Pellet heads!! What's up today?

What a day. Started nice, slept in, nice French toast breakfast, helped wifey with a few domestic chores. She did grocery shopping and I went downstairs to grab the stove vacuum and brush to clean the e2. Noticed water in the corner where sump pump resides. oh oh. Grabbed rubber boots and ran upstairs to put on work clothes and boots and by the time I got back downstairs water was at the stairs. Got over to the pump and hit the float assy. and pump started and drained water out of basement and pump well. Better get a back up ready my brilliant mind decided. Looked all over and called son twice looking for the small submersible I have and finally found it in the back shed. Threw it in the hole and plugged her in. Nutten Looked it over and saw side was cracked. uhhhhh Ran up to Williams lumber and bought another small submersible and 3 bags of Dry creeks because I didn't feel like going to the other garage to get the Chows out. Came home and ran downstairs to set up the new backup. Found pipe had come apart on the big pump, pumping water all over basement.. Unplugged and pulled the big pump and threw the new small pump in the hole. Tighten the clamps and repositioned the big pump and plugged it in. Nuttin. No start. Small pump not keeping up. Now after 3pm, Williams (which is only a few miles away) is closed. Son and family are coming for diner and HD is between us. Call him and he will stop and get pump for me. Pulled out a few old pumps and cleaned contacts on an old liberty pumps magnetic float assy. and got it to work. Hooked it up to a 1 inch hose and threw it out basement window. Emptied basement and well hole. Cut pipes and installed check valve and put back on the permanent discharge line. Works. Good. Ran big and small pump till 8pm, after son and family left. Got the dehumidifier running in basement to dry things out. 2.19 of rain over 48 hrs. according to my weather station, plus melting snow. whew. And I did clean stove too. Hoping the pump I worked on will run at least overnight and if not than I will install the pump my son brought over. I will have to check a few times overnight. Has been working ok for the last 4 hrs.
My back is killing me !

Doggy

 

Not good, glad you got it under wrap

 

Doggy you had a full day

 

Wow - what an ordeal!

 

Heard a strange noise when I walked out of the house this morning. Took me a few seconds to realize that I could hear the river that is about 4 blocks away. We got lots of rain yesterday and warmish temps over the weekend to encourage meltage and the river is feeling it. Still got ice on my driveway. Hopefully since it is supposed to dry out today that will be gone (but temps are doing nothing but going down, so not holding my breath). Parts of the road were slick this morning with black ice - sand trucks started coming out so those that commute at regular hours should be okay.

 

you da man! Perseverance in the face of adversity......the measure of a man versus a loser!

 

The like is for you getting things somewhat back to even keel, otherwise, it is a very large unlike, you know what I mean, I have a gravity drain otherwise dry sump in this place.

 

-That- kind of a day deserves a Beer, Well done Sir.

 

Water in the basements suck! I remember growing up, my parents fighting water in the basement after a larger snow melt or tons of rain.

How's them Weiner Puppies doing?

 

makes me thankful I built my house where I could have a walkout basement and a daylight drain in the basement floor. add that to 2 curtain drains, two roof drains, and 2 driveway drains for the house. two roof drains and a driveway drain for the shop out back totals eight 4" daylight pipes.

no worries about a flooded basement. just have to remove the leaves from the driveway drains a couple times a year.

 

My house is only 3 ft in on three sides, walk out on one end full windows everywhere.
ground drains and floor drains in place and working. We don't call it a basement. It is finished and we live on that level. Son and family live upstairs. They are the ones who have to go up and down stairs all the time. At one time we did get some water, but that was before the re do. Now all sealed up and new external drains in place. What a relief to have it done and working.

 

Looks like great fun to me.
Nice that it was kept under reasonable cover.

I have seen so many pieces of equipment just left laying out in the weather, and they usually don't fare well at all.

A nice piece of history for sure..

Enjoy the new toy...

 

Water in the basement is certainly no fun for sure.

We had a place in town years ago that was only a couple years old when we bought it, and one winter we had heavy rain... came home and smelled DAMP/MUST odor.

Lifted the access hatch to the crawl area and Whoa 18 inches of water

Rented a pump and sucked out the water.

Long story short.... the house next door was slightly higher and so the builders had decided to run the rear gutters from that house into a dry well that was in my back yard ???????

Turned out that our foundation drain was crushed and useless.

I dug up the neighbors gutter drain and plugged it with a ball and then back that with cement about 2 feet long in the remaining pipe.

Filled the drywell (Small.. only 2 feet in diameter and about the same deep) with concrete.

Ended up trenching a curtain drain that was below underhouse level all the way around my property and connecting it to the gutter drains that ran to the street.

I added another drain closer to the house and also tied it into the existing drain to the street.

Never had another issue.

My thrashing about made the neighbor get his gutter drains plumbed to the street instead of my back yard.

Contractors that did those two developments were lazy Chits and did everything half azz.

Our house was the first and was the model home and was done by a different builder, but they missed a few things as well (Foundation drain)

Hope all comes out OK for ya...

 

Hey...
Been a while since I been around.
All is well and the weather is pretty benign this winter.

Got engaged in a big project that I had tried to get going last winter but the water well here at the ranch going caput in march fouled things up big time...

Converting a Chevy Astro van into a Snowcat...

I scared up a pretty sweet 1997 Astro van last week and got it home Friday.

Gathering parts to build the "Cat frame" to mount the Astro on.

Scared up a military Weasel to get the Rear differential for the project.

Won't get the Weasel until spring when the snow is out of the mountains (5 feet where Weasel is)

Spent yesterday fixing things on the van that were messed up.

Heater mode control was non working.

Turned out to be some broken vacuum lines that feed from the engine to the cowl area and then inside to the controls.

The check engine light was on too, but after getting the vacuum leak fixed the light went out.

I still need to hook up the scan tool and see wassssssup

I want all the little nit pick goodies done before the van goes onto the Cat.

Here is a piccy of an Astro that was done.

The little blue one in the piccy is a very complex piece and was well done.

Red van is the chosen one to become the "CATVAN II"
I intend to keep the van almost mechanically intact and just remove the rear axle and the front wheels.

The front spindles/wheel stud flanges will make a perfect mounting point to get the van attached to the cat frame.

The current plan is to fabricate a set of small sub frames that will attach to the rear spring hangers of the van and then to the cat frame.

This leaves only two push pull cables to connect the steering differential (Weasel) to two joy sticks in the driver area (Steering wheel removed, but column left as it has important controls.

Real simple rodeo here.


GONNA BE FUN

 

YIKES!!! What a day!

 

Pretty much liking what I'm seeing, as far as temps go, for the next couple weeks.......those days in the high 50's will be SOOOOO NICE:

 

Watching Grandpa clean the pellet stove yesterday.

 

my wife sent me this picture this morning........ I think she got my BEST side!

 

I think so too

 

Good thing you have the will, the tools and the know how to get those projects done. I have about all I can do to take care of the pets and keep things intact without any projects.