Oliver - July 19th (daytime only)

Post date: Jul 21, 2016 11:18:43 PM

Went up to find and manage a leak in the wall between the bathrooms. Found an unused branch off the hot water pipe had separated, but because the hot water system isn't used it didn't leak constantly. Instead, the leak only happened when both valves on either bathroom faucet were open, allowing cold water to flow into the empty hot water lines. I closed the valves to the hot water side of each sink, as well as one of the valves from the hot water heater (the other was already closed). Will try to solder that pipe next trip, but leak should be managed now (until we decide to use hot water!). The picture below shows the site of the leak--that little copper pipe should be connected to the insulated pipe; the inset shows the hole covered. Cover removes by pulling on the corners.

Outside hydrant had a hole in it, used J-B Weld metal putty to plug whole. Next person to fill the internal tank, please check to see if this plugged the leak! =) Picture shows before and after:

Group Arcs and Declination reported a number of roof leaks during a torrential storm. I found all the places they identified leaks, but couldn't do anything about them due to another storm that was due later that day. The group reported the smoke alarm filled with water, I confirmed it was dead, replaced it with a new one. Will mount the new one on next trip (*not* where the roof was leaking). Road is in poor shape due to storms.

Water tank started and ended at 16" during this short trip, but really excitingly we measured the outside tank at 53", which indicates a somewhere between 5822 and 6099 gallons--this is ~1500 more gallons than indicated on 7/14! Have we really caught so much water? I'll measure again next week, since I'm pretty sure the observatory caught more rain later this day after we escaped the approaching storm. =)