Thursday, October 4, 2007

OH, FOR A FRESH FLUSH


Last night as I was finishing (thank goodness) my shower the water pressure started decreasing and shortly stopped altogether. Some months ago we had had a similar incident and I was able to reset the Franklin pump box out on the electric pole at the top of the lane. After drying off and getting dressed I tried that again but to no avail. Fortunately I had saved a gallon of fresh water from just after a fairly recent power outage and Kathy used some of that along with some dishwater for a sponge bath. We could refill the toilets with water from the cistern thus avoiding the outhouse.

This morning I 4-wheeled it to the top of the hill in front of the house which is the one spot I’ve found where we get good phone service. I called the pump service owner in Orofino and he suspected it was the relay. As doing the removing and installing myself would save $75 I chose that route. (Big surprise, huh?) I took pictures of the setup before removing the relay.

When I got into town I found that he didn’t even have that relay as it was an older model. Only the bookkeeper was there so we couldn’t even test it. We got the owner on the phone and he suggested I take it to Stoddard’s Electric where they could test it and might even have one. I did, it was bad, and I had to settle for the only one he had which was larger and more expensive. Hopefully it will also last longer.

Next the fun part – installation. In consulting my pictures things just didn’t look right. After a great deal of head scratching I remembered that the electrician at Stoddard’s had removed the relay plate to check the points. He had put it back on upside down which doesn’t make any difference as to how it functions but a great deal of difference in trying to match the correct orientation with my pictures. At any rate, I finally got it figured out, installed, working and hit the Easy Button.

2 comments:

Kathy said...

I wish I had taken my shower first!!! It was a reminder of the not so good part of the old days. KW

Hallie said...

I remember one VERY cold winter not so long ago when all I wanted was to warm up in a hot shower. So, I got all naked (as a person does when taking a shower), and fiddled with the knob on the shower struggling to get any pressure or heat. Before I knew it, I was holding the knob in my hand with a fire hydrant stream of freezing water shooting out of the wall onto a screaming Hallie.