well pro tells me that it is possible the check valve built into the pump trapped an air bubble inside it. If that happened, the pump might have run and heated up without moving any water. That would not be good, since the moving water is the coolant for the pump. To get around that possibility, he's going to disable the check valve. If any bubbles get in there, they'll be able to rise up the pipe and thus get away from the pump to a place they can do no harm.
In addition, he's going to replace the bottom 40 feet of 1" PVC with 1.25" PVC. He will install a check valve between those two sections - to replace the disabled one in the pump - and a bell reducer above them to adapt back to the 1" PVC coming the rest of the way up the well. That should make for better flow out of the pump, and heavier (sturdier) pipe down at the bottom of the well.
With luck, all of that happens tomorrow while we're away. The well pro will call when he's done, and I'll update you on that later.
Assuming all of that happens as planned, it will get water flowing back into our holding tanks. But we still have to deal with all the filtration equipment issues, and they won't get worked again until mid to late August.
So look for Mountain Living - Water Part III in a few weeks. In the meantime, remember that we're travelling and I won't have much internet access, so take care and look for updates at longer intervals until we get back.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Go See "The Dark Knight"
I'll make this short & sweet: go see The Dark Knight.
This isn't your campy, 1960's Batman. This is dark, gritty, violent, and challenging. Bruce Wayne's choices are awful, and the Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger is chaotic evil incarnate. I always felt that Jack Nicholson did an OK job as the joker, but not fantastic. This Joker is really disturbing. Really.
This is far and away the best comic book film adaptation I have ever seen. It's true to what Batman was supposed to be, and yet it's updated and very real. Very in the present. It's disturbingly possible.
Go. Watch the movie. I'll bet it haunts you the way it's haunting me.
This isn't your campy, 1960's Batman. This is dark, gritty, violent, and challenging. Bruce Wayne's choices are awful, and the Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger is chaotic evil incarnate. I always felt that Jack Nicholson did an OK job as the joker, but not fantastic. This Joker is really disturbing. Really.
This is far and away the best comic book film adaptation I have ever seen. It's true to what Batman was supposed to be, and yet it's updated and very real. Very in the present. It's disturbingly possible.
Go. Watch the movie. I'll bet it haunts you the way it's haunting me.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Mountain Living - Water Part I.V
Aside: I have no idea how the Romans would have noted 1.5. Would it have been I.V as I've done it? No clue. Anyway...
Just talked to the well pro and he (obviously) didn't get here today. As he kind of expected, the job today went long, and he didn't get back to my pump testing.
He promises he will have it fixed and installed before Wednesday, though, so the next water update is delayed until he gets the work done, and possibly longer. I've got a two week vacation coming up soon as well that may delay things. If I have a computer that works while I'm gone I might be able to post something, but if not, this will be a quiet blog until I get back. Many of you - if there are many of you reading this - will probably appreciate that.
Just talked to the well pro and he (obviously) didn't get here today. As he kind of expected, the job today went long, and he didn't get back to my pump testing.
He promises he will have it fixed and installed before Wednesday, though, so the next water update is delayed until he gets the work done, and possibly longer. I've got a two week vacation coming up soon as well that may delay things. If I have a computer that works while I'm gone I might be able to post something, but if not, this will be a quiet blog until I get back. Many of you - if there are many of you reading this - will probably appreciate that.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Mountain Living - Water Part I
A couple of weeks ago we noted that our RO (reverse osmosis) drinking water system wasn't keeping up with usage. That seemed odd, as we don't use that much, so I checked it out and could find nothing obviously wrong.
So I called the (major) manufacturer - who will remain nameless to avoid lawsuits - and asked the cost of a replacement membrane. I'd changed out all the pre and post filters earlier this year, so it could only be the membrane, right? Actually, no. It was replaced only 6 months or so earlier, and it shouldn't need replacement either. Anyway, a new membrane is about $170. Ouch. Something that's supposed to last 4-5 years is dying in 18 months, and I need to spend that much to replace it?
Asking why it is dying so soon I get "this is an old unit and they have an expected lifespan of 10 - 15 years." Excuse me? I replace everything that can be replaced regularly and the only things left - mostly a plastic housing - still has a limited lifespan?
