What You've Done Today - As the World Turns

[Guard Dog]

I’ve got a well into the natural aquifer. The water is close to perfect. Alkaline enough to taste good but not enough to be “hard”

[Azdeus]

28 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

I’ve got a well into the natural aquifer. The water is close to perfect. Alkaline enough to taste good but not enough to be “hard”

I've got problems drinking normal tap water, it just tastes "wrong" to me.

Ok, during the summer months the water tends to taste.. mucky? I guess I'd call it.

[Guard Dog]

1 hour ago, Azdeus said:

I've got problems drinking normal tap water, it just tastes "wrong" to me.

Ok, during the summer months the water tends to taste.. mucky? I guess I'd call it.

You might need to put a sediment filter in line. The water may have too many suspended solids

[Azdeus]

4 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

You might need to put a sediment filter in line. The water may have too many suspended solids

Probably, I've got a filter similar to this, but the funny thing is that the water is always clear, even if I let it sit for a good day or so there won't be any sediments at the bottom.

[Guard Dog]

3 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Probably, I've got a filter similar to this, but the funny thing is that the water is always clear, even if I let it sit for a good day or so there won't be any sediments at the bottom.

Depends on what the sediment is. Lime deposits are neutrally buoyant for example. Iron deposits can leave you with clear water but scale residue once it evaporates.  These kinds of suspended solids are not harmful in the quantities you are likely to have coming from a natural water source. But they definitely affect quality. A 100 micron filter would likely eliminate 95% of suspended and fix the taste. so long as your water is not too acidic. If it IS acidic that is what you need to fix. You could test the PH pretty easily. anything below 7.2 or above 8.4 is not going to taste good. If the water is too "soft" or too "hard" a water softener will fix that. 

The fact that you only notice the difference in the summer leads me to believe it's environmental rather than chemical. For example in the summer the ground isn't frozen so rainfall causes collected metals,  carbon and calcium in the soil over the winter to filter into the aquifer. So filtration is likely all you need to worry about. If you don't mind throwing a little money at the problem a reverse osmosis filter will cure almost all water problems. Low volume RO's are cheap but but one for the whole house will set you back more than a few Euros. But I suspect a more dense filter will fix your problem based on the way you described it. 

[Guard Dog]

It's SNOWING. Heavily by our standards. I fed the chickens in their house and checked their heater. God help the hens if Duke is feeling randy today. There is no running away from him. 

Sunny took two steps out into the yard to do her business and beat a hasty retreat to the house. I'm going to make a pot of coffee, a bowl of oatmeal and watch some TV. Re-watching "From the Earth to the Moon" on HBO Max. 

[Azdeus]

37 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Depends on what the sediment is. Lime deposits are neutrally buoyant for example. Iron deposits can leave you with clear water but scale residue once it evaporates.  These kinds of suspended solids are not harmful in the quantities you are likely to have coming from a natural water source. But they definitely affect quality. A 100 micron filter would likely eliminate 95% of suspended and fix the taste. so long as your water is not too acidic. If it IS acidic that is what you need to fix. You could test the PH pretty easily. anything below 7.2 or above 8.4 is not going to taste good. If the water is too "soft" or too "hard" a water softener will fix that. 

The fact that you only notice the difference in the summer leads me to believe it's environmental rather than chemical. For example in the summer the ground isn't frozen so rainfall causes collected metals,  carbon and calcium in the soil over the winter to filter into the aquifer. So filtration is likely all you need to worry about. If you don't mind throwing a little money at the problem a reverse osmosis filter will cure almost all water problems. Low volume RO's are cheap but but one for the whole house will set you back more than a few Euros. But I suspect a more dense filter will fix your problem based on the way you described it. 

Well, the lake is surrounded by sand till with some dirt ontop, and it's in a "water protection area", so you're not allowed to pollute anything around here. My grandparents were advocates for things like that, and heavilly involved in politics, they were very protective of the lakes waters. The municipality tests the waters biannually, and they haven't "limed" the lake in decades.

I believe I have to move the ejector(I don't know if this is really the right reminology. I've got a pump in my house that pumps water through a long hose down to the lake where an "ejector" creates the suction and brings fresh water up through a different hose.) actually, me and my father relocated it to a deeper point in the lake a few years ago, and shortly after that the water got bad. It might be that the ice grabbed the buoy and tipped the stand that it was attached to.

Or, as you say, a more dense filter. We actually looked into a RO filter a long time ago, but the company refused to sell it to us unless they made the installation themselves, and we didn't want to cough up the ludicrous amounts of money they asked.

[ComradeYellow]

I want to move to Portland sometime this year.  I'm middle aged now and I feel like I've wasted a good chunk of my years on the wrong turf.  I mean I've been lucky financially and have a decent income but there's definitely something lacking in the private sector of my existence, and the ecosystem of this small town is a hinderance rather than an augmentation.

[Guard Dog]

8 hours ago, ComradeMaster said:

I want to move to Portland sometime this year.  I'm middle aged now and I feel like I've wasted a good chunk of my years on the wrong turf.  I mean I've been lucky financially and have a decent income but there's definitely something lacking in the private sector of my existence, and the ecosystem of this small town is a hinderance rather than an augmentation.

Portland is no different than any other midsize city. Whatever you were looking for if you don’t bring it there you probably won’t find it there.

[Malcador]

15 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Portland is no different than any other midsize city. Whatever you were looking for if you don’t bring it there you probably won’t find it there.

I dunno, Portlandia was a documentary right?

[Hurlshort]

24 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I dunno, Portlandia was a documentary right?

For sure.

But there is basically a Portand in every geographical region of this country, so I'm no sure why you would need to go to that city specifically. I can just go over to Santa Cruz for the same thing. Texas has Austin. GD has Memphis.

