Another Hemlocks' Lessons Learned

Another Hemlocks' Lessons Learned

It was close, but the original design plan worked in the end.

The subject is running water at the Hemlocks.

First the design.

My father (who died in 2002) had a primary gravity powered (using the RAM) water system in place, with a backup public electric powered water system in place. I quit maintaining the electric system around 10 years ago, and now have a gravity powered backup system in place. So far all has worked out OK, mostly because moving water is very hard to freeze, and the spring water that powers it all comes out of the ground at 54 F. For example, once earlier we had 3 days of 8 degree F weather, and all worked just fine. This more recent time we had one night of 0 F outside temp.

Now the RAM pumps to a stainless steel water tank buried in the ground, and it holds around 4,500 gallons estimated. That equates to about 2 weeks of normal water use if the RAM quits pumping. 

After that one has to revert to more primitive means, like our ancestors had to do and even recently I in the Marines have had to do. That did not happen at the Hemlocks after the most recent and terrible ice storm that even shut down the US public highways for about 30 miles (48 Km). Mostly most water use is for toilet flushing, with use for drinking, cooking, and washing dishes coming in a distant second. If you can’t use water toilets, just practice public health type measures and you will be OK, maybe not happy, but still OK.

Now I don’t know for sure the exact capacity of the water tank since it was in a road wreck and is a little twisted up. The original tank held 5,000 gallons before it “acquired” some reduced capacity. The wreck was in Williamson County near Nashville, by the way, and my father put it up at the Hemlocks while he was alive.

Now as luck would have it, I have rust in my pipes that forced me to ration water use, and that meant 

I had to ration water as opposed to practice rationing water. As it turns out, I went 4 days without any public electricity and survived OK, but I never knew when it might come back on after repairs. 100% of the telephone poles (over 20) near where I live were all down, and that means no electricity until new poles are put up and all the hook ups restored. Overall, the “poles down” count for the region was once reported to be in the hundreds. That takes time to fix, and under the triage idea, the Hemlocks has gone eight days without public electricity, like we are last on the repair list. Now I did bury the electric line from Highway 70 to the houses over 5 years ago, hoping to get electricity back up quicker, and that may have helped some.

So back to water use.

First no public electricity meant for several small cities no potable water, so the Hemlocks is not the only place to have had water problems.

I had a wood stove that heated the old fashioned brick chimney warm just fine, and in turn the warm chimney goes down to the ground below and under the house, so that heat alone kept the pipes from freezing and bursting the mostly PVC pipes. Now I had to keep the wood stove going, but the Hemlocks has plenty of wood, now even a lot more on the ground after the ice storm. Now for heat for humans, I had plenty of Colton-provided high tech long johns which did help me a lot. And I am still amazed how the people in places like Maine and Nebraska handle it during their winter.

And since we went weeks with the outside temperature well below freezing, I did not know for sure if 

I had ice in my buried pipes, or it was rust in the house water lines that restricted my water flow. It turns out to be rust flakes now that the outside temp is above freezing and things are beginning to thaw out. So I still have to get the rust flakes out of the pipes, but that is a more manageable work to me. So the water coming out of house pipes is still “water rationed” right now. Mostly that means I can’t take a shower, but there are plenty of “baby wipes” around here.

And more bad luck was that the RAM quit pumping at the worse time (like at night and below freezing). It usually quits pumping 4 times a year for reasons I still cannot figure out, and that has never been a big deal to me because I have a good reserve in the feeder tank (remember 4,500 gallons); and in past times when things are below freezing, remember moving spring water has never frozen before. But with the RAM stopped, the water froze and stayed that way as long as the outside temp remained below freezing. Now there is good news. The stainless steel feeder pipes to the RAM never burst, nor did the RAM ever burst its seams. So when things got above freezing, I started the RAM back up, and all is OK for now. All seems to work OK as a “system”. The only aggravating thing to me was the trail to the RAM was seriously blocked by storm debris to such an extent that I had to use a chain saw to help me get to the RAM to start it back up. So a 5 minute walk took me over an hour for the round trip, for example.

In conclusion, I had running water the whole time. BUT, the water tank was about exhausted when the outside temp got above freezing after two weeks, and I could start the RAM back up.  So I never had to revert to my Scout and Marine skills learned in my past, though I could have if needed to be. Now you know why I told Max when he came over to help me out of this storm damage “here’s your flashlight, here’s your port a potty, and you pick out your sleeping bag”. We slept in the room with the wood stove, too.