day started a hell of a lot drier than forecast
so woke the 'Drema up to oss that lump of plate off the bench .. becoming a nuisance sat there ... been trying to decide where to park it and sussed spot I could keep it upright .. water standing on it has not been kind to it - some serious pits in it in places so got it slotted in between the 6t tipper and some other tish
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gotta love a plate clamp
while I was down that corner/end of the patch I thought I'd hoik out a large metal box I had sat up on a pallet (old chain box off my 30t Grove I replaced with a lockable, lidded alternative) as I needed it to sling a load of heavy lumps/bits 'n bobs into, off the little wooden bench, beside my two work benches, as it's been collapsing for a while and was in imminent danger of a total collapse ...
moved said box closer to where I wanted it
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and started clearing it and binning some of the detritus that'd accumulated and the wet sh1t started ... carried on for 15-20 mins and thought - sod this - go have a coffee and hopefully it'll ease off ....
came down the house - turned on the tap - no water ????? - outside to the pump box - reset it - ran for 10 seconds and tripped again ? hmmmm??
went and grabbed some tools and disconnected the incomer at the pump - sod all ? !
grabbed some more tools and headed up the drive to our tank - 'praps some muppet (
- no names) has turned our line off
...
it is still lashing down and I am getting very damp ...
no sign of anyone being near it and had to fight my way in through the undergrowth to check -- all full and overflow running - all taps on ..
Odd
back to the house and work my way back up the line, from the pump, into the house - getting ever wetter - nada - got back as far as the incoming inline ball valve in a kitchen unit - a trickle
-- wrestled the flexi with the ball on the end back through a hole in a unit, barely big enough for it, so I had some flexi to play with, found a bucket and took the ball off ....
oh yeh - PLENTY of flow, t'other side of that - glad I had the bucket
half a mile of 1" MDPE pipe and about 50 ft of head behind it
So I've got me thumb over the end of the pipe fitting trying to keep a LOT of water in the pipe and trying to look inside the ball valve .....
Aha.....
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a valve full of roots -- this is all upstream of the filter system
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wrestled the ball valve back on the end of the line - eventually - getting wetter, yet again and went off to find a blanking cap, so I could have the valve off and two hands to mess with it -- wrestling an end cap on was wetter than the ball valve - had hoped I had a spare in stock, but no
... well I did but it was 1/2" - 3/4" , so had to settle for the blank and get the old valve cleaned out .. two spares are top of the shopping list for the next visit to town
got all the lines re-assembled to the pump, ball valve free of detritus and connected it all back up .......
and we had water again
job for the weekend ...
go get the lids off the spring chamber and the settlement chamber and see WTF is growing in there ... first time I've had this problem in 14 years living here
amazed that lot had found it's way down half a mile of MDPE, numerous fittings (with inserts) and got as far as the end of the line (thankfully - would've taken some finding if it hadn't)
had I not found that, the next trick would've been 80psi up the line and blow it back through.
If that'd failed it'd've been a pump and an IBC full of H
2O back pumped up the line
Would've been a lot less grief on a dry day though
so then went back to the bench task after all that tish ... and got even wetter, but had to be done - I'd left the 'Drema hovering over the steel box and was amazed it'd only drooped about 6" ... finished clearing all the lumps off the dying bench into it and parked it out the way for now
said collapsing bench -- have had it a long time -- and was a fair age when it came into my custody - ex school metalworking bench
and has been groaning under all sorts of off cuts, bit an' bobs, old bucket cheeks, teeth - all sorts for the last ten years at least
...
found a few bits I'd forgotten I had too
put a bucket on the floor for some of the smaller bits and it had half an inch of water in it in the hour or so I spent 'sorting' - unreal
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poor old girl's gonna end up in the wood shed, like t'other one did a few months ago
be interesting to see how bad the 3mm plate top is on it (must put that bit of 2" S/s mesh back out the way too )
the most annoying part of all this afternoons shenanigans was .. it stopped raining and the sun came out as soon as I'd locked up and come in for a warming shower and climb out of my soggy clothes
