The rest of the day

[rowyn]

The plumber called me back a little after 9AM. He gets all his sump pumps from a single supplier, because no one else carries the pumps he likes. That supplier is supposed to be getting a shipment in at 1:30 or 2PM. The plumber will pick up a pump at that time, then come straight to my house. He says he expects to be there by 3PM.

I relay this news to Lut. We briefly toy with ways to use the wet/dry vacuum to drain some of the water from my rapidly filling basement. Lut spends some time jury-rigging a garden hose onto the wet/dry vac, puts the end of the hose into the water, plants the vac outside the basement door, and turns it on. Unfortunately, he discovers that he can't just leave the drain valve on the vacuum open, or it sucks air through that opening instead of sucking water through the hose. So he brings out a book and sits in a chair near the vacuum, getting up to empty it into the drainage pipe behind the house every five minutes or so, as soon as it fills up. This empties around 100 gallons of water an hour from the basement. By mid-afternoon, this appears to be about the rate that new water is coming in.

At 3PM, I call back the plumber. No sump pump yet. Just waiting to hear from the supplier. Can I wait until tomorrow if I have to?

I hope not.

At 3:30PM, the plumber calls back. He has the sump pump! But Lut's not answering the phone. Am I sure he's there? I assure him that yes, he's home, he just can't hear the phone ring over the noise of the vacuum. Just go, he'll be right out back.

4:30PM, I get home, to the welcome sight of a plumber's van in my driveway. The plumber installs the sump pump while I watch, and turns it on. "Ah, there, it's working, hear that?"

I can't, in fact, though I can see the water flowing visibly towards the pump now.

"Oh -- that's the other good thing about these pumps. They're very quiet."

The lights flicker. I blink. Is the new pump shorting out the circuit?

Everything goes off. We check the circuit box: no circuits have flipped.

The power went out again.

"So, Lut ... wanna go out to dinner? For steak? And beer? And pizza?" (Those last three are a running joke between us -- Lut enjoys all three a great deal more than I do, though I am quite fond of the tomato-sauce-less pizzas at our favorite pizza place.)

While he's there anyway, I ask the plumber to replace the split faucet on the side of the house, and he does so.

Last time the power went out, the power company had a phone message stating when the problem would be fixed. This time we call, and it doesn't even mention the outage yet.

We go to Red Lobster, eat way too much food, box up tons of leftovers, and call again. "We are working hard to restore power in your area. If you have any additional complaints, press 1. Otherwise, please terminate the call."

So, Lut, wanna go to a movie?

We go see the third Harry Potter movie, which we both enjoy and which keeps us from thinking about the 100+ gallons of water per hour that are probably still entering my basement.

We emerge from the movie at 10PM and call the power company.: "We are working hard to restore power in your area. If you have any additional complaints, press 1. Otherwise, please terminate the call."

Not much left to do execpt go to sleep anyway. So we go home. "Hmm. Doesn't look like power is out at anyone else's house."

"Oh, I hope it's not just us. If it's just us, they're not going to care about getting it fixed in a hurry."

"The neighbors have power."

"Oh, man ... "

"Hey! There's a light on in our garage!"

The power had been restored, according to the blinking clocks, three and a half hours earlier. The power company just hadn't updated their phone message. Most of the standing water has been pumped out of my basement, though the carpets are still drenched. Hurrah!

And that was my day. Hey, I've had worse. ;)

Comments

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Gods, sounds like a nightmare. I'd have been looking into a generator.

[rowyn]

I figure I'll look into that when I've got a long-term anti-flooding measure in place. Right now, when the basement is perfectly capable of flooding when the sump pump is working fine, there doesn't seem as much point to ensuring the sump pump works in event of a power failure.

The other reason I'm not wild about a generator is that only works if someone is home when the power goes out. What I'd really like is something that will kick on automatically as soon as the power goes out. Sadly, a UPS of the sort one uses on a computer won't provide nearly enough power to run a pump for any length of time.

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

Two things to consider: Power and Duration.

• You need to allow roughly 3x the rated power consumption for initial startup. The usual surge capacity of an inverter is 2x rated power or so. Also, you need someone who actually knows electric motors to check out whether the sump pump can survive modified sine-wave; if not, the only inverter to consider is Trace. [$$$]. If modified sine-wave works (always for electronics and resistance heating), things get cheaper. It takes minimal effort to locate a vendor that sells a 3KW inverter (no batteries) for <~500 online.
• Duration: sadly, computer UPSs are not easily extendable. You're talking battery bank plugged into a true inventer. My current inverter setup is designed to run the room AC (500 watts) for 1 hour, or the primary system for...I think five hours, but I don't know its real power draw.
• And, of course, you must position the actual inverter so it doesn't get water inside. Also, the battery bank must not be where it can be easily flooded.

[rowyn]

Thanks! I'm going to ask the foundation guy if he has a recommendation, when I get the rest of that work done.

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

Well, that sounds like a whole bunch of no-fun.

Glad you've kept your spirits up! :)

Scott

[rowyn]

Hey, dinner and "Harry Potter" were both fun, in fact. :)

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

Good!

I'm looking forward to seeing it.
From the books, Professor Lupine is my favorite character.

[rowyn]

Me too! :)

[oceansedge.livejournal.com]

Well it is an adventure..... glad to see you keeping your sense of humour about it. :)

[rowyn]

Y'know, one of my co-workers was caught in a gasoline-related accident resulting in a fireball this weekend.

All things considered, an overabundance of water ain't so bad. :)

Wow

[openheartsoftly.livejournal.com]

That's a day of days alright.

Funny, we're complaining about droughts and not being able to water what little yard grass we're allowed to grow around here.

New homes are being built and the builders have been told they can not plant any new lawns, existing yards may only be watered on scheduled days at scheduled times and so on.

The man made lake is at an all time low.

I always wonder why a man made lake can't be re-made over and over.

Since they "built" Lake Mead, they've built a few more lakes around town.

Anyway, too bad you can't pump your water out here. We'd take it if we could.

Now, about your no red sauce pizza...

Do you eat pizza with just toppings and no gravy or do you ask for alfredo sauce? Do you like gravy on pasta or is it that you don't eat tomato at all?

Have the best

Re: Wow

[rowyn]

I've always thought it's a little silly the way all suburbs across the USA have grass lawns, whether the climate makes any sense for them or not. I don't even like grass all that much! (Of course, the climate in Emerald City is quite good for growing grass. Too good, really -- I could stand growing it a lot slower).

On tomato sauce -- I like raw tomatoes, but not stewed or processed. So I don't generally eat tomato sauce on pizza or pasta. The pizza place offers alfredo sauce, barbeque sauce (okay, technically there's cooked tomatoes in that, but mostly it just tastes sweet/spicy), and one "tostado" pizza that has typical taco-like toppings instead of tomato sauce etc. Oh, they have pesto sauce pizzas, too, but I haven't tried those.

Re: Wow

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Pesto sauce doesn't sound bad at all.

There's a local pizza place that makes Thai chicken pizza, with that peanut butter spicy sauce peculiar to Thai cooking. Very num.

Re: Wow

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

(chuckle) Off of a bumper sticker: "The suburbs are where they chop down the trees and then name streets after them."

Sorry to hear about the flooding, though.