We Had Hi-igh Hopes...

Yes, we had hi-igh hopes. High apple pie in the sky-ye hopes

All the Long-Awaited New Parts

That was how it seemed when I started working on the main pool pump right after breakfast. As you can see at the left, all the brand new parts for the main pool pump, including the seal pieces right up front. That was what was holding the whole production up, waiting to get those two little bits in.

But then, as I worked to dismantle the motor from the rest of the pump body, bad news just came rolling in.

Center Bolt Thing Had to be Removed

First off, I had to loosen what looks like a bolt in the image at left. That part should be buried inside the impeller. That is, it should be bonded with the plastic of the impeller so that it is one piece. That was where the impeller sheared off leaving the bolt thing tightly on the shaft. the big round part of the impeller is what freewheeled and began destroying the diffuser. That is when I got involved after hearing the racket.

I had to open the back end of the motor to get a wrench in to hold the shaft still while I hopefully loosened the center bolt thing.

Doing that let me see just how bad the motor really was. Plastic parts making up the electrical bits of the motor were cracked badly and in a couple of cases, as I loosened the screws holding them in place, bits of plastic fell out, allowing the whole component to essentially disintegrate. The white piece of plastic in the photo below should be oriented a bit differently than it is. Of course, it should also be in one piece.

Bad News At the Back End

It soon became apparent that the motor was not going to be working anymore - ever.

Initially, I was afraid I'd have to replace the whole pump, motor and all. It quickly became apparent that I should just have to replace the motor and a few parts in addition to all the parts I already had.

My task now at hand was to remove that pesky bolt thing from the shaft, which would allow me to salvage the seal plate and the motor mounting plate and four bolts. Altogether, about $100.00 US worth of parts.

I finally got that loose, which was no easy task, and managed to salvage the two plates and bolts. So, All I have to do now is buy a new motor and a little rubber part, like a flat washer, called a 'slinger.'

The new motor will run about $210.00 US and the slinger will run $4.00 US. A lot better than what I thought was going to be a complete pump/motor replacement for around $400.00 US.

Of course, those costs will vary, depending on where I can get the motor. If Island Pool has one in stock, that will add about another $100.00 US to the cost. It will be about the same if I have to order the motor from the States. Possibly more, as I would have to add in GST (Goods and Services Tax) Sales Tax, Duty, and Environmental Fees.

What is attractive with Island Pool, is if they have it in stock, I can be up and running in a day or two. No matter how it goes with stateside ordering, it's about a month away from being able to do anything.

And since this is the Saturday before Christmas, Island isn't open today. I have to wait till Wednesday for them. I could order from the states right now, but that delay is daunting.

Nothing for it right now except to have a nice cold Belikin and hopefully watch the pool temp go up with the new addition to the heater.

Have a great weekend, a wonderful Christmas, and a prosperous New Year.

It Just Goes To Show You

Nothing ever seems to work out quite the way that you think it might.

A week or so ago, the A/C on the Isuzu began to get, shall we say, warm. In other words, the A/C began to fail by degrees (pun intended). It got progressively warmer in the cockpit. At some point I decided it was no longer functioning, so I turned it off, relying only on the vent and fan.

The girls, Secret and Bela, normally love to go for rides with me. I'm convinced now that the only reason they want to go is so they can sit right in front of the A/C vents and suck up all that cool air. They both began to look at me suspiciously, as if I was purposly screwing up the air supply.

I wasn't, honest. It failed. That's all.

A couple weeks prior, Bruce had told me about a shop on the highway near his house, that recharged A/C units for a nominal fee. I tried to find it, but with the highway construction going on in that area, looking was severely hampered.

A couple of days ago, I called Bruce and asked if he would go with me to try and find this elusive A/C fixit joint. He said "Sure," so I hot-footed over to his place and we went to find it.

Well, it turns out there were a couple of other reasons why I couldn't find the place besides the construction... One, Bruce had told me to look for a white house with a chain link fence. Turns out the house is yellow and white. And two, There's no way to get to the house from the highway. You have to approach it from a side street. Sort of sneaking up on it in a way. Oh, and a third reason - No sign. Not that that's unusual by any means here in Belize. Many businesses have no outer indication that there might be a business at that location.

So, OK. Bruce's directions might have muddied the works a bit. We found the place all right and the proprietor (Nairobi is his name) came out with his gauges and stuff to check out the A/C. Right away, after I started the car, he broke out his stethescope (an old length of green garden hose), stuck one end on the A/C compressor and the other to his ear.

