Episode #17 Water Returns to OCC and ITB Month 18

Our Country Cottage a Narrative

In this episode I will tell you about getting water, including toilets up and running, after the freeze up, at Our Country Cottage. Also, In The Beginning, ITB, looks at month 18, the beginning of a new year with new and improved problems. But first a correction. Last episode ITB month 17 I reported that the solar collectors were installed on the Cottage roof under adverse conditions. Well it wasn’t the solar collectors that were being installed it was the brackets and frame work that was being assembled on the roof in the snow and wind. While reviewing the pix for this episode of ITB I found clear shots of the solar collectors being mounted on the brackets in month 18 not 17. Now on with Episode #17 It has been about six months since Our Country Cottage had to be closed down due to power failure and cold temperatures, resulting in broken toilets and frozen taps etc. My partner and I have just treated ourselves to a vacation overseas. Before we left I let our plumber know that I would be looking to get the cottage up and running when we return. He ordered two new toilet tanks and everything was ready. The first week back, jet lag took its toll along with a mountain of mail. The next week I made it up for a preliminary check. A large tree had fallen across the drive but I managed to tow it out of the way with my vehicle. I noticed how tall the grass and weeds were along the drive. Our Country Cottage was just as I had left it. Batteries were at 100% as there was little if no power being used. I vacuumed up all the dead flies etc that I had been ignoring during the frozen times. I also wiped down the fridge/freezer, and plugged it back in. It ran as though it had never been unplugged. A couple of hours pass and it was down to temp. Next, I headed to the garage to turn my snow moving machine into my grass cutting machine. I managed to turn a relatively short easy job into a long frustrating job by trying to skip a couple of steps and rushing. I almost gave up at one point. Things just weren’t working for me. Along with other problems a hydraulic hose refused to be put back on because of the residual pressure that was there when I disconnected it. My fault, not thinking. I eventually managed to release the pressure by pressing the coupler onto the cement floor. This released the pressure in the form of a sudden spray of hydraulic fluid over the floor and the tractor and me. I spent the next half hour cleaning up the mess. Mental note. Don’t do that. So I got the conversion done and did a test mow in the centre of the turning circle. The front of the tractor became coated with dandelion fluff. But it was ready, well once the fluff was cleaned off. The plumber and I agreed to meet at ten-ish, Monday. I got there early to try to get most of the drive mowed before he arrived. And did so and the dandelion fluff wasn’t a problem as it had disappeared in the couple of days in between. I was just on my last pass, heading back to the cottage, when his van pulled up behind me. Timing is everything. An Aside As we stood outside talking I noticed a large tree starting to fall, I pointed it out and we both watched this tree hit the ground with a thud. Yes, they certainly make a sound if there is someone there, to hear them. The following is my best recollection of what we had to do to re-establish water in Our Country Cottage. He was doing most of the work with me tagging along. There was a bit of water left in the pressure tank that had to be drained off. While that was happening, the plumber removed the shower tap faceplate to examine the casting for the shower. This is one of the things that can crack when frozen. Both upstairs and downstairs looked ok. By this time the pressure tank had drained. Back in the beginning a pressure relief valve had started to leak and the only replacement I could find was a lower pressure. It worked, but it was always in the back of our minds to replace it with the proper one when it was convenient. Now was the time. He had the new pressure relief valve on in no time. Next, install a new 5 micron sediment filter. I had removed the old one at time of freeze up, just in case, but couldn’t clean the case etc as I had no water. So the housing was cleaned and a new filter installed. With the house side water turned off after the pressure tank and hot water tanks the pump was turned back on for the first time in six months. All appeared to be fine and the plumber started to replace the toilet tanks. I had the bases all ready to go with the broken bits long gone. Some time later the plumber was checking on the pressure tank and noticed that it had stopped filling. I checked the pump and it was still on but not drawing the usual amount of power as indicated on the Solar control unit. Instead of drawing 1.9Kw it was only drawing .8Kw. I remember back when it was installed and the pipe was out of the hole long enough for it to freeze there was a reduction in power, down to 1.4Kw. I would turn it off while waiting for the pipe to thaw in the hole in the ground. Once the pipe was clear the pump ran at 1.9Kw and worked. This time freezing was not the issue. I thought that, maybe because the pump had been inactive for six months there might be an accumulation of sediment stopping the pump from working. The well is 240 feet deep so you just can’t pull the pump up to clear it, so I tried stopping and starting the pump. As I was doing this I noticed that the