Lake Living Hassles

I see that I have 16 followerson my blog.  Not enough.  Y'all go find me more.  How am I going to get rich and famous without your charity.   Remember, if you click on an advertisement, I make about a penny.   They pay me after I have made about $100 dollars or so.  Me thinks this will be about year  2025.   Good inheritance for my children.   (All above said tongue-in-cheek).
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We all have problems - some never imagined in advance... you can relate to that.   I've always said I was going to write a book called:   "Things School Administrators Never Mentioned Before I Took This Band Director's Job."   
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Our lake has a wonderful feature.  Frankly there are several nice things about living on a lake.  Snakes are not one of those.   I digress.   A body pays a $50+  fee once, and from that day forward you can pump water out of the lake, no limit. We water the yard with that water.  When I get rich I plan to install a sprinkler system to go along with that free water.   When I get rich.

Our pump is on the dock in a little storage area.  The pump inlet goes out into the lake about 20 feet past the dock.   It can shove water 100 ft to shore and about 200+ feet to the front of the house.  This is all uphill.  I am a bit amazed at how well it works. The pump is a 2 HP (horsepower) pump, 220 V, etc. We can run at least two water hoses at a time.


Spring has arrived.  Yard needs a taste of the old wet.   I walked out on the dock and turned on my glorious pump.  No water.  Off and On and Off and On.   No water.   Getting down on my hands and knees looking into the area, I examined the pump more closely.  It has 2 parts: an electric motor and an attached cast iron pump. The pump part has a crack around a bolt - found a second crack around another bolt.  This pump is a gonner.

When winter comes, you must drain all the water lines - no freezie pleasie.  We have never had an instruction book for the system - blind leading the blind - and the pump is buried in a dark corner. I did not know the actual pump had a drain on the bottom - it does, and the water wasn't.  That pump broke.  Now I am looking for a new pump; it looks like this may be a $300 to $400 bill with me doing the labor.


What I have discovered in my search is:   nobody but nobody understands what kind of pump is needed. These people in stores just look at you.  Home Depot hired hands helped by using their computer before they just looked at me.  They say, "We don't sell a 2 HP."   Yet the original came from Home Depot.   Looks like I will have to order one from Gilfillans (local hardware store of great importance).  Sigh.  Even at that, only one gent in there seems to have a working knowledge .... suppose he must be a boss.

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When it rains, it pours.


The intake and output lines to the pump were glued on by the installer.  You screw a PVC thing into the Pump part - then connect to the inny and outy PVC pipes.   Now you just might think they would do this properly in order to take it apart in the future months.  Well No.  They didn't even try to make it screw together.  GLUE GLUE.   Therefore, I had to cut the PVC lines with a saw.  In the future I must create new PVC lines to re-hook it up....after I find another suitable motor. 


Doesn't it make sense that a 3 HP motor would be better than a 2 HP?
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Rain Rain Go Away


A nice feature of our dock is a fresh water line from the house to the dock.  You can actually get a drink of water from the house - out on the dock... if you follow that improper wording.   This water line runs from the back of the house, underground to the dock, hangin under the walkway, and into the faucets. good idea.  My neighbor has the same with a shower installed for dirty/grimy grandkids.


This water line has a drain valve on the lower end.  I opened it last fall and let it stay open all winter.  It drained just fine?  Nope.  Of course not.  We turned on that faucet last week and the fresh water line is split.  I will have to replace some of these lines. Which means, I must cllimb  UNDER the walkway and replace some PVC pipe. How much is broken? Won't know till I fix the first leak - then pressure it up to find other leaks....if any.

I learned this week that PVC pipe comes in different thicknesses.  Let's say for argument 20W, 40W, and 80Weight.  No, what I really learned is - cheapskate installation people will use the 20W instead of the higher priced 80W no matter what.

All of this is minor - no problem.  All will be fixed in a day or two.  Oh, no, do I hear another storm cloud advancing?


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Bought 50 pieces of St. Augustine grass the past 2 days and have planted them. My wife was out there "Sweatin' With The Oldie." 


more later.
Mtz