No sooner had I hit 'send' on an email to my family than I followed a vexing puzzle which had vexed and puzzled me since I'd arrived to the end of its Act I.
The situation is/was thus: Seemingly since I'd arrived I'd noticed a weird wet spot on the floor in the doorway between the blue bedroom and the middle bathroom. I couldn't figure out when I'd spilled water there (wet swimsuit? Foot bucket from when I filled it up in the bathtub? But did I go out that way?)
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| BTW, I just noticed the large black bell-shaped area of rot just above where the spray is happening below on the left side of the picture above. |
I spread it out with my foot thinking that would help it evaporate but I did that a couple times and it never did (evaporate).
This began (over the course of the last 48 hrs) to combine in my brain with something else which had been troubling me which was that I felt like I heard the faintest hiss of water running in both the maid's and master bathrooms but could find no new leaks there (tub, sink, running toilet) with the exception of the known issue in the master bath of a slow persistent drip, which never made this sound before.
Slowly I ran out of explanations other than some pipe in the crawlspace must be spewing water and soaking the floor from below and having a faint echo in the rest of the plumbing somehow.
Happily I remembered the small floor hatch in the middle bedroom closet (so I didn't have to move the mobile dishwasher and go down the big heavy hatch in the kitchen far from the action, although in retrospect that may not have been a bad idea.
Above is the site of the hatch in the closet and below is the open hatch illuminated by flashlight. Some significant mold has accumulated! (I noticed later). My first impression (after getting a flat head screwdriver from the tools drawer in the dining room and using it to pry up the wet and swollen trap door) was of a heavy spray of water hitting the cinder block foundation wall just below here).
Sticking my head in the hatch (I didn't want to go down there in the spraying water) and laying flat on the floor above and putting one arm in to hold the flashlight I was able to see something like this, but how it would have looked if you were in a commercial car wash when you took the picture. Water was spraying from somewhere near the far wall, where the plumbing comes into the house and goes into a maze of connections and valves.
Next I rushed around trying to figure out which circuit breaker controlled the water pump (because unfortunately it wasn't labeled at the time but it is now, fyi it's #2) and ultimately turning off all the power and resigning myself to going out to the well pit and trying to get down there and turn off the pump directly, which eventually I did, and it was very handy to have my flat bar in my tool bag in my van, because that thing has gotten quite a bit heavier in the last 30 years!
But, after confirming the water was finally off by going around and opening taps in the cottage (and getting nothing) I went down for a look and didn't find what I was expecting which was some huge rusty hole in some supply pipe, something obvious, or maybe where the supply came into the house (which it didn't turn out to be, judging by the splatter forensics). Oh, by now I'd phoned Mom and left her a message (after figuring out which fuse to turn back on to get the phone working again - my mobile phone doesn't work here at all b/c T-Mobile has no coverage here so don't bother texting me I won't get it until I get to town, sorry). And I looked up Whitehall Plumbers on the 'net and called three for quotes, in reverse order from smallest most local to regional to biggest professional network. Surprisingly they got better deals as they scaled up. (First guy didn't answer his phone). Long story short I'm the first on their list for the day after tomorrow (Wed morn) and if they have an opening before then (Tuesday, tomorrow) they'll try to fit me in because I have no water until they get here and fix it.
I had noticed mold and extreme dampness in the crawl space so wanted to air it out and after finding this old relic in the far master closet I put her to work blowing air down into the crawl space.
Of course that's not very useful if there isn't somewhere for the air to go so I succumbed and moved the dishwasher and opened the kitchen hatch and felt the air coming out.
Then I went out to turn the pump back on in the well. Below is the well next to the carport. I have slid off the (very) heavy concrete cover to one side (there are three pieces to the cover, two of which are hidden in the bush/sand here).
Inside the pit you will see the holding tank (left) and the pump (center), both of which are standing on the sand, and the switch, which is mounted on the wall of the tank) which turns the whole thing on/off (right).
The pump only operates at one output pressure so what it does is pump water (when told to do so by a low pressure switch in the holding tank) until the low pressure switch turns off. Because air is trapped in the tank with the water it is pressurized and forces the water out through the taps in the cottage until the pressure difference disappears. The red switch on the wall controls whether any of that can happen or if the whole thing is just in the off position and the tank will not get filled.
Here I am pointing to the red switch which controls the water pump.
Next I went back in the cottage to the electrical box in the maid's bathroom and began trying to figure out what all the unlabeled breakers were. I had already figured out and labeled one as the middle bedroom when I was trying to get the fan to work and now I found out the top one on the right side (#2) is the pump.
I had already closed all the drains and opened all the taps, to reduce the pressure on the leak and to collect water for washing/drinking in the process) so as soon as I heard the pump start up and the bathroom faucet start to run I rushed over to the closet trap door (where I had already moved the fan out of the way temporarily) and did my trapeze trip hanging into the crawl space with my upper body using my legs for balance on the floor above. The spray was much less, but still it was difficult to see exactly where it was coming from. My best guess is a valve fitting I recognized from my earlier up close inspection due to it's handle design. But I really need someone else here to sit down there (off to the side) which I switch on the pump for a second and identify where the leak is coming from and fix it for me. Unfortunately that doesn't sound likely to happen before Wednesday morning.
FYI