pump power was increasing and after several cycles the pump finally made it to the original 1.9Kw power draw and the plumber said the tank was coming up to pressure. Lucky. We then noticed that the brand new filter cartridge we had just put in looked like it had been there for months. There was also some larger bits of sediment, too. This helped reinforce my sediment theory. As the pressure built up to operating pressure and the hot water tanks were refilled we started checking around the cottage for leaks. Everything held. Then the plumber turned on the water to one of the toilets and flushed it when full. I almost cried. The upstairs toilet was next and then the taps in all the various sinks. All was looking good. The showers sputtered to life, too. When he turned on the tap to the upstairs bath tub, water came from the base of the faucet instead of through the faucet. Looking at it, it looked like the faucet was sitting about an inch high, with a gap between the bottom, or base of the faucet, and the counter. The plumber confirmed this and took it off, cleaned it and reset it down to where it looked like it belonged. He turned on the tap and it worked properly. We figured that the water had frozen in the section of pipe it was attached to and pushed it up. We have an outside tap that is fed by a pipe that runs from the utility room to the west side of the cottage. The pipe is encased in spray foam and sheeted over in the crawl space. If this was broken it would be a mess to fix. So we turned it on and the plumber went into the crawl space to check it out as best as he could. All looked ok. We then turned the water on to the washer dryer unit. The plumber was looking all around the unit and under it with a flashlight. All was dry. I ran a rinse and spin cycle and all worked as expected, taking water in and pumping it out with no problem. Then it was the dishwashers turn. Again turning on the water, looking for leaks and running a quick clean cycle to see if everything worked. And it did. With all that done we put in a new 5 micron sediment filter, after cleaning all the grunge from the housing and that was that. That could have been so much worse than it was. We were reassured that all was holding by the fact that pressure was being maintained with all the taps closed etc. Still holding my breath, a bit, though. I am not overly worried as I always turn the well pump off when I leave Our Country Cottage. I only have the pump on when I am staying there, this way if something happens the pump won’t continue to run filling the cottage and draining the batteries. At the end of the week I went back up to Our Country Cottage to do some more mowing and check on stuff. When I went in, I turned on the pump and it started to run and run for some time. This indicated to me that the pressure had been lost over time. I started looking for pools of water on the floor. Everything looked good even the utility room was dry. Then in the upstairs bathroom I noticed the water in the toilet was moving. All the workings of both toilets were brand new but the upstairs toilet was running very slowly. A couple of flushes later and the flow had stopped. Hopefully it just needed a bit of bedding in. I will be keeping an eye on both toilets for a while now. I managed to get some edge trimming and mowing done too. But when the grass is tall it takes longer to do. I will probably need one or two more goes at it. Then it will be time to start over. I have yet to figure out what to do about the backup generator. I will probably take a closer look at the broken one, now that the weather is more conducive to outside tasks. It still might be something simple and with the new improved power alert system I might be tempted to give it another chance. Gad what am I saying! And now ITB, In The Beginning Month 18 January, A year and a half in. A lot of pictures, emails and texts provided the information and memory boost to put the following together and it’s starting to get painful again. This month had me going up to Our Country Cottage nine times. The first visit started with the solar panels with a layer of snow on them. The generator was running and no power was coming from the panels at all. I started taking pictures of the solar control unit reading and the displays on the charge controllers. I had little if no idea what they meant so I would photoshop them together and email them to the solar system guy I was dealing with when I got back to the city. But while I was there we would text each other and so began the tweaking of the power system of Our Country Cottage. At this point the solar control panel was in the battery room, the battery room where cell phone calls and texts go to die. No reception at all. Texts worked well, however, when I climbed up and outside the room to ground level, and I would have a written record of what to do and the values I needed to change, on my phone when I went to adjust them. Much better than hand written scribbled messages on a scrap piece of paper while trying to keep the phone to my ear with my shoulder and balancing a writing surface on something with the wind and snow blowing etc. The pictures from this month were riddled with close ups of readings and settings. Settings that were four, five, six layers deep in the menu. I also had a fear of inadvertently making a wrong move and causing a catastrophic event. Anyway by the end of the day the batteries were up to 100% and the solar panels were clear of snow. Three days pass and now the