His quick diagnosis was that the bearing in the compressor was about to fail big-time. He gave me a card for a guy (Eustace Dawson, 501-610-2835) in Belize City who makes frequent trips to the states and returns with parts, new and used, for all sorts of vehicles. I don't know if he has a sign out front or not. My guess is... uh, no.

Anyway, I asked if he had a compressor for a '96 Isuzu Rodeo, 3.2 liter engine. He did. All I had to do was deposit the money to his bank account, and head over to BPMS (Belize Post and Mailing Service) sort of the UPS of Belize, pay for the COD freight and pick up my compressor. Which I did. Of course, in reality, that took about two days to complete all the transactions, but it got done.

So then, I went up to Rick's, my mechanic, to see if he could install the compressor for me. He could, and he gave me a ride back to Casa Winjama. Once again, we're without wheels.

In the mean time, while all this is going on, Carlos, our Caretaker, told me that Terrence Leslie, the small engine expert, was next door working on Mike's boat motor. I called Terrence and asked if he would stop by when he was done.

Our generator, a 6.5kW (or is it Kw? I looked it up on the Intertubes, and saw it both ways) wheeled affair, hadn't been started in a year or so (my laziness entirely) and the fuel in the tank was a good three years old.

Terrence and his son loaded the generator into the back of their SUV, and I said, since you're here, I think the pool pump needs new bearings too. He had replaced them about four years ago, so it was time. They took the pump as well. That was on Wednesday.

Friday morning, Terrence comes with the generator and the pump, both in primo condition. The generator fired up on the first pull. So, in that regard, we're ready for the coming hurricane season. I made myself a slew of promises that I would test it regularly, etc., etc.

We then took the pump to the pool pump house where I greased up the 'O'rings for the pump pipe unions and we hooked it up and turned it on. Nary a leak. I think that was a first. And Quiet. Wow! I remember, the first time Terrence replaced the bearings on the pump. Before he worked on it, the bearings were actually screaming. The racket was unbelievable.

Everything I had read about the pumps was that the bearings were very critical and had to be ordered specially from Hayward and all that. Total BS. They run fine on Chinese bearings. In fact, after Terrence replaced the bearings the first time, it ran quieter than it did when the pump was brand new. And now, this time was no different. Quiet. The only thing different was that I got it done before the old bearings could scream. They merely moaned.

Generator's taken care of. Check. Pool pump is taken care of. Check. Isuzu's taken care of. Almost.

Back to the Isuzu. At about the end of the Friday pool party, about 5:00 PM, Rick showed up at the gate with the Isuzu. He said it was a good thing I had bought the compressor. The old one was definitely on the verge of seizing up completely and would not have worked long at all. But, he had run out of time for Friday to charge the A/C system. I had asked him to bring the car back Friday afternoon so we would have wheels for the weekend.

Rick is a Seventh Day Adventist, so he's closed on Saturday, their Sabbath, but he said if I brought the Isuzu by on Sunday, he would be able to charge it for me. Everything is looking rosy.

Well, almost everything. My computer, hasn't been able to access the Intertubes for two or three days now. I've been trying to do everything through my iPod. What an exercise that has been.

This morning, I fired up my PC, wanting to extract my email configuration data, and, lo and behold, it's connected to the Intertubes! So, first thing I did was jump up and crank out this post.

I have no idea why the PC was unable to connect for so long. Everything else could do it easily. Dianna's laptop, her iPad, my iPod. Who knows?

So, it just goes to show you... what, I'm not sure, exactly, approximately, or even vaguely. You just have to be ready to respond and 'stay flexible, but don't go limp.'

Weekend = Busy, Busy, Busy

The other name for that could be the question we ask alot - How did we find time to work when we worked?

We were kind of busy this weekend - all weekend, it seems. First, let me say that for purposes of this discussion, last weekend began on Thursday as that's the day I worked on the pool pumps, valves, unions, piping, etc.

Would you believe I worked from 7:30 AM, Thursday morning until 4:00 PM that same day? I did. It was a severe day as well. Working in that cramped little octagonal-shaped building, where there never is a breeze, and where the heat just multiplies as the day goes on.

