Water update, I think...
Jan. 25th, 2006 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpSnow quickly turns our lovely sweeping driveway into a bloody nightmare, and the plumber apparently couldn't navigate his way up the hill. So, I continued to heat large pots of water to near-boiling and pour them down various drains, hoping against hope that the heated water wasn't going to crack something in the process.
However, before I could do that, I had to find a way to empty the shower pan downstairs. I ended up using our 100-foot long hose as a siphon, with one end shoved down the drain as far as it would go, and the other stretched out the garage door, across the concrete pad where we park the cars, and out in a direction that goes downhill the fastest.
I learned the technique of priming such an animal, which involves constricting (but not blocking) the downhill end, filling the hose from the uphill end (from a faucet), quickly shoving the uphill end into the drain before too much water escapes from the interior of the hose, and then removing the constriction from the downhill end. This procedure took a few tries to get down, so I can probably add about a half mile of walking (repeatedly, from one end of the hose to the other, and back) to the day's exercise bill.
I'm pretty sure the line is unblocked now, so I may have saved $250. I should probably make sure the plumber knows not to come tomorrow, except that I don't know who to call. Galina's return from the store ought to solve that problem.
Cheers...
UPDATE: Strange water line behavior. When I dropped a couple of gallons of hot water through the hall toilet, it went through the system like grain through a goose, no problem. Flushing the same commode an hour later results in water in the shower pan. We lost water pressure late in the day (probably associated with a brownout/blackout that occurred earlier in the day), which made fussing with the system a pain. The water pressure is back, and I'll start over tomorrow.
However, before I could do that, I had to find a way to empty the shower pan downstairs. I ended up using our 100-foot long hose as a siphon, with one end shoved down the drain as far as it would go, and the other stretched out the garage door, across the concrete pad where we park the cars, and out in a direction that goes downhill the fastest.
I learned the technique of priming such an animal, which involves constricting (but not blocking) the downhill end, filling the hose from the uphill end (from a faucet), quickly shoving the uphill end into the drain before too much water escapes from the interior of the hose, and then removing the constriction from the downhill end. This procedure took a few tries to get down, so I can probably add about a half mile of walking (repeatedly, from one end of the hose to the other, and back) to the day's exercise bill.
I'm pretty sure the line is unblocked now, so I may have saved $250. I should probably make sure the plumber knows not to come tomorrow, except that I don't know who to call. Galina's return from the store ought to solve that problem.
Cheers...
UPDATE: Strange water line behavior. When I dropped a couple of gallons of hot water through the hall toilet, it went through the system like grain through a goose, no problem. Flushing the same commode an hour later results in water in the shower pan. We lost water pressure late in the day (probably associated with a brownout/blackout that occurred earlier in the day), which made fussing with the system a pain. The water pressure is back, and I'll start over tomorrow.
