%!*$#&% COLD!!!
What was I saying the last time about things finally going right? Can't have much of that now, can we?
It's 6:14am as I write this, which is a bad enough time to be awake on a Saturday morning, but I've been awake for about half an hour now. Getting up at 5:45am on a Saturday is even worse, but the worst of it is that I didn't get to bed until after 1am in the first place! So why up so late, and up again so early? Because it's frickin' cold out there, Mr. Bigglesworth!
Yesterday morning we discovered (bright and early around 8am) that there was no water-pressure. I quickly went downstairs and disconnected the power to the deep-well pump in case there was an ice-blockage; the danger there is that if there is a blockage and the pump keeps straining against it, it's only a matter of time until it burns out (as happened when those low-lifes abandoned the farm and let it freeze up back in 2007.) With the power off, I checked the pressure-switch contacts and cleaned them with an emery file, hoping that I'd be really lucky and that would be the problem. When I temporarily restored the power, I found out that it wasn't going to be my lucky day, and the problem must be a frozen line. Shut the power off again, and now I have to trudge out into the cold and see what's happening down in the pit.
What happened was that the heat-tape failed. Oh, the little neon lamp in the plug was still glowing all nice and warm-looking, but there was no power to the heat-tape itself. My guess is that the well-pit must have gotten flooded during the monsoon-like rains last spring and summer, and that buggered the controls. Still, you'd think that a completely sealed thing like that would be water-proof, and there's really no sign of flooding in there, which makes me suspect that it simply quit working, burned-out perhaps. Which would be really annoying, since it's only been two seasons that it's been there! You'd expect it to last longer than that! Whatever the reason, the point is it wasn't working anymore. It wasn't horribly cold down in the pit, maybe around -4°c. The outside temperature was hovering around -17°c, the coldest it's been so far this season. My guess is that this was the first time it's gone below freezing in the pit, which is why we never noticed the problem until now.
It took some time to strip all of the wrap-around insulation from the pipes and expose the heat-tape, which I was then able to confirm really was not working. I tried bringing one of the parabolic heaters from the house down to the pit, but it couldn't provide enough heat to thaw out the pipes. I had to get those pipes thawed out, and soon, because we needed water for the animals and for things like showers and toilet-flushing. I tried using the heat-gun, but that couldn't heat up enough of the pipe quickly enough to thaw it out before another section iced up again. Then I remembered we had just bought a ceiling-mount IR quartz heater for the shop last weekend, and I could try attaching it to a saw-horse and hanging it over the pipes. That worked, and we finally had water flowing again! By now it was past Noon, and I finally realized that I hadn't even had breakfast yet! I had been about to to start it when we discovered there was no water-pressure, and (as mentioned) there was no time to waste when you have to worry about burning out the pump!
Now that the water was flowing again, I had to figure out how to keep it flowing. The debate was whether to build a box about 4'x4' x 10" high around the pipes and put a car-heater in there, or go with another heat-tape. The car-heater idea has the advantage of being easy to maintain and replace if necessary, but the down-side is that it draws 10x the amount of electricity when it's running (about 850 watts!) Granted, it only draws that much power when it's running, and being thermostatically controlled, it wouldn't be running that much once the box was warm. The heat-tape only draws 85 Watts when it's running, but the down-side is that it's a bugger to install; you have to run it along the pipes, taping it in place every few inches with high-temperature electrician's tape, and then wrap the whole assembly with insulative tape. I seem to recall that you can't use the foam-rubber pipe insulation because it can't handle the amount of heat that the tape can give off, so you have to use the fibreglass tape instead.
So I have a dilemma; Do I go with the car-heater idea that's easier to maintain but which draws 10x the power and has moving parts that could konk out (the fan), or do I go with another heat-tape that's a bugger to install but only draws a fraction of the power, has no moving parts, and heats the pipe directly? I'm not worried about the cost of running the car-heater, as it would only be drawing power for short bursts; what I'm worried about it that if (when) we have to switch to the backup generator during a power-failure, that extra power draw could be a problem. Plus there's the issue of having to build the box, which could prove to be as much hassle as replacing the @%#*&! heat-tape in the first place. It was getting later in the afternoon as I pondered my possibilities, and I still had to get more of the paper-work run through the accounting software so I could get all the information to the accountant and the bank. There was also the matter that if I was going to go with the box-and-heater idea, I'd need an extra pair of hands to help build it, and the Kidling was going to be in town all evening. I decided to wait until today (Saturday) when the Kidling would be around to help, and I turned the quartz heater down to the lower-setting. My worry was that on high, it might get too hot and start to melt the plastic pipes. I shouldn't have worried...
It seems that once the full effect of a cold winter's night came along, the few inches of pipe that weren't getting directly shined upon by the heater just weren't getting enough warmth from the surrounding area. Thus, when Trixstir got up to tend to a fussing Munchkin at 5:30am and stopped for a subsequent bathroom break, we discovered that the pipes had frozen again! So that's why I was up again at 5:45am, having been up until past 1am earlier cramming data into the accounting software. I had to trudge back out to the well-pit in the dark and cold, and try turning the heater back up to full power. I've spent the time writing this now instead of going back to bed, because I still have the power to the pump shut off as I wait for the lines to thaw out. They should be thawed out by now (it's almost an hour later) so I'll restore the power and see if the water flows again. BRB...
And crudsticks... Nothing... Despite being on full-power, it would seem that there's just enough shadow in one spot for the pipes to not get enough heat to thaw out. Now I've got to head out there again, and see if I can't get the heater situated in a place where it can work better. I'm leaning more towards using the heat-tape again, as although it's a bugger to install, the lower power draw and the fact that it heats the pipes directly (and thus more quickly!) give it a slight edge over the car-heater idea. In the meantime, it's back out into the cold to see if I can get those blasted pipes thawed out!