In fact, to give you an idea of the heat, around 11:00 AM, I took my phone and my keys/gate remote and left them in the pool house as I was afraid condensation would damage them. It was so be that, by the time I knocked off, I noticed I was dripping sweat from my shorts!

Anyway, here's what I worked on. First, I have wanted to raise both pump motors off the floor for a long time. I took the opportunity when I removed the main pump to service the pump seal of raising both motors on concrete blocks. This naturally entailed re-doing the plumbing going into and out of each pump. You can see the waterfall pump (the orange thing below) sitting comfortably on its block.

Waterfall Pump Raised

The main pump (the black thing below) was what started this whole project. About two weeks ago I noticed leakage out of the back of the pump, just in front of the motor. Oops. Not a good sign. I learn quickly. Last time, I didn't notice that leak and that lead eventually to water going onto the front motor bearing which caused it to scream progressively louder until it failed. Thankfully, Terence Leslie, a small engine mechanic here in Corozal, is also a veritable wizard when it comes to replacing electric motor bearings and such.

Main Pump Raised

Anyway, this time I was able to pull the pump out of service before it self-destructed. I also took the opportunity this time to re-route the outlet pipe to each pump so that it's joining union was off to one side of the pump. That way, when I do remove either pump, residual water in the piping will fall harmlessly to one side of the pump instead of cascading over the pump and the motor. In my mind, the design of these pumps is pretty poor. They should be designed with the outlet on the pump's side. It won't care which way the water leaves the pump.

I also took the opportunity to add two more valves on the inlet and outlet side of the main pump to facilitate removal of the pump without the gyrations I previously had to go through. Things like a little plug I had made to stopper up the skimmer as there had been no valve installed when it was built to stop water flowing from there to the motor. Since the motor was lower than the water level in the skimmer, without the stopper in place, a flood in the pump house developed rather quickly. I also had to turn off the valves for the floor drain and the spa jets. Now all I  have to do is turn two conveniently located valves and presto!, the main pump can be disconnected easily. You can see the two red-handled valves in the photo below and at the bottom, you can see the outlet union for the pump is now off to one side.

New Valves and Piping

I also had to replace a union on the filter (the cream-colored round thing below). The inlet union is now white. The dark gray union it replaced had been leaking for quite some time. When I went to tighten it, it snapped into two pieces - the threaded part was one piece and the top piece that connected to the other part of the pipe. I suspect it had been broken for some time and that that was where the leak was. When I attempted to tighten it, that was all it needed to fail completely.

Pool Filter and Piping

Next thing that happened, was the union at the pump refused to quit dripping. So, on Friday, Carlos (who's building our patio area) and I looked at it and decided that epoxy would be the best thing to stop the leak. I applied that and it almost worked perfectly, with still just a little, little leak left.

Well, anyway,jumping ahead for just a second, now on Monday, no leakage anywhere. First time in ages that the floor of the pump house has been completely dry.

So, back to Friday... Carlos was there and cast the bar/counter top, with only the barbecue area left to build for the basic parts of the structure.

Carlos needed the barbecue grill itself to see how to build the whole structure for that. I had to go to Dr. Sheila's to get some heartworm meds for the dogs. As I drove past Pancho's Welding shop on the way to Sheila's, I saw he had a BBQ standing out in his yard. I whipped in to take a look.

After a quick look, I thought that was just what the doctor ordered and for $150BZD, it was perfect. It's made from a medium-sized butane tank and some 3/8- and 1/2-inch rebar, oh, and about an eight-inch piece of exhaust tubing.

Our New BBQ Closed Up

Here you can see the grill opened up. It's got an expanded metal grate. Hey, not a Cadillac, but, certainly up for some fine barbecuing. And if it lasts for a few years, all the better.
Next thing that happened was our pressure tanks - one for the reverse osmosis drinking water system and the other for the well.

We've never had spectacular water pressure here. I just assumed that was what we had. Our pump/pressure switch was automatically set, so I wasn't sure how to adjust it or that it could be adjusted. And the reverse osmosis system. A couple weeks ago, it began to loose pressure such that it was able to maybe have enough water to fill one liter water bottle before running out of water. Here's the RO system pressure tank below.

New BBQ Grill

Reverse Osmosis System Pressure Tank

Anyway, I asked Doug (my neighbor and dog walking accomplice) if he knew anything about pressure tanks and how to adjust them. Turns out he did. Good thing too because when I read the manual for one of the tanks, all I could say was, "huh?"

