Plumbing Fail

In between family gatherings and funeral texts, I tried to get water hooked up for my nephew's bathroom.  Not having water is terribly inconvenient and I must fix it asap.  I spent most of Wednesday hooking up the outside plumbing not knowing whether the old pump would  work.  At the end of the day I turned it on and I got a trickle of brown water, then it stopped.  I thought about it overnight and decided that I needed to prime the pump.  Turns out I was wrong.  I actually needed to turn on the valve from the water tank.  Oops.  Ok, so I was hopeful again but still, I couldn't get water out of the faucet.  Then I remembered that I had this problem when I first hooked up this pump 13 years ago.  There is so much dirt and, um, probably spider bodies in the pipe that everything was clogged.  I unscrewed the screen on the faucet and it was full of brown stuff.  Still, the water only came out at a trickle.  I'm not sure if there is a blockage somewhere else but I can see that I need to test the pump at various points to see where the problem is.

Today I was totally fed up with the old pvc plumbing system and I bought PEX pipe and fittings.  I hope this works better with no leaks and that I can get the sink hooked up this week at least.  Also, I know I was hesitant about buying a low flow toilet.  I had put it on the low priority list but after a week of hauling 4 gallons of water to the toilet everyday, a 1.6 gallon flusher is looking pretty good and there is one for $88 with good reviews.  I'm going to order it tomorrow.

I also bought shelf brackets and a dowel so that I can have a place to hang clothes in my room and a piece of wood to make a dish washing station at the kitchen sink.  I decided to move the pantry shelf rack to the other wall and brought my two cabinets in and put the countertop on them.

I like all the counter space so I think I will leave it this way.  My mother is going to finish painting the doors soon.  Now I need shelves and the over-head cabinet with a curtain rod to hang pots and pans.  I just had 5 days off but I wish I could have more to work on these projects.  I have a busy week of work ahead.  3 days of unread emails await me in the morning.  I am not looking forward to that.

I did manage to get one security screen door installed.  I hope to get the other one done next weekend.  It wasn't as hard as I expected after I got the proper drill and drill bit.  My old drill decided to not charge anymore but I had my dad's old drill which still works great.

No school tomorrow for the nephew so we are staying in our luxurious accommodations (with lots of hot water on demand) for an extra night.  I'll be back during the week to check on things.

Miss you Dad!