Rants and Rambles

Arctic blast

For the last few days we’ve been under a southern drop in the jet stream that brought clear skies but temperature lows in the teens. Dry that’s not too bad with the right clothing; and I’ve not been going out that much anyway. But last night there was another shift bringing “moist” air up from the south hitting the cold mass over us. Of course that means rain, and with the ground and everything else frigid from the cold air, that really means freezing rain and a coat of ice everywhere.

The pump-house light

The shed over the water storage tank, the pump-house, is well built and insulated. The idea was to keep the pump and pressure tank safe, along with a place for a future water softener system. I put in a light that was also to keep it a little warm during cold nights to keep the pipes from freezing. One little detail though; a burned out bulb produces no light or heat. I’d forgotten to check it and some time last night we lost water (again).

With everything covered with a coat of ice, we couldn’t even get up the driveway to the car much less around behind the garage and up the hill to the pump-house. This morning, with last night’s low being only in the mid-20’s, I could get up to the pump-house the long way around (finding safe footing in daylight) and replace the light bulb. There were no burst pipes, just blocked. The pressure switch manual over-ride worked but couldn’t raise the pressure; but by 4 PM the heat from the bub had melted enough ice that I could reset everything, bring the pressure up and had water flowing again.

This one only cost the price of a light bulb that I should have rememberd to change in the first place. I got off easy this time.

OK, it wasn’t all that “recently” since I’ve been neglectful in posting; but I recently had another reminder that you’re never really through paying for things you own. It’s not that long ago that I traided in my 1994 Ford Taurus and bought a new car. Well, as they say, it’s new to me. Still wanting a mid-size car that has enough space to be comfortable, I found (via the dealership web site) a low milage 2004 Ford Taurus at a pretty good price. Taking a print-out of the web page listing helped keep the price “good”. (That’s another long story.) I’m fairly happy with the car. Other than gluing the driver-side mirror “pod?” back on after a bit of vandalism, no trouble from it in about 20k miles I’ve added to it.

Battery or alternator?

It wasn’t a new battery, so I wasn’t shocked to have a problem pop up. The gas milage computer was forgetting some numbers and I had a problem starting once or twice. The battery didn’t seem to hold a charge very long. So I sprang for the cost of a new one. The shop even had an attractive warranty and return policy at no additional cost, and the price was pretty reasonable to begin with. I was pleased until the car didn’t start the next day. It was Saturday but they were open, so I went back receipt in hand. “No problem, we don’t have another one here but we can have one from another store right after we open Monday morning.” Actually, that’s prett good. “But let’s run a few tests.” One of a number of tests (voltage, load, etc.) that wasn’t done when I first went in to buy the battery, was to look at the current between the alternator and the battery with the engine running and things like the headlights and heater fan on. This was drawing FROM the battery! The alternator wasn’t keeping up. It should have been. The regulator wasn’t working right and this explained why the battery seemed to not hold a charge. It probably would do better if it wasn’t being drained; I usually drive with my lights on and it’s been cold lately so I’ve been running the heater. So I needed a new alternator. They could order one (it’s a model they don’t usually stock) and although their price was pretty high, their installation charge was a flat rate $50. Again, this wasn’t too bad compared to some shops. They even suggested I might save some by buying the replacement (as a refurbished/rebuilt) at a parts store; they’d still be willing to install it but at $100. flat rate.

Do-it-yourself almost

I bought a replacement alternator at a parts store and a friend helped me install it (OK, im my condition, it was more like I helped him) on Sunday. I went back to the battery shop (yeh, that’s about all they do) and they ran all the tests again. Everything’s good. New battery and the alternator has a lifetime warranty too.

Yakov Smirnoff

Russian reversal or “In Soviet Russia” is a type of joke originated by Smirnoff, and is an example of antimetabole. The general form of the “In Soviet Russia” joke is that the subject and objects of a statement are reversed, and “In (Soviet) Russia”, or something equivalent, is added. For example:

In America, you catch a cold.

In Russia, cold catches you.

To add insult to injury, I woke up Thursday morning to find that I had no water. With all that’s going on with my chemo for the lymphoma, from flushing and washing to drinking; water is something that is in heavy demand around here.

OK, call the city and… NOPE, I’m on a well. Actually it’s even a little more complicated than that. I have a well; it pumps into a storage tank of about 2200 gallons. It has a pump that then pumps the water to the house.

Now I have pressure drops from time to time; there’s a “whole house” filter that periodically gets clogged up. That’s a gradual thing that can be confirmed with the turn of the bypass valve (just for a test, I don’t want the sediment getting into the plumbing if it can be avoided). Made no difference this time.

Then there’s the pressure switch on the pump at the tank. If there’s been a power outage long enough for the pressure to bleed off that switch needs to be manually activated to get the pump to bring the line back up to normal pressure. That didn’t help either. But I could hear the pump in the tank. Loudly. Too loud in fact. So I made a phone call to the company that installed the tank when I bought the house and they asked the obvious question; “is the tank empty?” So I took off the access cover and it sure was! They told me they’d try to get someone out to check things but might not make it until Friday. In the meantime I could call a couple of companies that deliver water, and by refilling the tank I’d be good for a while. So a couple of calls and messages left and I’m set to wait impatiently while an over-active imagination ran wild with fears of a dry well and paying for water by the stainless steel tank truck load.

As bad as this could have been, it really worked out fairly well (sorry, I’ve caught myself with that pun a few times since this started).

• The water delivery happened that afternoon. If I’d missed that window, maybe not until next week.
• The water system company showed up mid-day and checked the wiring. Confirmed the problem, which looked like a dead pump motor, was below the well head.
• They could return with their boom truck and pull the pump that afternoon.
• As they pulled the pipes out, it dumped water so the well wasn’t dry.
• The wires were good.
• They had a pump the matching size.

By 6:00 the biggest problem (other than eventually having to pay off the bill) was having to go buy some new filters since a lot of sediment was stirred up, and I had just used my last one last month. The only, open, local store that carried the filters hadn’t had them on their shelf the last 3 times I’d looked for them. But I tried anyway and they had a number in stock (I bought 8 while I was at it).

So today the house is just a little “newer” than before.