So, Sunday, Doug comes over and we started to look at the RO tank. He said let's start instead out at the pump. We need to find what your start and stop pressure on the switch is anyway. You can see the well pressure tank below and the pressure switch.

Now, we have amazing water pressure in the house - about 40-45 lbs which the most we had before was 30-45 lbs. Quite nice. The water pressure for the RO system now can fill at least several bottles and do it quickly. Yea!!!! What a relief that is.

And finally, well almost finally, our orchids, which we've had growing on trees an posts here and there, mostly ignoring them and never watering them at all. This morning, as I was coming back in from shopping, some delicate white flowers among the orchids caught my eye.

I decided I'd take a few pictures of them for the blog as well, so I did. Here's the one that caught my eye. Quite nice.

Well Pressure Tank

Our Orchids Flowering

And here's some more. Like I said, we don't do anything with these guys. They continue to thrive.

More of Our Orchids

Here's Cody, our caretaker trimming hedges this morning. The front yard is beginning to really look nice..

And Yet More of Our Orchids

Cody Trimming Hedges

And the reason for that is Dianna. It's finally getting cool enough she can get out and garden, which she has been wanting to do for quite some time.

Dianna Seeking Shelter

Now, last but not least. The only other time I've seen one of these critters here in Belize, was a couple years ago when I snapped a photo of one on one of our gate lights. Here it's on our front stair railing. He (or she) is about six or seven inches long, so they're pretty good sized.

Praying Mantis on Stair Rail

Alright, that's officially the end of the weekend. We're both exhausted.

Whaddyado?

This past week I've been reorganizing my pool pump house. By that I mean, when my main pump sprung a leak (the shaft seal was leaking), instead of waiting for it to destroy the front bearing on the motor, like I did last time, I pulled the pump out and promptly ordered a new seal and diffuser and housing o-rings.

While I had the main pump out, I decided this would be an ideal time to reposition the main pump and the waterfall pump, putting both up on concrete blocks so they're not sitting on the floor in potential puddles of water.

I also added a couple of valves that were missing from the original installation - so I could remove the main pump without going through the gyrations I had to do previously to remove it.

The other thing I decided to do was to essentially re-orient the outfall from each pump so that if I disconnect the pump, water in the pipe doesn't run all over the top of the pump. I installed an elbow with a short (4 or 5") length of pipe so the union, when separated drains to the side of the pump.

So far in the process, I've successfully re-done the waterfall pump. Everything with it works fine with no leaks. No problems there at all.

I've redone the main pump as well, with the two additional valves in place. The valves work fine with no leakage either.

Incidentally, I also took the opportunity to fix a couple small leaks at the connections for the filter. Those leaks are stopped now too.

The remaining problem is the main pump outfall union. I've used three different o-rings and the union still leaks.

I am having a problem here with getting o-rings of exactly the right diameter and thickness. But, you work with what you have as much as possible. I've stretched the o-rings so they fit into the groove, tightened up the union, and still have leakage.

I'm pretty sure the surfaces of the union that join together where the o-ring fits, are meeting flat - as flat as any of the other unions I have in the pump house. It's not exact, but you get it as close as you can. With gluing PVC parts together, sometimes 'close' is as good as it gets.

So... I have this leak. This morning, I'm going to try a really thick o-ring. If I can stretch it enough so that it fits in the groove, maybe that'll solve the problem. If it still leaks,

I'm looking for ideas. Anybody have any? I'm willing to consider anything - voodoo, incantations, burning incense, a bigger hammer, better curse words... anything!

You Just Ain't Gonna Believe This

I took this from an email I had sent yesterday to my neighbor Doug as we had talked about what I was planning to do on the previous morning's walk with the girls.

Last Friday, I talked to Jim across the canal about my pool pump motor and the fact that its bearings are screaming again and probably need replacing. He said Carlos (his caretaker) has taken his pump a couple of times to Orange Walk and had the bearings replaced. I asked him if he would have Carlos give me a shout in the next few days.

I called Jim yesterday and reminded him about Carlos. Within half an hour Carlos was beeping at the gate. I brought him in and showed him the pump and demo'd the noise it was making. He agreed that yes, the bearings were going.

I told him I'd bring the pump motor over to him at Jim's the following morning. Which I did at about 9:30 AM. I gave Carlos $50 BZD for down payment if they were able to do anything.