So I decide to let the (major) manufacturer send a sales guy out to look it over, see what he thinks, and make recommendations. That's free. Sending a service technician out costs well over $100 just to get him to the door.
The sales guy arrives, looks things over, tests the water for total dissolved solids and says "Wow. That's really bad." Turns out that the RO system is still emitting water with TDS readings of over 400. My regular kitchen tap is a bit over 500, so the RO unit is really trashed. The water isn't that hard either - no softener needed.
The upshot is that our turbidity filter is no longer working. It's made by the same company and needs to be replaced, and was installed when the RO unit was installed, back in 1993. Cost is $2400, but that's the "special deal" they're offering this month only. Grrr. I hate marketing crap like that. Fine, I tell him to let me look around, ponder and that I'll get back to you.
Next step: find a local vendor that sells filtration equipment from other manufacturers. I talk to a nice lady in a nearby town who wants to get samples of my water to test so they know what needs to be done to it. I can do that, and I do, but in the process I find I cannot get my well pump to produce water. That means I cannot give her a sample straight from the well itself, but more importantly it may mean the well pump isn't working for some reason, and that would be bad. The worst threat is the well could have run dry, but other - more mechanical - issues are easily possible as well. Eventually I put on my rose colored glasses and assume it's because the well had just stopped running and had to recover. (It's never that, but it sounds good, right?)
The nice lady calls me back a day or two later and says that I was right, our TDS is very high, and it's not very hard. Interestingly, her equipment vendor wants to test the water himself because he needs answers to questions she can't give him. That's fine, but I need more samples, including water straight from the well.
I try to get that sample again, but it's still not working. Now I have to debug things. The level in the tanks is down, but not far, so whatever is going on just started. I check power coming out of the contactor and it works. Power goes into the pump controller too. At that point I'm out of my depth. When it goes into solid state electronics, it's time to call the pro.
The pro arrived today and quickly discovered that the pump is actually running, but nothing is coming out. That means we have to pull the pump out of the well to find out what is going on. 380 feet of one inch PVC pipe later, we find this:
The top of the pump housing is at the bottom of the picture. The pipe comes out and immediately you see distortion and bending. Inside the black rubber torque arrestor farther up you'll see more of the same, but this time with a big hole in it.
Something heated up the pipe and water so much that the pipe got weak and the water blew a big hole in it. That's bad.
What might cause things to heat up like that? Well, one possibility is this:
That gooey stuff next to the well head seal is slime from the pipes. There was a lot of it, and my pump guy says it's mostly iron bacteria of some sort. It may have clogged the pump to the point that it was pumping less water and heating up the water in the well. If it got hot enough, the blown out PVC could result.
I'm really glad we noted this when we did. Had I not looked it could have continued running - since the pump was running continuously since the blowout - and driven our power bill through the roof. As it is, we have no idea how long the problem was going on. It might have been running for a week before we did anything about it.
And now, I have to pause the tale. Thus far, I don't know what happens beyond that point. The pump went back to the shop with the well pro, who will examine and clean it looking for the issue that heated things up. In addition, he will bench test it to see what kind of shape it's in. We'll probably acid treat the well to kill some of the bacteria living in it, and we'll need to replace that last 20 feet of pipe, of course. But the water sample from the well can't be taken until all that is done, so I still don't know what we need for water treatment equipment from my local supplier, and I have to get that done before I bother doing anything about fixing or replacing the RO unit.
Those of you getting city water, consider yourselves lucky. Someone else deals with all this for you, and you pay a few dollars a month. I'm pretty sure that amortized over all the years we've lived here, I pay a LOT more for a gallon of tap water than most city dwellers.
So I called the (major) manufacturer - who will remain nameless to avoid lawsuits - and asked the cost of a replacement membrane. I'd changed out all the pre and post filters earlier this year, so it could only be the membrane, right? Actually, no. It was replaced only 6 months or so earlier, and it shouldn't need replacement either. Anyway, a new membrane is about $170. Ouch. Something that's supposed to last 4-5 years is dying in 18 months, and I need to spend that much to replace it?
