It all started as a hard water problem. We had the local well driller company do a test on our well water to see exactly how hard it is. The scale is this: Water in the 0-10 range is considered soft water; ours is 65. This explains a lot. Water this hard can damage washing machines, water heaters, pipes, clothes, skin and hair. Fortunately, calcium carbonate is the only thing in our water, no iron or other things which would complicate the softening issue. Good news, bad news.
So we need to do something about it. At first we considered the normal water softener which uses salt, electricity, and needs to be drained, which means the salt is going into ground water besides being ingested. Hmmmm. Not our favorite option on several levels.
Dan did research and found a de-scaling system which acts almost like a catalytic converter does; it takes the calcium carbonate out of suspension in the water and makes it charged in such a way that it doesn’t adhere to surfaces like the inside of pipes. This was the original purpose of this tank, to remove scaling from the inside of pipes and then the engineers realized it also made the water feel soft. Wow. No ground water pollution problems!! How cool is this? And no added sodium in our water for drinking. We avoid sodium as a matter of course, and this is just a great solution, and we hope it works! It also uses no electricity, and has two filters, one before the water tank and one immediately after the water heater to remove calcium carbonate from heated water.
It seems like a simple solution, buy the tank and filters, and get a plumber here to install it. But, first things must come first. The tank sits on the floor, and we need to finish the floor in the basement which at this point is unfinished rough bare concrete. Last year we purchased tiles for the floor but we hadn’t gotten up the energy to do anything with them since there was work to do first before the floor.
Seems like a simple solution, finish the floor. But first things must come first. We also wanted a closet for the washer and dryer to get them out of sight and make the room look more presentable. So, before we can do the floor we had to build the laundry closet for the washing machine and dryer to live in.
We had the building materials for the closet in the garage since last year, but hadn’t felt like doing any building with them.
Walls built and sheetrock tacked down; new water tank sitting on the floor between the two other appliances.
We have the first tiles on the floor, dry fitting them to see how things are going to line up. The landing at the floor of the stairs into the basement is already tiled. And, of course, no two walls in the basement bear any resemblence to straight or square so all the edge pieces are going to require a lot of fiddling. These new tiles are a smokey gray with purple overtones, and with random streaks of a golden yellow; they remind me of the granite cliffs around the area.
The hand-made door into the crawl space will be replaced with a small normal type of door with a felt gasket around all edges to keep mice from using it as a major highway into the house. Theoretically this will help cut down on the numbers of mice that Mish catches. Poor kitty....
We have to remove the washer and dryer from the closet first before we can actually work on this part of the room as they are too heavy to move across ungrouted tiles.
Hopefully we will get a plumber in to install the water softener equipment later this week.
Last of all will be painting in the room and installing a wall propane heater, and a couple of new light fixtures. We have paint, we think, for this room, but neither one of us can remember what color it is. It will just have to be a surprise. And we have light fixtures in the garage.
All in all, these changes will make the basement a pleasant space instead of some place to avoid unless absolutely necessary. It is the coolest room in the house in the summer.
We had a visitor on the porch yesterday, a baby Snowshoe Hare was peeking in the sliding glass doors. Baby chipmunks are out and about in full strength too, and they too like peeking into the house. Mish just has a fit that he can’t go out and play with them. Better for all concerned that he can’t!
"Wow, what's in there? Something to eat perhaps?" Cute, small edition of the adults.
The baby hummingbirds are out in full force now, and we are filling the three hummingbird feeders at least once a day. Pretty soon the baby Western Bluebirds should make their appearance. The adults are very busy feeding them, and the male Bluebird spends a lot of time chasing chipmunks out of the Serviceberry bush next to the house. The chipmunks weigh more than the bird, but he appears bigger with his feathers and he definitely has a lot more attitude, so he wins those confrontations. It’s highly entertaining to watch.
And whatever you do, if nothing else at all, remember this: “But, first things must come first”. Now, that is really classic!!!!