I then went into town to do several things. One, to get Elsie's battery charged (since I had been neglectful on my starting of her care). Two, to have my battery charger checked to make sure it was charging. It was, slowly, but it was still working. I had gone to Caribbean Tire to have that done. They said to come back noonish and the battery should be charged up. I made it back about 1:30 PM. When I went to pay for the service, I was told the fee for checking out my charger and charging the battery was zero, nada, nothing. Unbelievable and such great service. I told them they had just gained a permanent customer. I was impressed. Reminded me mightily of the quality service provided by Les Schwab Tire Co. up in the Northwest.

So, that was pretty amazing, right? But, that's not what you're not going to believe. This is...

About 4:30 PM, Carlos was beeping at the gate again. Dianna answered the gate and Carlos told her he had the pump motor. While she was doing that I headed down the front steps to greet Carlos. I heard him tell her the motor was broken. Oh, no. What rotten luck. Another 2 months waiting for a pump.

That was Carlos' idea of humor. He had the motor, alright, but it was fixed - new bearings in it and it spun quietly. Wow! That was what was unbelievable. He had taken the motor over to Terrence, the same guy who repairs my generator and weed whacker.

Apparently he had a hard time removing one of the bearings (he even has a bearing puller, or whatever the tool is called that will remove bearnings). He was able to eventually remove it. Terrence was able to find one of the bearings at Lano's here in Corozal. The other (of course, they were different sizes too) he got from Orange Walk.

Now, tell me I'd get service like that in the States or Canada. Doesn't that just blow your mind? And the bill. $46 for the bearings. The labor was $160. I gave Carlos the $4 change from the fifty plus an additional $10 for a tip. $220 BZD was the total. Amazing. It was worth every penny!

Bright and early this morning (of course, after the walk), I hotfooted it down to the workshop and began reassembling the pump and motor. It went together withou a hitch (of course, I've done it often enough now, that it should). I took the assembled unit down to the pump house hooked everything up and gave the juice to the pump. Wow! It worked perfectly.

A little later on in the morning, I figured I really needed to take care of a couple of minor leaks around the filter and the one fitting on the pump that I had worked on after the blow-out. I got those fixed after a trip into Lanos for fittings and some extra rolls of Teflon tape.

Huey is very happy now. He can spend his day cruising around the pool bottom vacuuming to his heart's content. Dianna and me? Well, we popped a couple of Belikins and relaxed in the pool. It's so nice and so unexpected to have it working again this soon.

Just goes to show you, Belize really isn't a third world country, it's a 'developing country'. There's so much more available most of the time than when we first moved here. I'm really glad they thought ahead and had the right bearings on hand. Life is good.

Cheers,
Dave

PS - I also stuck the charged battery in Elsie's car. Vrrrrooooomm, it started right up with no problems. Another good day! - d

Looking Down the Barrel

I would have posted this last night, but the Intertubes were really slow, slow, slow.

I'm talking about Tropical Storm Richard. He's just sitting out there teasing and taunting everyone. Do we put everything away? Do we leave stuff as it is? What do we do and how much time will we have to do it? Arrgh! I hate the waiting.

Anyway, yesterday I went with Doug to Belmopan as he needed to get a couple of things from Builder's Hardware. I went along mostly to keep him company (awake) on the trek. I did buy a rubber chew toy for Deohgee, since she loves to chew Crocs and other things. I also picked up a really stiff scrubbing brush with a long handle to use in the pool.

From Builder's, we went to the Ultimate Herbal Health Food Store so Doug could get some molasses for Twyla's baked beans and from there we went to Reimer's Feed Mill where we bought new dog collars - nice heavy-duty ones.

After finishing all that, we decided we'd stop for lunch at Cheers, on the Western Highway, a little south of Belmopan. Last time we did this, we stopped first at the Restaurant and Hotel Supply store and went over to Amigo's for lunch, confusing that for Cheers. It was ok, but we'd heard raves about Cheers, and just didn't see what was so spectacular about it.

Cheers - With A Tropical Twist

Well, this time we did make it to the correct place - Cheers (Mile 31 1/4 on the Western Highway). Nice place. Great service - fast. Beer was cold. Food arrived at the table together. That's a key point for those of you unfamiliar with Belize. It is not unusual at all to go in a restaurant, order food and have the meals come out one at a time with 10 to 15 minutes in between deliveries.