[Guard Dog]

8 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

For sure.

But there is basically a Portand in every geographical region of this country, so I'm no sure why you would need to go to that city specifically. I can just go over to Santa Cruz for the same thing. Texas has Austin. GD has Memphis.

LOL! No, Memphis has Overton Square. The rest of it is either redneck, industrial, tourist traps or not so nice!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'm getting to experience snow and a hard freeze or the first time. It sucks.

[Malcador]

Noticed that Facebook suggests I may know a lot of Vietnamese women. Odd.

[Azdeus]

2 hours ago, KaineParker said:

I'm getting to experience snow and a hard freeze or the first time. It sucks.

I doubt it'll make you feel better, but I'm jealous

 

[LadyCrimson]

6 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

But there is basically a Portand in every geographical region of this country, so I'm no sure why you would need to go to that city specifically. I can just go over to Santa Cruz for the same thing.

Santa Cruz doesn't have as much rain, tho.  

...maybe I'm weird, but weather is one of the main reasons I'd move somewhere.  I've always wanted a house with a giant plate glass living room wall so I can watch storms.  So parts of OR would be great for that.  Hmm...that makes me think I'll spend the afternoon looking at homes for sale up there, again.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, Azdeus said:

I doubt it'll make you feel better, but I'm jealous

 

Our infrastructure isn't built to handle it (and is in general ****) so when it happens it's devastating. Our internet is down now and we're likely going to have blackouts throughout the rest of the storm.

[ShadySands]

Some of our pipes froze and we were without cold water for about 30 hours but so far that's been the worst of it. Other than the general misery of freezing and a wind chill of nearly negative 40, that is.

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by ShadySands

[uuuhhii]

3 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Some of our pipes froze and we were without cold water for about 30 hours but so far that's been the worst of it. Other than the general misery of freezing and a wind chill of nearly negative 40, that is.

 

hope those pipe didn't crack and wasn't in the ground

might be extremely difficult to fix

[Azdeus]

10 hours ago, KaineParker said:

Our infrastructure isn't built to handle it (and is in general ****) so when it happens it's devastating. Our internet is down now and we're likely going to have blackouts throughout the rest of the storm.

Ouch, yeah, there are many things I envy americans, but your infrastructure generally ain't one of them. I can usually rely on my internet connection, but power does come and go through windstorms.

9 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Some of our pipes froze and we were without cold water for about 30 hours but so far that's been the worst of it. Other than the general misery of freezing and a wind chill of nearly negative 40, that is.

I usually leave a little bit of a flow of warm and cold water somewhere in the house to prevent things like this.

Temperatures has risen about 15 degrees over here, we're around 0 degrees during the day and maybe 2 degrees cold during the nights. We've got some snowfall that's supposed to come in, between 5 and 15 cms, followed by rainfall and +7C.

It's been lovely having a bright white world, but it's going to be grey and boring again soon.

[Pidesco]

On 2/9/2021 at 2:49 AM, Hurlshot said:

My wife and I have been coming to terms with the fact we might not be able to buy a house where we live. The last couple years we have been working hard at paying down any and all debt. It is a long story how we got ourselves in debt, and it took a good decade to do it, but with another year we should have all credit cards and cars zeroed out. That is the good news.

The bad news is we really haven't saved anything. We've been aggressively paying down the debt, but setting money aside has been very difficult. So we need to figure out how to create a down payment. Then you look at the market where we live, and that seems like an insurmountable sum. A modest townhome goes for $800k. That means just to scratch the bare minimum of 5% down, we need $40k. 

We talked to a retirement specialist the other day, because I had the bright idea of borrowing from out 457b or 403b. The specialist literally said, "Why would you buy in this market. It is too high! Wait and buy low!" This is great advice, even though I know she is also trying to make sure we don't lower our contributions, but it is tough advice when we need a place to live.

You might say, why not move? Teachers have a lot of trouble changing school districts, particularly late in the career. If we retire in 15 years, we both get about 68% of our income from all of our year contributing to the state retirement system. That is great. Leaving our schools would hurt that. So we need to tough it out. We also love our town. So we rent a modest house for $3100 a month, which is the average rent in our town. But we only have another year or so before they develop the land we are on, so we need to move. Which means jumping into a rental market that looks like this: https://www.towncharts.com/California/Housing/Morgan-Hill-city-CA-Housing-data.html

So yeah, it is ugly renting. Part of me wants to buy a nice cabin in the woods a few hours away. They are literally a quarter of the price. We can rent a dump for the next decade and spend weekends and summers there. But that is probably more of a daydream.

Anyways, just venting as I process all this.  

 

What does "modest house" mean in your context?

[majestic]

34 minutes ago, Pidesco said:

 

What does "modest house" mean in your context?

Want to bet that "modest" house for 800k would cost like 2+ million € in a similarily developed location for us Euro-peons?

Edited February 16, 2021 by majestic

[Pidesco]

Just now, majestic said:

Want to bed that "modest" house for 800k would cost like 2+ million € in a similarily developed location for us Euro-peons?

I was thinking more of the square footage involved than anything else. Americans like their houses huge.

Here in Sweden, only rarely do normal houses go for above 1 million.

[Malcador]

Large houses means its easier to avoid family members.

[majestic]

40 minutes ago, Pidesco said:

I was thinking more of the square footage involved than anything else. Americans like their houses huge.

Here in Sweden, only rarely do normal houses go for above 1 million.

Then you're better off than we are. Care for a nice little 2 bedroom house for a bargain 3.1 million €?  

Ahem. Although looking at 400 year old houses in a luxury area isn't the best way to go about it, I guess. That's the equivalent of looking for housing in Beverly Hills.

Here in the 'burbs getting a decent plot of land alone will set you back 800k. It's ridiculous.

Edited February 16, 2021 by majestic