October 29, 2007

Pressure Testing!

Ah, what fun! Pressure testing the plumbing! What could go wrong, eh? How hard could it be? Add a little water or air in the pipes and enjoy how well it works!

And that is exactly how my weekend went...not! ;-) But it ended up well in the long run.

Originally Laura suggested that I come up this weekend with Derrick and make it a 3 day weekend trip since he had the day off from school for a teachers' workday. So I didn't think of seeing if anyone else wanted a fun trip to the cabin. But basketball tryouts started on Monday, so Derrick stayed home.

That doesn't mean I was alone though, by any means. I got a call Thursday from the Hendersons asking me if they could take me up on my offer to stay at the cabin when the Smith's cabin was full. So they stayed with me Friday night and fixed me a wonderful breakfast in the morning. After they left, two neighbors (Dave and Jim) came up with their ATVs and were checking out the new road. I talked with them for awhile. Then my neighbor John two doors over joined us and we talked for awhile. Then "Moses", who owns land from which my driveway is the closest spot to it came up and we talked for awhile. Moses is probably in his 80's and used to be the Sheriff of Macon County. After he went off, a friend called from work to see how the leaves were changing. And finally I called home to say hi to Laura and the kids. It was after 12 by the time I finally got working! But it was for an enjoyable reason though. :-) ... and if that wasn't enough, I had wonderful long conversation with Grady and Linda that evening, and the next day Moses came back by, and Tricia Smith and her friend stopped by to say hello and see the cabin's progress. I don't see this many people in a weekend at my house I live at! ;-) Tricia's timing was pretty funny as I had just gotten a good squirt from a water pipe and was still dripping when they walked in.

And even no one was stopping by, the Hendersons had left their dog Harley with me for the day on Saturday. Harley is a sweetie but was a bit nervous after "Mom and Dad" left for the day. She followed me around and was not too sure when I tried to pet her at times. It got funny when Susie and Ross returned. Harley sat right next to me and leaned her body very hard into me (when all day she was timid about me even touching her). I was pretty sure she was unhappy with them and wanted to let them know. But as they packed up she happily hopped in the car to go home. I missed Harley after she left because I had spent all day talking to her to reassure her, and after she left I several times started talking to her by habit. ;-)

However, in between all the socializing, I finally got a chance to do the pressure testing. I started with the DWV (white drain and vent pipes). I cap off the end of the pipe in the septic tank and begin filling the pipes from the tub. I'm watching all the pipes carefully and not seeing any leaks. But then I get distracted (I realize that those of you who know me well are probably not shocked at that ;-) and before I know it, a clean out cap that I had completely forgotten to glue the cap on leaked about 15 gallons of water on the basement floor. After I fixed that, I ended up handling:

In the end, I managed to pressure test the basement and the upstairs up to the tub. With the last fixes, I will be able to test the rest of the DWV on my next trip. And I also got to "test" my well. Filling up all the DWV pipes three times that weekend showed the well has pretty good capacity. A silver lining. :)

I did have a big scare though this time. When I have listened to other people's stories about building their houses, they always have some type of horror story or two. But pretty much all has gone very well for me so far...admittedly slowly :)...but well. However, while doing the pressure testing I noticed that when I turned off the water, the water was draining out a bit. I searched thru all the pipes and did not see any water at all, much less the amount that was disappearing. I went outside and underneath the corner of the deck was about 10 feet section next to the house which was wet! I thought "Oh no! The water was leaking in a broken pipe under the basement concrete floor!". This was not good and I was bummed. However, later on when I went to start digging in the wet dirt to see if I could determine more precisely where it was leaking, I figured out the water wasn't coming from under the house. Rather it was coming from the gutter drain from the front of the house, running down the side of the house, and curved around the back of the house under the deck. All this was occurring because of the drains we installed this summer.

And the real reason the water was leaking was the home made cap I made for the septic tank pipe (shown below) was leaking. But for an hour or two, I was kind of bummed.

But I ended on another high note. The last thing I did before leaving was I did the pressure test on the supply lines. I used air for that. I set it to 100 psi and after 15 minutes it was at 98-99 psi. And for a half hour longer it stabilized at that. I later realized that I had a water spigot turned on to a garden house so I was pressure testing that also. I think that is were I might have been losing the pressure a bit. So I will retest that next trip too. But it appears to be in reasonably good shape.

So overall a very successful trip.


I started filling up the DWV from the tub. Once I got things leak proof to that level, I had to get up on the roof and put the hose in the DWV vent stack.

A shot of the pressure gauge on the supply line where the water will come into the house.

The septic tank plug. I show this because it shows my attempt at a home made rubber cap with a spigot. The idea was to solve the problem of the normal cap which when I found a leak, I had to remove that cap and let out all the water. I was hoping I could use the spigot to just let out enough water to get below the leak and fix it. But this cap leaked. Good idea...not good implementation. One good idea I did have was to tie a rope around it in case it fell in the septic tank water. I most certainly was not going diving for it as the outhouse has been using this septic tank!

While I focused on the plumbing this trip, I did do one other job by installing the third bathroom vent like I did on the other side last trip. I had already made the box, stained it, and painted the vent cover green, so I just needed to cut the hole and install it.