The weather is warming up and over the course of one week we see now the river ice is melting and the water level is rising. The two streams (including Cartwright Creek) are now in full flow into the Mississippi. If they flood, I am unable to get out. The City of Ottawa showed up a week earlier and unblocked all the culverts removing tons of ice so these creeks can drain the water upstream and not flood Ivy Acres Road.
My water issues are taking longer to solve. After a week in the house I found my water tasted funny and that I was getting intestinal cramps. Part of the problem was that the water treatment guy set the hydrogen peroxide level too high and it leached into my drinking water. Then it seems as I started to pump from the well, the water became 24 x saltier and 10 time harder! This became a real problem as no water treatment system could deal with this.
As you can see the sodium, hardness and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) are way beyond normal values. According to Ontario Drinking Water Standards Sodium should be between 20-200 mg/l, hardness and TDS should be around 500 mg/l.
So the well is useless…..now what? With the ground and river frozen I had to find another solution as no new well or river pumping could happen until May. After speaking to several people I came on a temporary solution.
I had to buy a holding tank and truck water in to use in my house. The tank was new but dirty and after several attempts I managed to pressure wash it clean.
I spoke to many people in many stores and finally found the right pump from a Canadian supplier – with real live customer support. Their tech was Heidi and she was full of information and helpful suggestions for how to install the pump.
The plumber bypassed my existing water treatment system and then hooked up the transfer pump to the water tank and then to my pressure tank – one more hole through my 18″ walls.
Only one company delivers potable water in the winter – they need heated tanks. The water comes from the City of Ottawa.
It was a effort to get the tank to be convex and it gets delivered concave – we had to use the 2×6 and lever it up.
Fortunately, I can still get my car in my garage. Thank goodness for a big garage. This water should last me about a month – once the tank was filled I did a load of laundry and had a long shower!
Giiwe 