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Pipe dreams and plumbing nightmares

By G.D. Maxwell Cariboo Kottage – we’re still searching for a name – is not exactly rustic.

By G.D. Maxwell

Cariboo Kottage – we’re still searching for a name – is not exactly rustic. The road leading to it is paved, the last stretch of gravel having been blacktopped between the time we bought it and the time we first arrived to enjoy its waters and wonder what in the world made us think buying it was a good idea in the first place.

It has indoor plumbing for which I am grateful. Several nearby cottages do not, including at least one I know of that is occupied more or less full time. I cannot imagine being Canadian enough or hearty enough to do the Outhouse Trot in the depths of Cariboo winter, a season the oldtimers assure me has become almost as mild as Southern California – they’re all liars – but which regularly dips down into the minus thirties. I would also be surprised to find everyone in Southern California has snowblowers.

The house is plumbed for water as well. Either that or the entire place is an elaborate whiskey still. I’m not sure. A large black pipe – actually two large black pipes – bring water from the ice cold depths of Sulfuric Lake to a malevolent Sears pump in the corner of the basement. The pump fills up something that looks strangely like a mash kettle. I think it’s the pressure tank. After that, it’s anybody’s guess. Pipes go every which way. Some double back on themselves, some just suddenly end. Some go to faucets that look like they belong out in the garden, some go to faucets that just frankly make no sense at all unless one were to stick a bucket under them and catch dripping moonshine.

One pipe goes to a water heater that breathes fire every time it comes on. I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be that entertaining but there’s nothing nearby to ignite and what the hell, it’s full of water anyway so why worry.

Upstream of the dragon water heater is a filter. The filter is a much greater cause for concern than is the predictable jet of flame licking my ankles if I stand in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sulfuric Lake is either azure blue or Caribbean green, depending on which way the light hits it. Floating away from its shores, you can clearly see the bottom for quite some distance and depth. I can easily see the refracted, distorted spot where the big black pipes bringing water to my still, er, house end. The water is, in a word, crystal clear. Okay, two words.

The filter just before the dragon, however, looks like it is either filtering oil from a Chevy badly in need of a valve job or frenchfry grease from McDonald’s. "Yuck, what’s all that... that... yuck," as my Perfect Partner so lucidly described it the first time she saw the filter.

"Silt," I said in a know-it-all Guy way, secretly wondering whether silt could swim.

"Is that what we’re drinking?" she asked.

"Of course not," I replied. "We’re drinking what comes out the other side." I knew right away that answer wasn’t going to fly.

And so there was a choice to be made. Buy bottled water to drink or install a filter to make the water potable for finicky human consumption. Coming from Whistler where Nelson and nature – I’m not sure which is the more formidable force – make sure the water is wonderful and, following on the heels of the Walkerton report, who could argue?

There is an alarmingly large business dedicated to home water filtration as it turns out. It embraces a continuum from increasingly complex filters to reverse osmosis to nuclear-powered, ultraviolet systems. Had I chosen the latter, installation would have required a mortgage, an addition to the existing house and an environmental impact statement. Carefully considering the options, we chose something that would (a) fit under the sink and (b) could be installed using tools I own, the most useful of which are surely hammer and chisel.

Getting under the sink in most homes is a challenge. Getting under our sink requires manoeuvres most often associated with contortionists who fold themselves into suitcases. Having thoroughly read the Dual Filtration Unit’s instructions and assembled every conceivable tool I’d need to do an amateurish job of installation, I folded myself into the cupboard.

It did not help when the tangle of pipes under the sink didn’t look anything like any of the plumbing diagrams I’d ever seen but I soon identified the copper pipe carrying cold water and proceeded to puncture it like it outlined in Step 3.14. I’d forgotten, of course, that Step 3.12 included the phrase, "Make sure you turn off the water at the supply tap." No panic.

Painfully folding myself back under the sink for the second time, the first Rule of Home Repair kicked in. It states, I paraphrase, "No matter how many tools you have at hand, the probability of not having the tool you need is directly proportional to the difficulty experienced in getting into position to do the work." I knew I should’ve brought the bigger chisel.

Time passes, swearing ensues, installation ends. Successfully? Well, after installing both filters and "turning the water back on at the supply tap," – Step 86.53 – water dribbled out of the tiny auxiliary faucet. The faucet itself reminds me a great deal of the little faucets that used to dribble into spit sinks at dentist’s offices before dentists made great strides forward and started using industrial suction systems for the amusement of their hygienists, who have been know to suck whole cheeks through their handheld pipes.

Spec for my filtration system is 3/4 of a gallon per minute, a universally recognized standard for flowing liquid. I needed a calendar to time 3/4 of a gallon. I’ve seen drunken adults drool faster than pure, filtered water was coming out of my tap. Something was amiss.

Noticing the flow of water from the regular kitchen sink faucet was a bit anemic, I began to suspect the black filter upstream of the dragon might be clogged. I replaced it, a procedure that would take longer to describe than I have left in this column. Water flowed like Niagara Falls from all the faucets. Except the little one attached to the Dual Filtration Unit. Which was now flowing like drool from a drunken adult who came to long enough to catch sight of his waitress’ cleavage, which is to say faster but still not up to spec.

Living in cottage country is all about compromises. You trade the hustle and bustle of big city life – Whistler – for the tranquil contemplation of blue skies, sunlight beaming off dimpled water and clear, black night canopies full of stars. The silence of nighttime is broken only by the steady drip of filtered water filling empty water jugs. Surely by morning....