Dec 16 - and the good news is ...

Of course, when you read something like that, you know that there's going to be bad news, right ? Well, yes. We had a sewage problem and I didn't even have (name withheld) to blame it on !

Remember that flipped breaker ? Well, I did some testing with the water supply heat line and found that it was drawing 400+ watts. For a line that's 60 feet long, at 3-5 watts per foot, that seems high. I figured that it was just over the line with the effluent pump and sewage heat line and tripping the breaker. Besides, 400 watts continuous ? Wouldn't that boil the water in the pipe after enough time ?

I called the heat-line people and they said that it's within spec, it won't boil the water, but I'll get a callback on Monday from a tech. Regardless, I think that I've got a conservation plan in mind, i.e. putting the heat-line on a timer so that it's on a half-hour at a time vs full time. Perhaps 50% would do it ... perhaps I could put the entire line on a rheostat ? I'll talk to the tech on Monday and explore options. 400 watts continuous for 6 months is a lot of power wastage.

However, I was still chasing down things. I disconnected the switch to the other heat line, which is quite short, like 5 feet, and jury-rigged a test for that line and it only drew a few watts. I don't think it's an issue but I've got one more test to run on that line now that it's been off for a while, to see how many watts it draws with the line cooled down since it's self-regulating.

Lastly, I took the kill-a-watt device out to the receptacle outside for the effluent pump and plugged it in ... 1300 watts ... ok, it's a pump, that makes some sense. Wait, I can't hear it running ... huh ? Oh oh.

I pulled off the top of the effluent tank -- good thing that we're not buried in snow and good thing that it's been warm so that the concrete top isn't frozen to the ground, and found steam coming out. Oh oh. Well, it seems that the float has untied itself from the pump, run it dry, burned it out but of course it still draws power. Rats !!!

The balance of my day was spent in that hole, so to speak. I had to get in there, ladder down since it's 6 feet deep, in my boots of course, since I'm standing in yucch ... also called "gray water" ... remove pump, go into town and buy a new pump, fabricate a "bushing" with ABS pipe to convert the new 1.5" connection to 1.25", install the new pump ... you get the idea.

It wasn't any near as bad as New Years Eve a few years ago when we had to work in the sewage sump, but close enough. These things never happen when it's convenient and of course the entire water supply through waste are single points of failure. I'm not sure that there's anything that can be done in that regard.

I suppose that I could install a backup pump in the effluent tank but if it never runs, it wouldn't work when I need it anyway. I could have a backup sewage pump in case I have to work in that sump, but that would still be an install-upon-failure situation. As for the water supply, I don't even want to think about that one. The only solution there would be for Jason and I to get together and install a pipe and valve between our wells so that we could back each other up. Since I installed both pumps, that's something that I should have considered at time of installation, not now !

We had ham for dinner. I'd bought a ham on the way north and cooked it for hours so that I'd have the ham for sandwiches. I made the mistake of buying one of those spiral cut hams ... that doesn't work well for my long cooking scenario or perhaps it was just a crummy ham. Anyway, I'll use it for sandwiches but I was very disappointed in the quality of the product.

According to the internet, it's 7F out there now. Still dark, I'm not sure whether the lake is freezing over yet -- probably is down at the end of Smith's Bay but I'm betting not here. While I was tempted to get out the boat yesterday, I got hung up with my CRAPPY work and the day went by.

So what's the good news ? That it had been warm enough so that I could get at the effluent pump; that Steve had one in stock; that I had the correct ABS fittings and glue so that I didn't have to make a second trip into twon; that I got the job done.

The existing pump had been supplied by Dale Brooks, a plastic job. I asked Steve whether the pump would have come from them (Home Hardware Building Centre) ... and he said "no, I don't stock plastic pumps". Ha. Well, it wasn't the pump that failed; it was the float or rather the small clippy that held the float to the pump. In actual fact, the failed effluent pump is exactly the same pump, but with a different float, as my sump pump. I could have used my sump pump, since it doesn't run anyway and has an automatic overflow into the ground before it would ever fill up and come into the basement ... and I could have then replaced that pump at my leisure. However, I didn't want to put an old pump into the effluent tank and have to do this particular operation more than once every few years !

Onward ... no idea what today will bring but life in the north is never dull.