Wednesday 21 August 2013

Water Line Work Day


    Living in the mountains certainly has its unique challenges.  Yesterday I joined the 3 other people on our water line to correct a problem we were having.  We have a “gravity feed” system which means that we get our water from a source higher than our house and its the weight of the water, not a pump, that pushes it out of our taps at home.
    We collect our water in a big culvert sitting right in the middle of a waterfalls on Sunbeam Creek.  It flows through a 4,100 ft (1.25 km) line to our house.  Unfortunately, a big boulder (labelled ‘ROCK” in photo) fell into our culvert.  Although it doesn’t look all that big in the picture, it was too heavy for us to lift out, so we had to divert the water in the waterfalls, move out culvert out, and then push and pry the boulder out of the way.  While we had the culvert out we did some repair on it.  That’s what is happening in the photo.
    I have been worried for weeks about this whole operation, fearful that once we got the culvert out and the rock moved that we wouldn’t be able to get the culvert back into its proper place.  Our culvert is on a small ledge just above a very steep slope where the water rips down into a tight canyon, so safety is a big issue.  Fortunately, it all worked out, and no one had any accidents, and we were able to get our culvert back in its original position and our water is flowing again.

See my paintings at:  www.davidmarchant.ca




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