Friday, July 25, 2014

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

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The construction of the house finished in April 2011 and I'm pretty much settled in. As of March 2014 I'm in preparation for rain mode for this coming summer. That includes sealing and painting things and dealing with drainage issues from last year.

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