13 May 2011

So... with Blogger being down...

...the last 24 hours, I decided it was time to venture... once again... into the wonderful world of home repair. We've been having some off & on water pressure issues lately... and the last couple of days the H2O was actually shutting itself off.

Now, for all you big city folk, this would simply entail ringing up city hall and telling them to suss things out... with a well, it's... well... a little more complicated... and if you call in a plumber... a lot more expensive.

I had actually gone out and purchased a new pressure tank a little while ago... our old tank is probably 20 years old, a little grungy at the tee... and it sits way down on the basement floor. I figured I'd replace the tank, the pressure switch & gauge... and fab up a table at waist-level to avoid that hands & knees deal. It's a little awkward to get down and read that gauge, or reset the switch... and in another ten years, it'll be downright painful.

Anyway, this pressure thing forced my hand... and I spent an hour yesterday removing & installing a new switch & gauge. Wanted to see if it was just the bits causing trouble... or whether the tank itself had failed.

Here's what I found...

You can see that the tube on the bottom of the pressure switch is completed occluded with, well... I don't even wanna think about it. The gauge is similarly baffed and stuck on 60 psi.

Swapped in the new pressure switch... which also now has a built-in low pressure trip that shuts off the pump if pressure drops below 20 psi. Nice to have if you blow a washing machine hose... or have a pipe freeze & burst.

And it's always nice to have a working pressure gauge...

I also had to air up the bladder in the old tank... it'll hold long enough for me to throw together a platform for the new tank. I actually splurged and bought a new brass tee as well.

Once all this stuff is in... it'll mean I've bullet-proofed the in-house components... which means the only other possible problem I will have in the forseeable future is the submersible pump itself.

A pretty simple operation overall... certainly a lot less drama & frustration than my last few forays into home maintenance.