Plumbing Repairs – Good news/Bad news

April is a problematic month for the comfort of an old guy doing strenuous chores outdoors. It might work out great. It might do the other thing. Lately it’s been cold and windy and I was beginning to think I should have waited before turning off the well pump and gradually using up the water in the tank at the top of the ridge until sometime in May. But yesterday we finally achieved emptiness…


…and it was actually kind of a nice day. Sunny, not particularly cold or windy. So I grabbed my tools, lay down in the dirt and installed the new shut-off valve in the feed line from the tank to the yard…


I finished fairly early in the day, in hope that if I turned the well pump back on I might have at least toilet-worthy pressure before sundown.

It did not work out that way – the one disadvantage of a solar-powered low-flow pump with no battery backup – and so it was necessary to go full redneck…

And of course just to put the cherry on top, I woke this morning to heavy overcast.


I checked the well pump during the morning walkie and no, it ain’t running. Maybe it will later. Maybe not till Wednesday. Meanwhile I’m glad I have lots of water bottles because it might be a while before the sink works again. The shower is definitely going to take a while.

About Joel

You shouldn't ask these questions of a paranoid recluse, you know.
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9 Responses to Plumbing Repairs – Good news/Bad news

  1. Anonymous says:

    Wouldn’t it be easier to put that seat over a hole in the ground?

  2. Anonymous says:

    I didn’t know there was an indoor toilet. Was thinking there’s an outhouse.

    Septic tank?

  3. Anonymous says:

    I have always been curious about the bathroom features at your hermit cabin. You actually have a flush toilet? To a leach field? Septic tank? Smelly hole in the ground downstream from the cabin?

  4. Joel says:

    Flush toilet, septic tank, leach field, we got all the toys here at the Secret Lair.

    Sometimes it seems like getting running water and all it implies to the cabin took more work than the cabin did. Fortunately friendly neighbors had a backhoe or I’d still be at it.

  5. Jim Price says:

    Do other neighbors rely on this water tank, or is it solely yours? Are you going to install a shutoff valve up at the tank?

  6. Anonymous says:

    Thanks for your stereoptyping, Detroit. Some day us rednecks hope to live up to the standards you’ve set.
    We’d’a dug a hole, cuz. An put up walls.

  7. Ben says:

    Update? Do you have water yet?

  8. Mike says:

    Hey Joel, I hope you get this sorted out sooner rather than later.

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