The poo was found

Antonio and his digger

Digging

And stink and bubble, as the pipe has been found.

With a digger you vcan climb on top of walls, too.

The septic has been found. Half a meter deep, with a rotten wooden lid on top, and plants. As you do.

Mr. septic.

The giant yucca

is replanted

The shit suck van.

SLORP!

The liquid fraction is dumped. But not too close to the house.

The septic tank rim is heightened to above ground level. With a concrete lid on top.

The rotten T-piece (full of yucca roots) is replaced by an accessible manhole.

All done, in one day.

See how beautiful the big yucca next to the gate.

Where is the poo?

Classic situation. People buy a house with a septic tank; ask the idiot previous owner where the septic is located; idiot does not remember; people don't press on about it, because they have buying a house on their minds. A year later the loo does not flush really well, or there suddenly is water in the bath when the washng machine does it's rinsing cycle. And that water is not exactly fresh, I can tell you. You either have a blockage somewhere, or your septic is full and needs emptying. But, where is it?

We have two septics. One we know, it has a hatch that is visible, the other is behind the house, but we don't know where exactly. There is a pipe leaving the house at the red arrow, disappearing underground. The other, greenish here, enters tha garden wall at the green arrow. We dug some holes, but to no avail.

Then suddenly, while walking the dogs, I thought of the plant container at the edge of the terrain. We don't have many plant containers, and this one is about septic tank hatch size. There just is quite a large palm in the middle of it, with pebbles around its roots, as you do in a plant container.

Decided to dig next to it, to see, and yes, it does extend underground. Let's see how we can remove this palm..

Boiler

Replaced the old non controllable gas boiler by an electric one. It was either scaldingly hot or off, and horrible. It used a whole gas bottle (€14) for the pilot light only in about 3 months, too.

We looked into a solar hot water system, but they would cost between €1500 and €3000, while we only use a little bit of warm water a few times a week for a short shower. A simple 80 liter class B electric boiler costs €180.

Installed the boiler, copper tubing, soldered. Done. Next day no internet, which needs a modem reset now and then. Water on the floor. Hm. With the new boiler upstairs?

We thought the failed attempts to replace the old shower tap with a new one were to blame for breaking a tube. But no, and old soldered connection was not soldered well, and broke, and leaked some water.

We were lucky that besides lousy soldering also the tiling work was bad, so the tiles were easily removed. Just one broke, but we had a spare.

The old connectors were not removable, the thread was gone, so needed desoldering as well.

But now we have nicely hot water, and a new thermo tap. Thanks Carlos, Cristobal and Emilio!

Stray dogs

Two dogs, next to the rotonda of restaurant La Brasa. Not a great place for a dog.

Although there is food.

Still not a great place for a dog.

The white one was easily caught.

And was freed of ca 20 ticks.

But freed herself, through the terrace gate.

/AND the outside gate. And is now back at La Brasa, with her brown companion, at the restaurant.

The other was not caught.

Fire

Yes, that is the fire brigade passing by.

Digging Endesa

Endesa is the electricity company here. They have a transformer building behind our house, that they share with the other electra company Pastor. They don't like each other. The transformer will be replaced by a new one on a post at the beck of our land, while the old transformer building will be ours. Big advantage for us that the conduits that now run over our roof for supply of our neighbours will be removed. Our supply is now underground. The one for the neighbours will be underground as well. Two huge pipes for 8 houses.

And of course irrigation water pipes were damaged, and repaired.

Nice of them to dig a big planting hole for the paulownia for us.

old photo)

Paulownia hole

Swimming season - April 5th - 21º

April 5: the swimming season has started! 21º! Although not everyone is equally brave. (The "non brave" has swum one go without a suit.)

Irrigation irritation 2

Bigger pump with automatic switch, when water is needed. It's a "booster" pump, for some extra pressure. 25 liter / minute. Still not a great result. You cannot have all taps open. Perhaps it needs a bigger supply hose, as you can see the current one flatten..

Irrigation irritation

There is an irrigation network in our orchard, but someone is eating the tubes.

So this needs some work.


Shallow trenches with a hoe.


Someone is studying where the tubes are laid.


Yes, you.


Water!


The reservoir is above terrace level, and when full also above orchard level, so water flows automatically. But, when half full water flow becomes slow. Or nonexistent. We need a small pump.


An old external-disk 12V supply (4A!), and two hoses. A valve in between when the reservoir is full and the pump is not needed.


And see there's water with the furthest away trees.


It's not a complete success, as it does not work with all irrigation strings at the same time. There are 6 strings with 2-5 trees. One at a time works fine. So that's the way it is, or we buy a stronger pump. This one still is usable for a Manneken Pis, or something equally tasteful.