Thursday, September 24, 2009

Cistern and some Building Supplies.

Wednesday was going to be a productive day in the building departement. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. I went and picked up my culvert for water storage, then I went over to the lumber yard and bought my lumber. Then as I was waiting for my load, the phone rang, and I just knew that I should have dropped it on the ground and stomped on it, but instead, like a moron, I answered it. There went my day of building as I had to go to work, and there is no way that they could have possibly lived without me. lol.
I was able to get an earlier start this morning, but I did have to go and put a deposit on my trusses that I ordered. The day was windy. I had 5 packs of insulation all bundled into one and was laying loose inside the culvert. When I started down the hiway, I seen the wind pick up the bundle and haul it away. It hit the hiway and did a few bounces and rolls, and to my amazement, it all hung together in the bundle. I had visions of yellow insulation blowing all over a farmers field and the hiway, but I got lucky I guess. I can't even believe the wind picked that up. It is insulation, but it is pretty heavy the way it packed tightly like that. I had to go and get it out of the ditch, and it was hard work getting it back on. This time I tied it all down.


I did'nt get around to working with the wood at all. It was pretty windy and I just felt more like getting that cistern out of the way today. I had to finish digging the hole and drop it in there. That took the rest of the day.
I am hearing some nasty rumors about some snow supposed to be coming on about Tuesday. Not really looking forward to that.


10 comments:

  1. Looks good, what is the base made of and how will you cover it?

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  2. Wow Hermit,
    You got buildin' material now. Things are taking off nicely. I look forward to your progress. You are doing great! ~jen

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  3. Thanks Wretha-I am going to pour concrete in the bottom and chaulk around the edge with something, not sure what just yet. For a cover, I am going to build an insulated 2x4 framed lid to hopefully keep ice from developing.

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  4. Thanks Jen. That makes 2 of us who are looking forward to my progress. I just hope the weather holds good for awhile yet.

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  5. Just a thought, how about installing a small, solar powered water pump to circulate the water and possibly aerate the water at the same time, maybe even have a small battery on it to keep it running over night, moving water is less susceptible to freezing, and aerating the water would keep the water from getting stagnant. Again, just a thought, may be more than you want to do with this system.

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  6. Wretha, that is definatley something to think about, but that could come sometime in the future. All I really need to do for now, to keep it from freezing is to keep the water level a little below ground level. If I only used the bottom 1/3 of that cistern, that is over 1000 gallons of water, and it would never freeze down that low. But I did'nt know that aerating water kept it from going stagnate. I will surely look into that. That is some good advice. Thanks Wretha.

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  7. Lookin' good Mark!
    Glad the insulation held together as it bounced across the road. lol That would have been fun to clean up. :)
    I have an old wooden cistern here on my farm. It sits high in an outbuilding next to the house and uses gravity to feed the water to the house. I do not use it but it's nice to know it's there if I need it.
    The same outbuilding housed batteries for the windmill that powered the place.
    Someday I should get the wind power back in service.
    I'm enjoying seeing your progress Mark. You do excellent work!

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  8. Jeanie-if all that insulation busted apart, the wind would have had insulation scattered everywhere. lol. Being a trucker and all, you would think I would have had enough sense to have it tied down to begin with. Under normal circumstances it would have been fine though, I am sure.
    A gravity fed water system would be cool, but I don't thing an extra large ice cube would gravity feed through a one inch water line, very well though. lol. If my cistern is full enough, it should gravity feed to the basement of my house, but I will still need to pump it to the services upstairs. That is intersting how your place was once set up. I think you should get some wind power happening again sometime, just for a small back up system maybe. But only if you're interested in playing with that kind of thing. Thanks Jeanie.

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  9. You are a one man construction crew. Great work, and a hell of a lot done. Congrats!!

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  10. Thanks alot Tony, that makes me feel pretty good about myself. There is the odd time that my mom comes out and gives me a hand, but she has'nt been out there for a while. It's pretty handy when someone else is there to pick up the small jobs such as cleaning up or holding a measuring tape and most of all, lunch detail. But it is entirely up to her if she wishes to come out or not.

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