I ordered a gut-bomb (mushroom cheese burger and fries), Doug had pasta. We both agreed they were quite good.

My Order

Cheers has a nice atmosphere. It's obviously a place the British Army likes to hang out at when they're doing their jungle warfare training activities. Lots of signs and tshirts hanging in the rafters. They even have a website: (http://www.cheersrestaurant.bz/).

Hanging Around

Maybe the burger isn't quite up to the Riverside Tavern in Belize City, but it's definitely worth a stop anytime you have to truck over to Belmopan to conduct business. Very nice place to eat, drink and relax.

Late-breaking news on Cheers - If the parking lot is full of buses, more than likely it's 'cruise ship day'... Avoid it and go to Amigo's.

From there, we cruised back down the Western Highway to Belize City. Doug needed to stop at Brothers Habet Hardware, which I guess is different from Habet and Habet Hardware - same family, different companies and different locations in Belize City.

Brothers Habet is supposedly located at 115 Barrack Road. Well, we cruised up and down but couldn't find it. A lack of street signs, something Belize City is supposed to be addressing, hamper any effective navigation. We finally found it at the intersection of Barrack Road and Freetown Road. Like I always say, 'If if was easy, it wouldn't be any fun'.

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I did a real bone-head stunt the other day. I had shut off a couple valves in the pool pump house so I could open the pump and clean out the leaf basket inside. Naturally, when I was done, I forgot to open those valves. This wasn't a problem till the next morning when the pump started automatically on its scheduled time.

With nowhere to go, the water simply took the expedient action of blowing the outfall from the pump right off the threaded fitting, spewing huge amounts of water everywhere. I had come out of the house and standing on the front porch, noticed the pool looked a little low - like about half low. Holy Sh**, Batman!

I ran downstairs toward the pump house (well, as fast as an old fart runs). As I crossed the pool deck, I saw a lot of water running along the walkway, going through the gate and spilling from the boat slip deck into the canal.

I opened the pump house door and loosed a torrent of water that had backed up inside. Standing on the curbing outside, I reached in and shut the power off to the pump, stopping the deluge. That's when I noticed cause and effect.

Not only that, but water had also gone through a fitting and exacerbated a small cave-in partly under the pump house. Noticing that, I immediately got Cody working on that before the pump house tilted over and made matters catastrophically worse.

Finishing Filling the Cave-in

It was a big enough project that I had Cody hire his unemployed brother-in-law, Rufino, for the day to help dig it out (to firm marl), pack the hole with rocks and concrete under the pump house especially and with mostly rocks in the rest of the hole to within a couple inches of the top, then filling the rest with marl.

Smoothing It Out

It seems that we're getting to be quite good with dealing with cave-ins. Hopefully, this will be the last one for a while. Thankfullly, I have good supply of rock on hand that was intended for the bulkhead project, but a diversion was necessary.

In the meantime, I spent the next couple days figuring out how to repair the rest of the damage. I re-taped the fittings, put everything back together and got the pump working (after opening the valves). Unfortunately, the bearings on the motor are now making a godawful high-pitched yowl. Not screaming - yet (sounds awfully familiar for those of you who have followed this blog for a while, doesn't it?).

I consulted yesterday with Doug to help me chase down an air leak on the system that developed after all this. Every time I turned on the pump, air bubbles showed in the inlets to the pool. Bubbles would not normally be happening there. Something was wrong. After much considered head and butt scratching we concluded the problem had to be in the pump. Which it was. I finally found the inlet fitting for the pump had come loose. So, I re-taped that and re-installed it. Now, everything works fine, except for the noise of the bearings.

I also consulted yesterday during happy hour at Jim's house (every Friday from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM). Jim also has a pool. But, he also had a solution. His caretaker, Carlos knows a guy in Orange Walk town who rebuilds pump motors and has replaced bearings in his old motor several times. I've asked Jim to have Carlos give me a visit so I can talk to him about getting my pump bearings fixed.

So, it that works, problem solved. You know, it seems to me, that this pump/motor design is somewhat crappy, to turn a phrase. Why isn't the pump motor waterproofed or something, so that when unauthorized water does interfere, the bearings and other bits don't automatically become rusted bits? Like Jim said, they then wouldn't be able to sell as many pumps. Ahhhh. Makes sense, I guess.

