Down to the Waterline

About once a month I walk up in the woods, almost always incorporating a survey of the microhydroelectric waterline.  About three weeks ago we had a frog-choker of a rainstorm, probably the residue of one of the tropical storms.  Since it had been very, very dry this summer I was looking forward to by hydro turbine picking up the pace, but instead it stopped altogether.  I knew what that meant and so last week I trudged the quarter mile to the top of the systems to find the problem.  Every time I service or repair the system it requires about four trips up and down a quarter mile of uneven terrain with a 10% incline.  Quite a workout.

I’d hoped it was just leaf cloggage, but there was nothing wrong at that end.

So down into the ravine I went to gingerly navigate my way to the bottom and find the problem.

Here it is.  During the rainstorm a tree came down and cracked the PVC penstock.  PVC is comparatively cheap and easy to work with compared to polypropylene, but it is also comparatively brittle and I encounter some sort of break a couple times a year.

So I grabbed my penstock repair bag and returned to the scene of the crime, after first walking to the top again to turn the entire system off.  I cut out the damaged area and grafted in new pipe with couplings and PVC cement, and in a jiffy it was as good as gold.

You might ask why I have my pipeline sitting above ground rather than buried.  Well, given the nature of the terrain I can give twenty five thousand reasons, all of them named “Dollar.”

This year I am thinking about a deep dive into configuring the water line system to enable it to work all winter long.  Gotta get the incline perfect, though.

Stay tuned.