Black Rhombus

Monday night, I returned home to no water in the house.  The well pump had been cutting on & off far more frequently (w/o any water running anywhere in the house), & after some research, I’d determined it was the diaphragm/check valve in the pressure tank.  The recurring problem led to the pressure switch blowing out, which led to no water in the house.  Rebecca took off on Tues, & our plumber came by & replaced the switch, along w/a couple of other parts on the pressure tank.  After he’d finished, however, (couple hundred bucks) the whole system still wouldn’t hold pressure correctly, so Rebecca called the well people.  They came out Tues afternoon & diagnosed a hole in the pipe leading down the well.  They also said that they’d been out to our house a couple of times in the last few years to patch the pipe.

Rather than slap another patch on an old pipe (which they said wasn’t rated for proper pressure anymore), we’re going to have it replaced Thurs afternoon (multiple hundreds of bucks).  That’s not all, folks.  The plumber also said that our water heater was the orig that came w/the house & that he was surprised we’d managed to get by w/it as long as we have.  Once the water started running again in the house, we got a ton of rust sediment in the sinks/tubs/toilets.  He said that that stuff was what our water heater is full of.  Joy.  So, we’re going to start looking into replacing that as well.  We’ve started researching, & will likely go with another 50gal tank system (they’re ridiculously more efficient these days).

We’ll keep ya posted.

We’re switching to Picasa for image hosting.  I’m able to still put the photos up here, & this post is the inaugural use of a new WP plugin.  Let’s see how it works, shall we?

Portland 2009



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We’ve been going back & forth on options for finishing off our laundry room floor for so long, I wasn’t sure that the job would ever get done.  We bought ~$300 worth of tile from Lowes, & subsequently returned it.  You should have seen my car on the way back from Lowes.  Rebecca was driving & she said the car was fish-tailing…. whlie driving straight.  Definitely not a good idea in hindsight.

We knew the slab wasn’t all that even to begin with, so we started to use the mortar (moh-tar?) to try to even out the divits, but quickly realized it was turning into more of a job than anticipated.  So, we asked Pete to take a look & give us his thoughts.  He confirmed that using tile on that surface would have been a problem, so I took the tile back… in several car-loads this time.  Heh.

Soooooo… we finally ended up back at our original plan: self-leveling concrete.  We were initially freaked out by this stuff because it sets up so fast that you really have to move quickly, & have a good idea of what you’re doing.  Well, after I dunno how many weeks of research, I think we’d figured it out.  We used Laticrete self-leveling underlay, & Quickcrete concrete stain + top-coat to finish it off.  It looks really good, & we’re very happy with the result.

We also finally got our new washer & dryer!  Thanks Cyril & Mary!

Full gallery of photos is here.