You may recall an earlier post about water and how it works here. Last night at about 8pm our tank ran dry. The tank is about 2000 gallons big, and it hasn't rained here significantly for about a month and a half.
The faucet started to spout which told me the water pump was running dry. So I went outside in the dark with my son, had him look down the hole in the top of the tank.
"dad all i see is dirt."
So I climbed up the ladder, looked down.. the tank was BONE DRY.
Which means it was time to switch over to the OTHER water source for the center.
I explained it earlier but...
the CLEANEST water is rain water, which hits your roof, drains down the gutter into your tank, is pumped out into your house and you can pretty much drink it straight.
THE OTHER water (RAM) is pumped out of the river at the top of the hill, sent through purification/filtration and hits your house with gravity flow as the pressurizer.
EVERY house has a maze of pvc pipe, metal fittings, rubber hoses, and valves that somehow manager the different types of water and WHERE they want the water to go into the house.
For example, you don't need your good drinking water filling your toilet bowl.
So there is a valve for that.
The sinks here sometimes have 3 faucets on them. (1 cold for tank, 1 cold for RAM, 1 hot.)
Then there are valves for the hot water tank and how IT gets filled.
Confused yet? If you aren't you should be.
NO house is the same. Every home owner has tried to simplify their system to fit to their needs which ensures that there is even more confusion added to the mid.
So I'm here, under the house, I have about a five foot clearing, and I see writings on the beams explaining the valves. And I have a sheet explaining the valves.
I do everything I think I should to get it all right, and still no water in the house.
After going over it a few more times, I'm convinced, (troubleshooter that I am) that the only possible explanation is that the center valve is busted.
Now I'm no plumber. So I'm drawing on my network knowledge. In my head the pipes turn into network cabling, the valves into routers, and I'm 99% sure a valve is busted. Which is why I'm 100% unsure of myself because it sounds really silly to say
"well I know nothing about his plumbing here, I've never changed water systems in this country, but I'm sure because of my understanding of ethernet networks, that the center valve is broken."
I sounded stupid saying it to myself.
SO... I called someone up who knew the house better than I did, and who has lived here many years. He dropped by... within a few minutes he said "I wonder if the middle valve is broken."
THANK YOU!!!
I wasn't about to start taking apart the plumbing here without a second opinion.
Within 15 minutes we had water in the house.
The center valve had corroded enough to make it not-open. The fact that the valve was turning was attributed to my RAW MAN STRENGTH which torqued it enough to unthread the knob from the actual valve.
We took it apart, cleaned it and put it back together.
I was glad I wasn't wrong, and I gained a little bit of confidence that maybe I can figure out how things work here!
Now we have the issue of drinking water.
GOD provides.
About a week ago someone was leaving here and wanted to sell their water purification system. (the same type that NASA uses apparently) It is the de facto standard for purifying water here. It's basically two buckets and 2 filters.
Anyway they cost a few hundred in the store, but we bought this one second hand, with a filter that was only a month old, in preparation for POC (a camp coming up). So we had this filtration system on hand, and about half what we would have had to pay for it had I to run out to the store when it opened this morning and bought a new one.
God provides.
Prayer list:
new water might mean stomach aches.. we don't know.. pray against sickness
praise:
God provides! We have better water pressure now, because we're at the bottom of the hill!!! God provided a neighbor willing to confirm the broken valve, AND God provided me with more confidence and understanding of my environment.
OH and get this..
as we went to sleep we prayed for rain.
at 2am I woke up to the sound of rain on our roof. It lasted only shortly but what a great thing to hear.
One good solid day of rain will fill the tank back up.. but until then, we have this other water system. It's great to have a backup like that!