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Lastly, totally unrelated to the above story, I finally got a butane tank for the guesthouse and got it hooked up and working. We now have a functioning stove, hot water at the kitchen sink and in the bathroom at the sink and in the shower - which I have used already. Turns out, the shower is quite roomy. We had out doubts about that, but not to worry. It functions nicely.

Guesthouse Butane Tank

Lest you think the tank is just standing there in an unsafe mode, it is chained and padlocked to an anchor in the concrete wall, so it can't fall and become a missile. I still have to paint the flex tubing that encased the gas lines. First things first.

Latest update so far this morning on T/S Richard. The latest NOAA map shows it going further south from us - which is good news. Sure, we'll probably get a good dowsing, but that should be about it. Hopefully, Richard will be the last event for the season. Hey, we can hope, can't we?

And It's Quiet Too!

Why, just the past few days we were anticipating starting up with the construction again. As a matter of fact, Monday evening, Roy (of Roy and Son Shipping) called and said he would be stopping by Tuesday with some packages for us.

Woohoo! That means our pool pump motor is in. Yay! Just in the nick of time too. So, Tuesday, I just assumed Roy would be by here in the morning as we were planning to go to the Friendship Luncheon at the Purple Toucan that afternoon.

Well, morning came and went, so did the afternoon. We didn't go to the luncheon, figuring it would be easier to wait for Roy here than leave a party and beat feet back here in a timely manner. So we waited.

Roy finally showed up about at about 5:30 PM that evening. We off-loaded our goodies, paid Roy and went upstairs to relax for the evening. I was going to worry about putting the pump back together in the morning.

Here's a picture of the pump motor (the white box). The other boxes have split bamboo roll-up shades for our front and back porches and a small one with two boxes of .

Boxes Hot Off the Truck

Just when you think all's well, all might not be well. As I was opening the box containing the motor, I noticed the formed styrofoam packing for the motor was pretty well exploded into several large pieces for each end with a lot of small bits of styrofoam migrating all over the place.

Looks like somebody might have dropped the motor. Oh, no. Let's hope not.

Brand New Pump

[Oops! I did leave it as a cliff-hanger, didn't I? Here's the rest of the story. I don't know what happened to the post. I do too, now that I think about it. We lost current... ergo, lost story.  - d]

So, as I vacuumed off the little Styrofoam bits and pieces from the motor, I initially thought the exposed shaft was bent. Turned out it was simply a plastic cap protecting the threads that was bent over. Whew! I spun the shaft by hand and it turned very smoothly.

Well, nothing for it but to chance it. I went ahead and stripped the power cable off the old motor, cleaned up and soldered the leads and hooked it to the motor. Next came assembling the motor to the pump itself. This went smoothly until the very end. Of course. I had a part, a white plastic flange sort of thing that could fit frontwards or backwards on two different housings. And naturally, the instructions that I had downloaded from the Intertubes didn't even have a picture of it, much less describe the part.

I tried it on one housing. No. I couldn't even get the motor close enough to the pump body to use the six bolts to draw it together. Alright. Let's try the other housing. Same sort of result. Wait a minute. I just noticed some really tiny and really faint lettering on the flange: 'this side goes out' or something to that effect. I flipped the flange around, slipped in on the second housing and, viola! It all went together like, ummm... smoothly.

That was it. Now it was a matter of carrying it down to the pump house and hooking up the plumbing, priming the pump, plugging it in, and calling for Dianna to come witness the miracle of a once-again functioning pool pump.

I flipped the switch, and immediately - it worked! And quietly too. Much better than the screech we had as the old motor was self-destructing.

Now, several days later, the pool is almost completely clear, it's blue again, and we spent three hours in it yesterday. We've invited Doug and Twyla for pool time today, so it's pretty much good to go for the hot time of year. Hooray!

PS - We also have the bamboo shades up and in place on the front and back porches. They are definitely doing their part to keep things cool in the house. All we need now is workers on the guest house and the bulkhead and we'll be good to go.

Another Sad Thing

Just a short one this time. Our current main pool pump motor gave up the ghost. Dang it. I had hoped that after rebuilding it, that it would continue running till its replacement arrived. That isn't to be. The new pump motor won't arrive till sometime around the end of March.

It's abrupt end occurred the day after we had a rather large wildfire. The fire was over on the Ranchito side of the road, normally not much of a problem for us as the prevailing winds are from the east. Guess what? Not that day. Right out of the west. The fire was started by someone in Ranchito who was apparently just burning some trash and the wind picked up and ... Well, you know.

