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Above 1200 Sq/FT The Salvage Garage

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Strouty

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Mar 21, 2010
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Southern Maine
So today is the day that I finally hook up the water tanks in the basement of the house at the Hill, I am draining two of them as we speak, then I have to clear some room to get them inside. I think I have enough space to fit all of them in there without actually chipping away at the ledge, if I can't, well that will be this afternoon's project. I have to gather up some tools and make a bit of space to spread out the supplies. Of course I have two online meetings today, one is at 10:00 and the other is at 2:00, kind of like holding the steering wheel??? I should have enough time to deal with them and still get some water inside, I do not want to pump any water into the tanks from the well until tomorrow, the temps need to be above freezing for a while after pumping the water up and letting the line drain back, if not the water can freeze and then I am into a project I do not want to be in.
 
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Strouty

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Well, I guess I hadn't really looked at the weather, this afternoon is probably the perfect time to fill the tanks, temps aren't supposed to get below freezing really at all, then it is going to be in the 40s by morning, I can work with that. We are going to get rain down here tomorrow, hopefully it will be that way at both locations, I am not even sure I will go to the Salvage Garage until Thursday at this point. I hope to get the new forklift so that it can easily be started and used, going to have to find a magnetic oil pan heater so that I can warm things up since there is no coolant.....
 
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Strouty

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Sorry to hear that, our rain snow line looks like it will be north of my places, I know a couple people that will probably get some though, a couple on this forum.......

I am going to keep moving forward, I am done with the first meeting, I have a bit before the next one, I wanted to do some errands, but they can be done in the rain, so I will wait until tomorrow for those. At least things are prepped, well so far as I can tell.
 
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Strouty

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Southern Maine
That took much longer than expected, like it usually does, (so why don't I expect it?), guess I will get the tanks under the house. Temps are a bit lower than I would like, so I am going to shoot for finishing things up tomorrow during the RAIN (no white stuff allowed!).

Tomorrow I only have a couple errands to do (doubling my estimate - 3 hours) and the rest of the day will be dedicated to water tanks and woodchucks.....
 
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Strouty

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Mar 21, 2010
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Southern Maine
I have almost all the tanks inside, draining the water from the temporary tank outside into one of the ones I put inside. I will still have to move tanks around, there isn’t enough room for me to get things hooked up behind them. I can deal with that tomorrow, at least all the tanks will be inside and the water will still be functioning.
 
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Strouty

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Mar 21, 2010
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Southern Maine
The well is a couple thousand feet down at the bottom of the Hill. In the winter, the water line that feeds the house will freeze, so we pump water into tanks to keep a water supply. Once these are installed, it should last me several weeks based on my current usage. Living in the house with a couple people would mean filling them every three weeks, maybe more, maybe less. Long term plan is to either blast the ledge or super insulate the supply pipe, for now this is the way it has been done as long as I can remember.
 

Plastikosmd

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Keeping the mold out of my cat waterbowl is a daily challenge
I can’t imagine that, I assume some tablets of a sort/ testing or you don’t drink it?
 
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Strouty

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Mar 21, 2010
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I guess technically there was some snow, but it won't be here for long. I saw it on the windshields and a little on the ground. It is in the 40s and raining and that doesn't make snow very happy....
 
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Strouty

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That is why I don’t live in the County. ;)

The three hour estimate for errands was wrong, took 4, the estimate for getting started was wrong, the estimate for finishing was wrong, basically everything was wrong. I still haven’t started filling the tanks, should be ready in about 30 minutes I am comfortable enough with the temps to do it tonight, the next few days the lows are in the 20s, right now we are still in the 40s and it is dark.
 
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Strouty

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Been pumping water for about ten minutes now, so far so good. I still have to deal with the mess that is feeding the shop and office, I may have to spend a few hours tomorrow trying to get that figured out. Probably going to be a RPITA no matter what I do. It is just a mix of pex and copper, but it isn’t my pex, so I can’t just tap into it easily. Also not sure I ever want to buy a coil of 1” unless I am doing some long straight runs with help. It is awful, you can’t straighten it, it has crazy memory and curls back up. Next time I will buy a few 20’ straight pieces, live and learn. At least the stuff behind the water tanks is done, shouldn’t need to touch that again until I rework things in the spring/summer.

CB3BD8BF-5D2A-4331-9A87-E049E9648759.jpeg84F66C88-34A1-471F-A80F-F3014168943C.jpeg
 
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Strouty

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It is going to be a long evening, 45 minutes to fill one tank, almost done with the second one, after I get all four filled, then I have to go down to the well and open the valve to let the water drain back so it won’t freeze in the line. The good thing is that the tanks are lasting me almost a month, so I shouldn’t have to fill them again until March. Will be nice to not have to deal with water most of the winter.
 
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Strouty

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Southern Maine
Well that didn’t go as planned, pretty sure I know what I did, but only two tanks are getting filled tonight. I was transferring the hose and I kinked it so I wouldn’t spill water everywhere, I forgot I am not running off the pressure tank, just straight off the pump. When I did this, I am pretty sure I blew out the o-ring on the pitless adapter at the well, dang. :(

I am going to check, but I could hear and feel the suction on the hose end as all the water ran back down the Hill into the well. Worst part is that once this happens, it takes days before the water is clear enough to pump again and not be full of silt. Double dang. Guess I will revisit things next week.
 

walrus

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Nov 12, 2008
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Maine
Strouty, do you live up on the hill? What a pain that water system is. I guess we all take it for granted that when you turn the faucet on out comes water :)
I'm sure you can hear the B'rappp of snowmobiles in the county today :)

Anyone in Buffalo this weekend? Lake effect snow, 70 inches in 24 hours? That's quite a prediction, Bills are at home this weekend, fun football game that would be :)
 

kaymccampbell

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Feb 27, 2015
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Anyone in Buffalo this weekend? Lake effect snow, 70 inches in 24 hours? That's quite a prediction, Bills are at home this weekend, fun football game that would be :)
What you want to see is the Buffalo area's snow fleet. It approaches NYS's entire snow fleet in numbers, and still gets overwhelmed by the sheer volume of annual lake effect.
 
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Strouty

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Mar 21, 2010
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Southern Maine
I don’t live there right now, but I have lived there for many years and have nightmares about fixing the water line.

This one may end up being one of those, the pump works, the o-ring was sealed, so that means it blew apart the main water line somewhere going up the Hill. We are going to take a hike and see if it is visible, usually it is either spraying or bubbling up, but with all the rain we have gotten, there is a lot of water everywhere right now.

:(
 
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Strouty

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Mar 21, 2010
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Southern Maine
It was an easy find, thankfully. We used to use a couple hundred bales of hay every couple years to keep it from freezing, on the coldest nights you would just let the water run a trickle. If you buried it and had an issue it would be a nightmare in the winter. I expect to make a newer deeper trench, then use an insulated line and go from there. I don’t think it will be an issue once that is done, it is just going to be expensive to buy the insulated pipe.

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