Water, Water, Everywhere

And now, the animals and us can drink it!

Just got the last run of  three frozen waterlines thawed out.  Five days of -35 to -40C will do that.  Especially if the maintenance department forgot to plug in the heat tapes.  Now we have water in the House, Green house, and Animal Shed.  No more packing water.  The tomatoes were looking a little parched.

 Brother Tom has a great technique for thawing out frozen water line.  It involves breaking the line at a convenient spot, putting in a ball valve.  And threading a 1/4 inch line down the frozen pipe.  Its connected via an adapter to a high pressure paint sprayer.  Turn on the paint sprayer and keep pumping hot water down the line until it eats through the dam.  Works like magic.  The water that comes back out the line is caught in a bucket and can even be reused.  When the water breaks through the 1/4 inch line gets whipped out, the ball valve closed and final repairs made to the line.  So far the worlds record seems to be sixty feet of 4" frozen sewer line.  A lot of places were frozen up, vehicles also.  I had a 50/50 antifreeze mix in the Jeep and it turned to slush.

I had no one to blame but myself for the freeze up.  I had been doing some plumbing repairs in the crawl space of Grandmas this summer and had unplugged the line heaters. It lasted for two days of -35 and then froze solid in a couple of places.  The water line feeds our Main house the green house and animal shed.

Having to pack water from miles away to flush the toilets and feed the animals sure makes me appreciate the simple act of turning on a tap.  Isn't life like that.  Sometimes I just don't appreciate the simple things in life until they disappear.

Hope the simple things in your life are keeping you happy!

Comments

Poppy said…
Isn't that the truth that sometimes we don't appreciate the simple things in life until they disappear? When I was in my very early twenties, my husband and I camped out on my grandparents land for an entire to save every penny we earned so we could move to Texas with as much cash as possible. It was a wonderful experience and made me appreciate those little luxuries like running water and a mosquito free bedroom!

I must say, it wouldn't hurt me to take a tent sabatical every couple of years to remind me of how fortunate I am!

Glad to hear you've got running water again! Stay warm!

RaShell
Art Blomquist said…
I think that's the real draw for camping - I come back and appreciate the simple things like flush toilets and running water and, as you say, a lack of mosquitoes!
Good for you Art. Maybe you could freeze some of that water and save it for your next disaster.

Seriously...be careful out there on the tundra
Art Blomquist said…
@Donna: We do keep about 20 gallons of water on site. The lesson here was that procrastination can turn around and bite. In the priority matirix, items with low urgency ( why worry about frozen water in July ) are often the most important but get drowned out by higher urgency, but far less important, items.

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