Anyway, it was just like a cane fire - huge amounts of long, stringy, slightly oily ash. I bet you can't guess where it all went... That's right. Smack-dab into our pool. We had the solar cover on, so that was a help. The day after the fire, Denis, our neighbor across the street, helped me roll up and hose off the cover, to keep even more of the ash from going into the pool.

Denis had come over to watch and learn how to vacuum the pool, having never had experience with pool maintenance before. So, the first thing was to limit what we needed to vacuum by cleaning the cover, which we did quite nicely. Rolled it up and got it out of the way. Then we went to get the vacuum hose and head (the vacuum's business end).

On the way over to the pump house, I realized we were not hearing the pump motor running. Uh oh. Not a good sign. Since the bearings started going, hearing the pump motor was not much of a problem. It wasn't so much irritating as just being louder than it should have been.

I opened up the pump-house door, and flipped the switch on the pump a couple of times - nothing. So, there we are. No more vacuuming the pool till the new motor arrives. At least the waterfall pump motor is still working. Of course, they're not interchangeable. That ended Denis' pool maintenance lesson for the day. We declared victory, retired and had a beer instead.

The waterfall pump has had a problem of seizing up every now and then since we got it. Yesterday was no different. So, since I had become proficient at opening up the main pump, I thought that I was qualified to tackle this one.

I disconnected the pump and hauled it into my 'basement' workshop. It had always had a slight leak since we had it installed, but wasn't enough to really get upset (read do something) about it. As I was hauling it into the workshop, I used the PVC fittings as a convenient handle to carry it. I noticed that, as I was carrying it, the inlet fitting was wiggling just very slightly as I carried it.

After placing the pump on the workbench, I used my pipe wrench to gently loosen the fitting. Oops! It almost immediately snapped off right even with the pump, leaving all the threaded parts in the pump body. Crap! How'm I going to get that out of there without goobering up the pump itself?

So, I went ahead with dismantling the pump, which went smoothly. I found the impeller, connected to the motor, was slightly stuck. My guess is, the bearings in this unit will probably go south one of these days. Freeing it up was easy. Just a slight turn of the impeller and viola!, it was spinning freely.

Then, I tackled getting the threaded PVC fitting bit out of the pump. I took a very sharp wood chisel and my rubber mallet, and being careful not to nick the chisel by contacting the metal threads of the pump, began to dislodge the PVC stuff from the pump.

It went pretty smooth, for the most part. There were a couple bits that fell down into the pump as I was dislodging the PVC. I thought, not a problem. I'll just hose out the pump when I'm done and blow out the bits. Mostly, that's what happened. There were about three odd-shaped and fairly large pieces that got themselves wedged in the pump - of course.

Dianna has some dental mirrors on a stick (I don't know their proper name) and some dental picks. Her dentist in the states had given them to her since Dianna's hobby is scratch-building miniatures (furniture, iron-work, plants, etc.). I absconded with one of each and, using the mirror could see one of the pieces, but couldn't reach it with the pick. I could stick my pinky finger in and just barely touch it.

I hollered upstairs to see if Dianna would come down and help for minute. I needed somebody with a smaller pinky, and that might be a tad more dexterous than I am. After about a half hour with both of us taking turns, we managed to dislodge the first, so I could fish it out with a pair of needle-nose pliers. Then, we noticed, using the mirror again, that there were two other bits in there. It took a bit of work, but we got them out too.

I flushed out the pump once again. All was looking good. I had to make a trip yesterday to the Corozal Men's Group meeting yesterday, so I took the opportunity to stop at Lano's Supply and get a replacement 1" union. I already had a new threaded piece (I think it's called a nipple, actually) and enough 1" pipe to make up a new fitting for the pump. That I assembled this morning, and then reassembled the whole pump.

I took it down to the pump house and hooked it back up to the piping. I turned the water back on and made sure the pump was primed (important to not burn up the motor) and fired it up. Perfect. I added chorine and algicide to the pool and let the waterfall pump run for most of the day. At least doing that, I'll get some circulation in the pool and spread the chemicals around to keep algae, etc., under control. I can't do a thing about the ash in there till the new motor arrives, but, since the ash is really fine once it breaks up, it shouldn't hamper pool time - assuming it warms up enough to use it.

The forecast is for warming over the next few days, so it's looking like - pooltime!