Valvula Check or Check Valve

Tricky little buggers these and I've got a few of them. This time they were not the original problem. It started with the hurricane taking the lid off the tinaco and then the wind then beat the float around until it broke. I bought a new bronze float valve but couldn't get it to seal. Bought a plastic one and my brain went dumb and I couldn't figure how to install it. Called a plumber that a friend knows and wa-la. He only wanted 60 pesos (about 4 dollars) but I gave him 100.

Before it got dark I had more water spilling but this time out of the breather pipes. Called the plumber again and he knew right away it was the check valve. The flapper valve inside closes to the tinaco when there street pressure and when there is no street pressure it opens and the tinaco becomes the water source. Sure enough the flapper was stuck open. Take that plug on the top off and a little grease and a screwdriver loosened it up. He also capped a breather pipe he said shouldn't be open.

While he was there I had him look at another valve for my pump house that has been leaking for over a year. We shut the water off  and he just put new teflon tape on the plug threads. It's dry now. He wanted 120 pesos for this trip. Two things at 60 each I guess. Nice guy but no English.

How to clean a paint roller

The only decent way to clean a paint roller without having a spinner which I can't find here and always forget to bring down. This guy says it dries it as well and with a really good spin it's kinda dry .... but better to just switch rollers.

So there was no street pressure water yesterday so the roller sat in a bucket until this morning when we got pressure back. Tinaco gravity water pressure just won't do it.

A spinner that I always forget

Has a corkscrew action like those old timey toy tops

Running Dry

I never leave the cistern to tinaco pump on automatic for fear the pump freezes and needs a kick, pump looses it's prime or the cistern just runs dry. For some reason it was on Auto yesterday, I heard it, and realizing we hadn't had street water in awhile I checked the cistern and tinaco. 1/4 tank in tinaco and cistern basically empty. That is the driest I've been in almost 3 years.

We used a lot of water during construction and street water supply was even flakier back then so we sunk a well.  A submersible pump worked best here but after construction it just sat there unused while my neighbors kept running out.  They had a well but no pump so the pump has been theirs for the last 2 1/2 years.

I've been close to bringing the pump back before but this time it was necessary. Changing wells didn't make the pump real happy so it was stuck at first.  Finally moving it around and starting it in a bucket of water it fired up. Running into the yard for 20 minutes was all it needed to be super clear.  Filled the pool which is about the size of a tinaco (1100 liters), the cistern (11,000 liters) and ran the secondary pump to top off the tinacos (2). Packed up 12 meters of support rope and electrical cable and 20 meters of hose in the wheelbarrow and took them back to my neighbor.

Filling the pool

Opening to cistern

The hose, electrical, support rope and pump

Mystified

I awoke this morning to find the outside sink had fallen off the wall. I first thought of a person in the middle of the night but you don't accomplish anything by standing on the sink. I also wondered why I didn't hear it as it's not far from my bedroom door that has a screen in it. All I can think of is my cat or it fell off of it's own weight. Simple white sinks are not expensive and only part of the drain pipe broke.

Bought a new sink for $240 pesos (basic white) but think I'll change everything including the handles/faucet., drain, wall fastener and larger screws to hold it on the wall.

Oops !!

The other is my tinaco is suddenly overflowing.  I climb up and find the float overextended in the up position and the tank full.  I lower the water level  and I can not over extend the float manually. We have moderate street pressure today so I'm eliminating possibilities.

The mystery float

My unnecessary "don't drop them in the tinaco trick"

Hugo came over while I made the school run and figured out the water was not coming from from above at the float valve shut off but from the bottom of the tank. I knew with this strange system that could happen but it never has in 3 years. My plumber thought with the good street pressure we have much of the time, why not have street pressure in the house rather than just gravity from tinaco.  So he installs these check valves that will change with pressure levels. Problem is the valves get stuck and this one usually gets stuck where tinaco pressure is not enough to open it so I bang on it to get water again.This time it got stuck in the opposite direction so that street water was enters the bottom of the tank.

Check valve - valvula check

Obviously something has to be done someday but I'm afraid it's gonna take pipe cutting, rearranging and even turning the tinaco to give more room for adjustments now and in the future.   In the meantime a couple whacks with a hammer or large wrench fixes the valve.

Tinaco work

I tried to find pictures of the way these tinaco bases were made but maybe peculiar to this area or my builders. Anyway, they build a ring of bricks on the roof surface about 3 high, stucco it and fill with sand. The problem with that is water seeps into the sand from rain or an overflowing tinaco (broken float valve). My lower tinaco was causing water to come out between the original roof and the flat tiles above it so I knew it had to be seeping thru the sand. The last thing you want it trapped moisture on cement.

My solution was to seal the space between the tank and the base with impermeabilizante and fiber material. About 2 inches up the tank, the flat area and down the side of the base. I eventually did the whole roof of the lower tinaco and just started the process on my upper one. It's all part of getting ready for the rainy season and luckily a broken float valve alerted me to it in the dry season.

The upper tan tinaco base sealed

Lower tinaco with whole roof sealed

Upper tinaco - just an interesting foto