On Saturday afternoon, Nick, Glen, and I hiked up to our culvert to try to unthaw our 4,100 ft. waterline which had frozen the night before. We were pretty sure it had frozen along the rock cliff close to where the culvert is located. While I had been stuck in town at the hardware store, because my car wouldn’t start (yesterday’s blog) Nick and Glen had gone up to the culvert and broke through the thick ice dome that had formed over the culvert and discovered that there was plenty of water filling the culvert, so our problem was in the line.
To try and thaw out the line we ran a 20 ft, half inch, poly pipe, down through the 2 inch waterline until we hit an obstruction, which we assumed was the ice. We heated up salty water in a 5 gallon metal bucket using a tiger torch, then Nick slowly poured the hot water down the poly pipe, in hopes it would melt the frozen blockage, but after 15 gallons of heated water, we could not push the poly pipe any further than when we had started.
After several hours up there in the frigid temperature (-25°C, -13°F) and after the third bucket, discouraged and cold, we gave up, and hiked back down the slope to go home. It is hard to accept that we will probably have to live without water, probably well into April.
Winter is hard enough living in rural British Columbia as it is, but the additional complication of having no water, is very discouraging.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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