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Mar. 1st, 2009 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickContinuing my string of "Weekends that involve me doing work shit at one point or another" which has held fast since the start of someone's time in the Warm and Sunny, I spent a hour today playing around with the water. Again. There had been a LEAK past Sandra's house towards Kutz's house. That leak is now fixed. We will be getting a bill from Lingenfelter for that. So, pressure was soft this weekend and it did not recover after everybody (except Terry, who is apparently here all the time now, bless his heart) went home. Therefore, Sunday afternoon, I went looking for leaks.
Step 1 was to go look at all the meters, see which one was moving. Meter up back of my house: Good. Meter behind lodge: good. The meter for the other side of the lake, it was moving. All other meters, at rest. (Note to self: we must rebuilt the lid for the pit to the across-the-lake meter. It has a rotted 2x4 and the plywood is soft. Nice summer project, that.)
I went over to Sandra's to the pit up there on the powerline. (This pit has valves but not a meter.) I shut off the big valve that goes to Sandra's house and beyond. The packing nut was spraying water all over hell and gone when I did that. I went home. I got a wrench. I fixed the packing nut. I went back and looked at the meter again. It was still going round, about ten gallons a minute, give or take. (This is A LOT slower than "a big leak". It's a not-very-big leak. When there are big leaks, the meter racks up ten gallons in maybe five seconds, so something like 120 gpm. Big leaks lose a hideous amount of water.) Anyway, 10 gpm is enough to make the pressure a little soft but it's not OMG THERE IS NO WATER or anything.
So, the next thing I did was went down to Terry's house to see about the pit behind his place. (This pit also does not have a meter -- it freezes meters to death so we stopped putting meters in there. It does have an excellent and beautiful quarter-turn main shutoff valve in pvc, though.) Terry comes out: "You working on the water? The pressure's a little soft." Yes. Yes, I am. "Where's it leaking?" I dunno, Captain Obvious, that's why I'm messing around in the water pits. (I did not say that part.) We shut the main off at his house.
At that time, I asked Terry if anybody had been down past him over the weekend, y'know, visiting his/her house and perhaps leaving a toilet running or failing to shut off his/her water properly upon departure. (People do this shit and then it makes there be no water for me. Stupid people. Anyway this is a thing to check instead of "OMG THE MAIN IS BUSTED" because it's a lot cheaper and easier to shut off the water to someone's freaking house than it is to dig up endless linear feet of water main. Terry said no, he hadn't seen anybody past him over the weekend.
I went back and looked at the meter again. It had stopped dead. (This is a good thing.) At this point, I suspect that the 10 gpm issue is down below Terry's house on that side of the lake. There still may not *be* a leak. Just because Terry didn't see anyone does not mean nobody was up over the weekend to fuck up the water. I'll still have to go look at outside water shutoff pits and see if I can narrow things down further, like by using the shutoff at the back of Orpin's, I think it is, but we have a good starting point: The place to start looking is on the water line down below the shutoff valve at Terry's house.) We are supposed to have Nor'easter shitty cold weather this week and next, but if it gets fit anytime soon, I'll see if I can firm a location up and then have Lingenfelter out to see what he can see on that front.
Finally, I went over to Sandra's. I opened the valve to her house and Kutz's. I went back and looked at the meter yet again. (This meter and I are old friends.) The meter was *still* not moving, which meant that Lingenfelter had indeed fixed the stuff past Sandra's all fixed.
In other news, I went down and checked on the house and watered the plants and dropped off some mail. Everything looks fine on that front.
Step 1 was to go look at all the meters, see which one was moving. Meter up back of my house: Good. Meter behind lodge: good. The meter for the other side of the lake, it was moving. All other meters, at rest. (Note to self: we must rebuilt the lid for the pit to the across-the-lake meter. It has a rotted 2x4 and the plywood is soft. Nice summer project, that.)
I went over to Sandra's to the pit up there on the powerline. (This pit has valves but not a meter.) I shut off the big valve that goes to Sandra's house and beyond. The packing nut was spraying water all over hell and gone when I did that. I went home. I got a wrench. I fixed the packing nut. I went back and looked at the meter again. It was still going round, about ten gallons a minute, give or take. (This is A LOT slower than "a big leak". It's a not-very-big leak. When there are big leaks, the meter racks up ten gallons in maybe five seconds, so something like 120 gpm. Big leaks lose a hideous amount of water.) Anyway, 10 gpm is enough to make the pressure a little soft but it's not OMG THERE IS NO WATER or anything.
So, the next thing I did was went down to Terry's house to see about the pit behind his place. (This pit also does not have a meter -- it freezes meters to death so we stopped putting meters in there. It does have an excellent and beautiful quarter-turn main shutoff valve in pvc, though.) Terry comes out: "You working on the water? The pressure's a little soft." Yes. Yes, I am. "Where's it leaking?" I dunno, Captain Obvious, that's why I'm messing around in the water pits. (I did not say that part.) We shut the main off at his house.
At that time, I asked Terry if anybody had been down past him over the weekend, y'know, visiting his/her house and perhaps leaving a toilet running or failing to shut off his/her water properly upon departure. (People do this shit and then it makes there be no water for me. Stupid people. Anyway this is a thing to check instead of "OMG THE MAIN IS BUSTED" because it's a lot cheaper and easier to shut off the water to someone's freaking house than it is to dig up endless linear feet of water main. Terry said no, he hadn't seen anybody past him over the weekend.
I went back and looked at the meter again. It had stopped dead. (This is a good thing.) At this point, I suspect that the 10 gpm issue is down below Terry's house on that side of the lake. There still may not *be* a leak. Just because Terry didn't see anyone does not mean nobody was up over the weekend to fuck up the water. I'll still have to go look at outside water shutoff pits and see if I can narrow things down further, like by using the shutoff at the back of Orpin's, I think it is, but we have a good starting point: The place to start looking is on the water line down below the shutoff valve at Terry's house.) We are supposed to have Nor'easter shitty cold weather this week and next, but if it gets fit anytime soon, I'll see if I can firm a location up and then have Lingenfelter out to see what he can see on that front.
Finally, I went over to Sandra's. I opened the valve to her house and Kutz's. I went back and looked at the meter yet again. (This meter and I are old friends.) The meter was *still* not moving, which meant that Lingenfelter had indeed fixed the stuff past Sandra's all fixed.
In other news, I went down and checked on the house and watered the plants and dropped off some mail. Everything looks fine on that front.
