This winter was super cold early on, and Lake Erie froze as expected. Then a few warmer weeks broke the ice. Fast forward to mid-March, and the ferries are running! We decided to open-up on Friday, March 23rd.
This was my typical "dudes" only opening weekend. We arrived on the 5:00 pm ferry on Friday and fired up the furnace ASAP. It was freezing, like 42 deg in the cottage. Within an hour (or so) we were up to 70 deg inside. This is good news, no furnace issues. Next we got the internet going. This was a bonus item! Again, no issues.
Next and most critical item is firing-up the cistern pump to get water pressure flowing inside the cottage. So, I follow my usual steps to prime the pump, etc. The pump ran for over 15 min and nothing was not pressurizing. This sucks! I finally figured out that the valve coming from the water tank into the crawlspace had frozen and cracked over the winter. This was now causing the pump to just "suck air" and not pressurize, and even if it did pressure up, there would be a huge leak coming from the water tank!
This is somewhat funny (not really) because the valve was plastic, cheap and failing slowly in years past. I was just putting off the inevitable! So, this was not really a surprise that it finally failed for good.
Time to panic...
I know I needed Sharkbite 3/4 connectors, 3/4 pex tubing and a brass valve. I was thinking about having Brad stop at Home Depot to pick this stuff up on his way to the island on Saturday...
Chris and Tim we on the island as well, working on his cottages. I mentioned to him the problem. Luckily, to my overwhelming surprise, Chris ALREADY had all of these pex fittings on the island! WOOHOO. Within 45 min, we had the whole thing fixed and fired-up with water, all good!
Thanks Chris for saving the day!
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| New water valve |
We had to celebrate the water valve fix and the rest of the stuff we got working, so we played some tunes and had a few brews.
Saturday, Brad came up and joined me, Justin and Winston. This is the crew hanging out mid-day after cutting down a tree across the street for firewood.
Saturday night, we made a trip downtown to the Pump. Downtown Kelleys Island was about as dead as I have ever seen in almost 10 years. We heard the ferries were not running all day on Sunday because of high winds. This caused many folks to leave early on Saturday.
One of the coolest things about Kelley is that you can get a fresh Wonderoast Chicken from the Island Market. This is perfect for a bunch of dudes not planning on cooking anything.
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| Island Market - Wonderoast - nice. |
Saturday night, although it was brutal cold, we stoked up a high fire and played some guitar tunes for a bit.
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| Brad and me |
Good times!