Dec 15 - the ides of Dec

It's the middle of December and we were heading to the cottage, outside temperature warmer, yes warmer, than it was when we headed south in the middle of October !

The day got off to a slow start. Things go very slowly when your watch stops and you don't know it !

In and out -- I took Sandy to the Go Train for her 7:58 departure for downtown and her hair appointment. I headed towards the Metro store, expecting to do some grocery shopping but realized before I got there that I didn't have my wallet with me ... Back at Stef's, she asked me to take Kylie to school because Kylie had a cold and Stef didn't want her walking in the miserable weather. Ok ... so we left at the same time as Lauren and her friends.

Back at Stef's, she and I sat and chatted forever it seemed ... yikes ... that's because my watch had stopped. I had intended to leave around 9:15 and it was already 10:20 ! Sandy was supposed to be through her hair appointment around 10:30 ! Out the door, not stopping at the Metro store, crawling in traffic towards downtown. I expected to hear from Sandy any second and would tell her that she should do the grocery shopping at the St. Lawrence Market without me and I'd pick her up outside. That was not to be, however, since she didn't get out of the hair appointment until after 11, so I parked and met her over there.

Loaded down with a large peameal and veggies, we headed back to the car and then westward. We stopped at Sherway Gardens and I got my watch battery replaced, but not pressure tested. Sandy picked up a could of tops at Eddie Bauer's. We had lunch in the food court.

Next, northward. We had to stop at a parts place for an impeller for David's dishwasher, did that by the airport and then off to Barrie. I heard from David later that it didn't fit ... oh well ... so that will be returned by mail, I guess. After dropping off the Bailey's, impeller and a couple of papayas at David's and stopping at the Zehers grocery store for milk and a ham and frozen spinach, we again headed north. We made one more stop south of Parry Sound for gas and just after 5pm we were at our northern abode.

I had hoped to get here before dark but we missed that. We still had some light as we drove along 522 so we were close.

All was ship-shape, almost. A breaker had tripped -- the heater cable / effluent pump breaker. I reset that, seemed ok, tripped again later. It appears that something is drawing more power than usual or expected and it's tripping. I'm analyzing each of the components to see what the total wattage is -- perhaps I'm just at or a little over 15 amps and the breaker has gotten more sensitive. The solution to these is complicated.

The sewage heater cable is underground and I'd have to do some digging, which wouldn't happen until the Spring. That pipe can be cleared using the snifter valve, so a failure there can be dealt with in the Spring.

The effluent pump is another matter. I'd have to take off the concrete top, go down into the yuck with a ladder and replace the pump. It seems to be ok, but I'll do some more checking on that later.

The water supply heater cable would be the worst problem to fix. It's internal to the pipe and is a special order. I can insert it from the basement, if it comes to that. I don't have an easy way of draining the pipe because I never got around to installing the drain valve that we put on Jason's line. Perhaps that would be a good idea although my pipe isn't without low spots and I don't think that the same approach would work ... don't know for sure.

As you can tell, I'm hoping that I've simply been pushing the circuit limits. A quick test on the water supply cable this morning showed close to 500 watts. It's quite possible that the cable heat along with the pump running would trip the breaker. The other cable is short and shouldn't draw much power. Right now I've split them between two breakers and am not having any trouble.

Otherwise, everything was great. The house heated up quickly since it wasn't very cold outside. It was 68F in here before we went to bed. Right now the fire has the house up to 72F, positively cozy. The outside temperature was 40F when we got here, 28F when I got up, 23F at last check and it's heading below 10F (-14C) tonight.

Perhaps I'll launch the boat just to have a personal record for boating December 16th. By tomorrow we might have ice ...

Onward !