Asking why it is dying so soon I get "this is an old unit and they have an expected lifespan of 10 - 15 years." Excuse me? I replace everything that can be replaced regularly and the only things left - mostly a plastic housing - still has a limited lifespan?
So I decide to let the (major) manufacturer send a sales guy out to look it over, see what he thinks, and make recommendations. That's free. Sending a service technician out costs well over $100 just to get him to the door.
The sales guy arrives, looks things over, tests the water for total dissolved solids and says "Wow. That's really bad." Turns out that the RO system is still emitting water with TDS readings of over 400. My regular kitchen tap is a bit over 500, so the RO unit is really trashed. The water isn't that hard either - no softener needed.
The upshot is that our turbidity filter is no longer working. It's made by the same company and needs to be replaced, and was installed when the RO unit was installed, back in 1993. Cost is $2400, but that's the "special deal" they're offering this month only. Grrr. I hate marketing crap like that. Fine, I tell him to let me look around, ponder and that I'll get back to you.
Next step: find a local vendor that sells filtration equipment from other manufacturers. I talk to a nice lady in a nearby town who wants to get samples of my water to test so they know what needs to be done to it. I can do that, and I do, but in the process I find I cannot get my well pump to produce water. That means I cannot give her a sample straight from the well itself, but more importantly it may mean the well pump isn't working for some reason, and that would be bad. The worst threat is the well could have run dry, but other - more mechanical - issues are easily possible as well. Eventually I put on my rose colored glasses and assume it's because the well had just stopped running and had to recover. (It's never that, but it sounds good, right?)
The nice lady calls me back a day or two later and says that I was right, our TDS is very high, and it's not very hard. Interestingly, her equipment vendor wants to test the water himself because he needs answers to questions she can't give him. That's fine, but I need more samples, including water straight from the well.
I try to get that sample again, but it's still not working. Now I have to debug things. The level in the tanks is down, but not far, so whatever is going on just started. I check power coming out of the contactor and it works. Power goes into the pump controller too. At that point I'm out of my depth. When it goes into solid state electronics, it's time to call the pro.
The pro arrived today and quickly discovered that the pump is actually running, but nothing is coming out. That means we have to pull the pump out of the well to find out what is going on. 380 feet of one inch PVC pipe later, we find this:
The top of the pump housing is at the bottom of the picture. The pipe comes out and immediately you see distortion and bending. Inside the black rubber torque arrestor farther up you'll see more of the same, but this time with a big hole in it.
Something heated up the pipe and water so much that the pipe got weak and the water blew a big hole in it. That's bad.
What might cause things to heat up like that? Well, one possibility is this:
That gooey stuff next to the well head seal is slime from the pipes. There was a lot of it, and my pump guy says it's mostly iron bacteria of some sort. It may have clogged the pump to the point that it was pumping less water and heating up the water in the well. If it got hot enough, the blown out PVC could result.
I'm really glad we noted this when we did. Had I not looked it could have continued running - since the pump was running continuously since the blowout - and driven our power bill through the roof. As it is, we have no idea how long the problem was going on. It might have been running for a week before we did anything about it.
And now, I have to pause the tale. Thus far, I don't know what happens beyond that point. The pump went back to the shop with the well pro, who will examine and clean it looking for the issue that heated things up. In addition, he will bench test it to see what kind of shape it's in. We'll probably acid treat the well to kill some of the bacteria living in it, and we'll need to replace that last 20 feet of pipe, of course. But the water sample from the well can't be taken until all that is done, so I still don't know what we need for water treatment equipment from my local supplier, and I have to get that done before I bother doing anything about fixing or replacing the RO unit.
Those of you getting city water, consider yourselves lucky. Someone else deals with all this for you, and you pay a few dollars a month. I'm pretty sure that amortized over all the years we've lived here, I pay a LOT more for a gallon of tap water than most city dwellers.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Some Overdue Fencing News
I went to Summer Nationals in San Jose on July 8, 2008. I fenced in the men's epee, age 40-49. Despite injuries, lack of practice, and lack of confidence, I finished 13th out of 55. Not bad. For those interested, here is the looooooong version of that story.
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