I did need a pressure regulator. I also needed to replace a hose that had collapsed on the inside. Looked fine from outside.
I will now celebrate with oatmeal cookies.
In other news…
I have received a new or rebuilt well pump! Which is missing one essential fitting.
This is the story of my frickin’ life. Had I known about it this morning I probably could have bought what I needed at the hardware. From which I had just returned with plumbing parts for the propane.
Screw it. Oatmeal cookies now.
Let’s celebrate! Cookies all around!
YAY! Oatmeal cookies and almost water! These are the cookies that “have so much sugar they’ll give a marble statue the jitters”?
Joel – another income stream to add to the book, the calendar, the eco-tourism, the mouse and rat pelts or handmade mud rugs – cookies!!!! Joel’s Gulch Oatmeal Cookies, one or two dozen to a box. Hey, cookies work for the Girl Scouts, why not you? If someone buys 4 dozen they get a choice of a free calendar or a mouse/rat pelt mud rug/boot wiper. You do have the calendars made??
I highly endorse cookies.
Life is one big game of “whack a mole.” You get something fixed, done, and something else pops up. Some days I whack them… and some days I just say to hell with it… 🙂 What’s your recipe for the cookies? I LOVE oatmeal cookies.
Looks like you now have time to muck out that cistern while awaiting the missing fitting…
Well, where’s the picture of the cookies?
“Looks like you now have time to muck out that cistern while awaiting the missing fitting…”
Poorly thought out, Mark.
The man doesn’t have any water. No shower. Do you really think its a good idea to be doing that when there’s no way to clean up after?
Just sayin
Unfortunately, the time to muck out the cistern is when it’s empty . . . thus no water.
Rural living does have its interesting moments.
Yeah, you don’t want to clean the goop out of the tank when it’s under six or eight feet of water. 🙂
But I don’t have a shower, and even so I do occasionally bathe. I’ll work it out, but it’ll have to wait for now. The one thing I absolutely do require for that chore is a co-worker, and volunteers aren’t coming out of the woodwork.
Just for my own curiosity, what’s the gallon capacity of the cistern?
I’m assuming that, despite being on the other end of the country, your gravity is similar to mine so the crud will be on the bottom. Is this a shoveling operation, with buckets and ropes, or pressure washing with pumping out the thinned sludge?
Is there an option for a filter between pump and cistern to prevent future sludge accumulation?
The tank holds 2400 gallons. The water is full of calcium and other solids, and it leaves a thick red slurry on the bottom of the tank. This one is so thick it’s starting to find its way into the pipes.
Cleaning it thoroughly involves both methods: Shovel and bucket, and then pressure-wash. But I don’t have a pressure washer, so I’ll settle for shoveling out the big chunks.
It’s not practical to filter the water before storage. In fact for the people who do filter their water, letting the solids settle out in the tank is the first step. This stuff will clog a filter cartridge in a day. And reverse osmosis works, but it’s very expensive in water and electricity.
It would require spending more money, but would a 2 step system work? and has anyone tried it? A small tank to act as as settling pond that would be easier to clean out so you could do it more often, and then the water goes to your main tank. Your water is worse than mine.
Just out of curiosity, does your co-worker get the “down in the cistern, filling the bucket” part of the job or the “lift/carry/dump the bucket” part of the job? Neither is much fun.
I’m the one benefiting from the clean tank, so I’m the one who gets to go inside and clean it. But as you say, neither is much fun. Which is why volunteers are not lining up at my door. I’ve got help for pump installation, but not for tank cleaning.
Would there be any advantage to an external “settling tank” to let the solids settle out before the water gets into the cistern? Or is is just easier to let the cistern do that job?