Full Flush Mode (Day 290)

Last Friday we had a performance of the Bellagio fountains, as they call it. Didn't even have to go to Vegas. Susan Miller, the septic system designer, came over and set up the pump test for the septic system. Richard Gifford had finished the tanks and piping installation, I mounted the controller boxes at the rear of the house and ran conduit to the pump tank, and Gary Estes (electrician) wired the boxes for a temporary run (i.e., via extension cord). The control box has a Palm Pilot interface which allows the septic designer (or other certified technician) to set up pump times and intervals. So with a wave of the magic wand, Susan turned on the pump and we had 5 lines of fountains going about 10 ft into the air. While they are spurting, she turned the control valves on each line to balance the flow in the system, otherwise the short lines (30 ft) would have higher pressure (and fountains) than the long lines (50-60 ft). Once the balancing act was finished and the pump ran a few cycles, she shut the puppy down, approved the installation for the County, and now we're set to do the back filling.

The gravel beds that get injected with effluent (the 50 cent word for drain field water) are covered with a filter fabric (landscape fabric, I think) then covered with about 12" of fill. On top of this goes about 6" of top soil, something we'll have to have delivered from a local source. Most sand and gravel operators create "top soil" by mixing sand, compost and peat together, which is much better than the silty sand and gravel that comes from the subsurface, but not nearly as good as the 6-12 A horizon that was on the lot before we scraped it all away. Almost everything in Kala Point and the Quimper Peninsula is Vashion lodgement till (glacial deposits), which was deposited about 20,000 years ago as glaciers marched south towards Tacoma. The till was overridden by 3000 ft of ice and has become fairly compact, hence the poor percolation and necessity for a pressure system rather than a simple (and cheaper) gravity septic system.

By Monday afternoon Richard had the septic field covered and then dig new trenches for the combined electrical conduit and water line. We got a rude awaking last week when the county refused our request to have a crossing of the water and sewer lines. In their eyes this is a mortal sin. The logic goes as follows (please have a stiff drink to keep up here). During a big earthquake, ground settlement may allow crossing lines to break and mix waters, such that fresh water going to the house will be polluted with effluent. Sound pretty reasonable, right? Except, during a big earthquake 1) the Kala Point water tanks would have gone south, 2) there is no reason to have differential settlement at the proposed line crossing (remember we are underlain by hundreds of feet of compact till), and 3) the house would likely be on fire and polluted water is our last concern. Nevertheless, they disallowed our request for a waiver on the crossing and so how we need to dig a trench across the front of the lot, down the north edge, then enter the house in the crawl space. I need to rent a coring drill (2") and drill through the 8" foundation in two places, then have Bob Brown come back and tie the outside and inside water lines together. Pain in the ass.

The only good thing to come out of this is that we had a spare hole in the foundation that we ran a 3/4" Pex line out of. This will be a stub in for eventual watering control box to do drip or sprinklers. Need to think about the future and the Pacific Northwest as a semiarid landscape.

By code the electric supply line has to be in 3" PVC conduit. OK, its expensive, heavy and doesn't bend much. So on Tuesday I laid 16 10-ft sections of conduit in trench and one 45° bend, put a pull rope through them all, then glued it all together. Darell Olson, a Montana transplant who lives down the street, helped me and we got the conduit installed in 2 hours! Puget Sound Energy (PSE) wants the conduit to come to about 4 ft of the transformer and 4 ft from the service entry on the rear of the house, so we have dig a bit wider at the ends. I was surprised to have them not connect the conduit, but the logic is that in case they have to install new wiring to the house, they can dig down at the ends and uncover the unsheilded wire. Then they connect new wire to the old wire, and pull it through the conduit (i.e., raceway). Seems to make sense to me, and its less work than connecting the conduit at the ends.

After the electrical is completed, I'll lay the water supply pipe (i.e. main line) adjacent to but at least 18" away from the conduit. We'll use 1.25", 160 psi Poly Pipe for this, similar to what is used for sprinkler systems but heavier gauge (PolyPipe is a pressure-rated High Density polyethylene pipe). It comes in 100 ft and 300 ft rolls, so we're going for the long one so there are no buried connections. It was out of stock locally, but Hadlock Building Supply ordered it for delivery on Wednesday (8/12). The water pipe is just a roll out in the trench (>18" from electrical), with the Water Company connecting the upstream side, and Bob Brown (plumber) connecting the house side with a shut off valve. All is well in the tubing world.