The Essentials of Life: WATER - Part II

Once the tank was at the top of the mountain it was time to run Poly Pipe (Or Cowboy pipe as it is apparently referred to, according to the guy at Lowe's who quickly became my best friend during all the trips I made for fittings and parts....)

You see, at this time, I was working down in Alamogordo at GCRMC filling in for their SLP a couple days a week as well as working at Betty Dare nursing facility, which conveniently are both located right behind the Lowe's.

This left me to be errand girl most days.

I didn't leave for home with out a phone call to see what parts Dave might need.

The guy at Lowe's came to know I could find my way around the fittings and parts and he would help me on occasion to fill a large order or to create some fittings to solve a problem we were having.

Once we had our pipe and fittings it was time to run the pipe starting at the lower end/well head all the way up the mountain - 500 feet UP.   And this pipe had to go straight up the mountain, not following some nice cut road.    Oh, and we had to run electrical line in a poly pipe too! 
*if you're counting we're up to 3 poly pies running up and down our mountain!

Oh, no... it was over the rocks and under the trees and around the brush... well, you get the picture.

So up we went.    Then we had to cross our drive way - twice. 

Which have I mentioned has 2 switchbacks in it? (a subject for another post)

After we made it up to the tank we had to run another poly pie back down to the first driveway crossing and turn to get water to our house.  Another 150 feet!    Then we continued on down to the middle driveway, crated a shut off and turned to get water to our travel trailer, now the barn area.

(*see the cute little Airstream back there in the back??  Yah, that's my future project!!)

The electrical line was needed because we bought a really cool in tank monitoring system for allowing our well to kick on and off as needed to keep our holding tank with enough water in it that

• a) we weren't going to suddenly run out during a shower, and 
• b) so we didn't have to be running up the mountain constantly checking the level, and 
• c) so we wouldn't have to be turning the pump on and off manually 

(thus forgetting to shut the pump off, conversely ruining the pump and causing us to pull the well....etc. etc.)
Well you get the idea. It was worth the investment.

Now the water is to the house....

However.

I like the water to be free flowing through the pipes IN the house!
(I know, I'm picky this way)

So Dave ran water lines through our basement wall, hooked up our water softner and pressure tank (because I also like water pressure and our gravity feed just wasn't going to cut it)

 
Sometimes Lily helped on the tractor:

 Sometimes we both helped run the tractor:

(See, sometimes I make it into a pic or two....)

Then he ran Pex lines all through to the kitchen and bathroom. (which of course has now shower yet at this point....more on this to come)

Finally running water!

But winter was fast approaching and our waterline was now completely exposed, laying above ground.  What do you do with that much water line?  You bury it!

Ok, that only works if you live on flat terrain or gentle slopes.  We have neither.

We buried what we could...and worried about the rest.

Time for research.

Heat tape!

But would that work?? 

We bought heat tape and some polycell foam pipe isulator pieces to go around that.
And a ton of Gorllia Tape®
And we set out to insulate our water for the winter.

And what'd'ya know?  It worked!

We've had water since then and *knock on wood* it keeps working!

Water is good.... 

The essentials of life: WATER - Part I

As I mentioned before the house had pipes (copper mostly) and was plumbed...sort of.

The toilet was precariously set and attached to the septic line.

The pipes were run under the crawlspace to areas unknown and there was a sink in the makeshift location set in a really nice cabinet base that matched the door leading into the bathroom.

But we had no running water.  Not sure if there ever really was running water here.  The rumors we heard from fellow colony neighbors was that they hauled water in, in 5 gallon buckets.  Mind you this wasn't 1960 either.  This was the 1980's by this point.


So it was time to tie into our well way down below us and run waterline to way up above us to get water to a holding tank.

Oh, did I mention there was no holding tank up there yet?   There's wasn't.

So we spent most of one day navigating our drive and part of the neighbors drive to reach the top edge of our property.

Navigating it in the tractor was the easy part.  There was a road.

Navigating it while holding a 3000 gallon holding tank.   Well, that was another story.

 It was so big it blocked the view of the tractor!

But it was possible with a Shiner in hand...

Dave's mom gave us a hand in moving it.... Everything was going well until he about rolled the tank over onto our heads!!

And we made it!  *Edit - I completely forgot that Dave had to cut the last 50 yards or so of road and create the level spot for the tank to sit on.  He cut it out, leveled it off, hauled in some base course, set the tank and then we buried around it 1/2 way up by hand with shovels.  Then we had to connect the lines, but that's for another post....

 

*edit -Oh, and as always: Jack was supervising:

 

soon, we would have water.....

...but it would be a long process trying to get it everywhere we need it and winterized before the first cold spell!