It's 6:14am as I write this, which is a bad enough time to be awake on a Saturday morning, but I've been awake for about half an hour now. Getting up at 5:45am on a Saturday is even worse, but the worst of it is that I didn't get to bed until after 1am in the first place! So why up so late, and up again so early? Because it's frickin' cold out there, Mr. Bigglesworth!
Yesterday morning we discovered (bright and early around 8am) that there was no water-pressure. I quickly went downstairs and disconnected the power to the deep-well pump in case there was an ice-blockage; the danger there is that if there is a blockage and the pump keeps straining against it, it's only a matter of time until it burns out (as happened when those low-lifes abandoned the farm and let it freeze up back in 2007.) With the power off, I checked the pressure-switch contacts and cleaned them with an emery file, hoping that I'd be really lucky and that would be the problem. When I temporarily restored the power, I found out that it wasn't going to be my lucky day, and the problem must be a frozen line. Shut the power off again, and now I have to trudge out into the cold and see what's happening down in the pit.
What happened was that the heat-tape failed. Oh, the little neon lamp in the plug was still glowing all nice and warm-looking, but there was no power to the heat-tape itself. My guess is that the well-pit must have gotten flooded during the monsoon-like rains last spring and summer, and that buggered the controls. Still, you'd think that a completely sealed thing like that would be water-proof, and there's really no sign of flooding in there, which makes me suspect that it simply quit working, burned-out perhaps. Which would be really annoying, since it's only been two seasons that it's been there! You'd expect it to last longer than that! Whatever the reason, the point is it wasn't working anymore. It wasn't horribly cold down in the pit, maybe around -4°c. The outside temperature was hovering around -17°c, the coldest it's been so far this season. My guess is that this was the first time it's gone below freezing in the pit, which is why we never noticed the problem until now.
It took some time to strip all of the wrap-around insulation from the pipes and expose the heat-tape, which I was then able to confirm really was not working. I tried bringing one of the parabolic heaters from the house down to the pit, but it couldn't provide enough heat to thaw out the pipes. I had to get those pipes thawed out, and soon, because we needed water for the animals and for things like showers and toilet-flushing. I tried using the heat-gun, but that couldn't heat up enough of the pipe quickly enough to thaw it out before another section iced up again. Then I remembered we had just bought a ceiling-mount IR quartz heater for the shop last weekend, and I could try attaching it to a saw-horse and hanging it over the pipes. That worked, and we finally had water flowing again! By now it was past Noon, and I finally realized that I hadn't even had breakfast yet! I had been about to to start it when we discovered there was no water-pressure, and (as mentioned) there was no time to waste when you have to worry about burning out the pump!
Now that the water was flowing again, I had to figure out how to keep it flowing. The debate was whether to build a box about 4'x4' x 10" high around the pipes and put a car-heater in there, or go with another heat-tape. The car-heater idea has the advantage of being easy to maintain and replace if necessary, but the down-side is that it draws 10x the amount of electricity when it's running (about 850 watts!) Granted, it only draws that much power when it's running, and being thermostatically controlled, it wouldn't be running that much once the box was warm. The heat-tape only draws 85 Watts when it's running, but the down-side is that it's a bugger to install; you have to run it along the pipes, taping it in place every few inches with high-temperature electrician's tape, and then wrap the whole assembly with insulative tape. I seem to recall that you can't use the foam-rubber pipe insulation because it can't handle the amount of heat that the tape can give off, so you have to use the fibreglass tape instead.
So I have a dilemma; Do I go with the car-heater idea that's easier to maintain but which draws 10x the power and has moving parts that could konk out (the fan), or do I go with another heat-tape that's a bugger to install but only draws a fraction of the power, has no moving parts, and heats the pipe directly? I'm not worried about the cost of running the car-heater, as it would only be drawing power for short bursts; what I'm worried about it that if (when) we have to switch to the backup generator during a power-failure, that extra power draw could be a problem. Plus there's the issue of having to build the box, which could prove to be as much hassle as replacing the @%#*&! heat-tape in the first place. It was getting later in the afternoon as I pondered my possibilities, and I still had to get more of the paper-work run through the accounting software so I could get all the information to the accountant and the bank. There was also the matter that if I was going to go with the box-and-heater idea, I'd need an extra pair of hands to help build it, and the Kidling was going to be in town all evening. I decided to wait until today (Saturday) when the Kidling would be around to help, and I turned the quartz heater down to the lower-setting. My worry was that on high, it might get too hot and start to melt the plastic pipes. I shouldn't have worried...
It seems that once the full effect of a cold winter's night came along, the few inches of pipe that weren't getting directly shined upon by the heater just weren't getting enough warmth from the surrounding area. Thus, when Trixstir got up to tend to a fussing Munchkin at 5:30am and stopped for a subsequent bathroom break, we discovered that the pipes had frozen again! So that's why I was up again at 5:45am, having been up until past 1am earlier cramming data into the accounting software. I had to trudge back out to the well-pit in the dark and cold, and try turning the heater back up to full power. I've spent the time writing this now instead of going back to bed, because I still have the power to the pump shut off as I wait for the lines to thaw out. They should be thawed out by now (it's almost an hour later) so I'll restore the power and see if the water flows again. BRB...
And crudsticks... Nothing... Despite being on full-power, it would seem that there's just enough shadow in one spot for the pipes to not get enough heat to thaw out. Now I've got to head out there again, and see if I can't get the heater situated in a place where it can work better. I'm leaning more towards using the heat-tape again, as although it's a bugger to install, the lower power draw and the fact that it heats the pipes directly (and thus more quickly!) give it a slight edge over the car-heater idea. In the meantime, it's back out into the cold to see if I can get those blasted pipes thawed out!