batteries are at 80% but being charged by the sun. A red error light is flashing to tell me that the generator has completed its exercise amongst other things. Exercise is the last thing this generator needs. Exercise is needed if the unit hasn’t been run for a month or so. So far this one is running about everyday. Something else to figure out. We now have 647 hours on the gen with the propane tank dropping to 44%. I notice the solar collectors in the garage waiting for installation. Texts are exchanged and solar controller settings are adjusted. I am back the next day, not being overconfident in anything, to find another fifteen hours on the generator, the batts at 84% and being charged by the sun. Good good. And the painter is painting. The following day I go up again, still not filled with confidence, to find the batteries down at 69%, some solar charging and the generator running. OK. Gen at 662.8 hours and propane at 41% There was an Event, red LED flashing, to tell me that there was a State Of Charge error and a low battery error. More adjustments needed, more texts sent. I noticed an electrical plate had been installed in the back hall. This is a good sign that the solar control panel will soon be moved from the battery room to inside Our Country Cottage to a much more convenient location. By the time I left the batteries were down to 49% but recovering with the help of the generator. The sun wasn’t high enough to help much as that little cube heater continued to heat the cottage. I let six days pass till my next visit. Probably fed up but anywayz. The day was cloudy. I find the generator now up to 724.5 hours and the propane down to 30%. That works out to about 10 hours a day. Not good, but a ceiling fan has been installed in the living room. Can’t help but think how much easier all this would have been in the summer months. The following day is sunny and I arrive to find a bee hive of activity, well, in comparison, that is. It is this day that the solar collectors are being installed on the roof. Inside, tiles are being installed in the kitchen and bathrooms. Three days go by before my next visit and we are now into the second half of the month. It’s a very sunny day but I find the generator running with no solar charging. I reset the system and the sun starts doing its thing. More pictures of readings are taken and more texts are going back and forth. Ideas and concepts are exchanged. Tweaking continues. The tiles in the kitchen and bathroom are finished and look great if you don’t look too close. A thermostat on the wall shows the temperature and indicates that the in floor radiant heating is staggering to life. I get around to taking pictures of the broken bolts on the generator that my plumber told me about. There are 4 bolts that hold the generator to the motor. At this time I see at least two of them hanging down. I try to reattach one but it is too short. Another three days pass and on a cloudy day I find the batteries at 63% with some solar charging taking place. The utility room is looking more complete and more readings are recorded via camera. Hello…… A full week goes by till my next visit and we are close to the end of a very long month. The generator is running again while the sun is shining brightly. My attention is diverted to an excavator to the west of the cottage, either getting ready to do some septic work or just finished. There is no one to ask anyway. This work was agreed to a couple of months ago and had been delayed by snow fall after snow fall. Back to the continuing saga of power at Our Country Cottage I again find no solar charging. Another system reset gets those photons working as they should. More texts, pix, and tweaks. The gen was now at 776 hours and the propane tank had been filled, well sort of. Now get this, I got a note with my propane bill saying that due to the very high cost of propane at the time of filling they only filled it to 60% in hopes that by the next fill prices would have dropped. I thought this was very considerate of them, I also thought that there probably won’t be another time where I will be putting so much time on the generator, using that much propane. I also thought, once again, how much easier it would have been doing all this in the warmer months. I left that day with the batteries being charged to 100% by the sun. I have another note for that day. Apparently, a flooring guy showed up to do the garage loft floor. He didn’t know where it was going and seeing how he didn’t have the underlay or the heating pad, he left without doing anything. More things that happened in month 18. The lighting fixtures were ready to be picked up. All the LED bulbs were ordered, and the radiator for the back hall was added to the list, with specifications figured out and a quote being accepted. Well I think that’s enough of that. Soooo Next podcast, Episode#18 ITB Month 19, is not getting any easier, and an OCC update. For pictures and more info, you can visit our website at www.ourcountrycottageanarrative.com If you have any comments, questions or if you would like to be added to the “Friends of OCCaN” Our Country Cottage A Narrative, mailing list, you can email me at [e-mail]. Members on the mailing list will get website and podcast updates as soon as I do :). The Our Country Cottage a Narrative podcast is on iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play so you can subscribe there and get the podcast downloaded automatically when they get released. Till next time have a good one.