Author Topic: Dam ICE!  (Read 19888 times)

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HiddenMountain

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Dam ICE!
« on: January 02, 2011, 02:40:36 AM »
Alrighty then, don't know how long we have but here it is....

 Got home from work on Friday night with a nice dose of the flu, in -19C, to find the wife freaking out because the water pressure was way down. She had the water running to prevent freezing but it was slowly dying.

Put my feet up by the fire? Not a chance!

Off we went on the snowmobile to check it all out.

1st check, powerhouse. The turbine was turning very slowly.

2nd check, the penstock. It's underground for 90% of its run, just under some straw and snow near the intake. It was sounding hollow when I tapped it.

3rd check, the intake. It's a small coanda screen that is fed from a small chute from a weir. It was getting some ice build up from a lack of water volume, because the creek, which usually has great flow, was almost dry!

4th check, the creek. It goes under a road about .5 km up the hill so I got on the sled and went to investigate. When I got up there I was dumbfounded by what I saw. There was an ice dam about 5ft high right across the creek. It had diverted down an old channel. Crap.

Race back down to the house to get an axe and a shovel and go tackle the monster. The water completely stopped at the house by then, turbine down, "honey, where are the candles?" Pull out some hair and fly back up the hill.

At the ice dam, I had to be very careful. While holding a flashlight with my teeth, I climbed up on the ice covered creek and started to swing the axe. Not much traction on that stuff! I hacked at it for a good half hour and was getting soaked in water from the creek and sweat from the workout. There was a part of the thing that was almost inaccessible, I just couldn't get a good place to stand and swing the axe to break it. It didn't help that there was a small tree growing out of the bank right there, with branches trying to take out an eye...

I got a bit of flow going and thought that has to do until I can see what I'm doing in the daylight.

There was a small amount of water flowing to the house manifold but no pressure. It was now 3am New Years day and I was going to bed.

Of course, when I got up around 7:30 the water had stopped again. Oh well, at least I didn't have a hangover!

After a couple of cups of coffee, I went back up to the scene. Sure enough, the ice dam had returned. A lot of the big chunks from the battle last night had plugged the few places where the water was getting through. Now at least I could see though. I hacked at it for a good hour this time, and came down to the source of the problem. I guess the little alder growing out of the bank had some low branches that the spray froze to and it just kept building up until it became the monster ice dam.

Problem solved..... not.

Back down to the house and no water, powerhouse, nada. Up to the intake, (thank God for the sled!) and sure enough the first two feet of my penstock was frozen solid. ARGHHHHHH!

Why does water have to turn to rock when it's cold out!?!

Ok, it's been a long tale. To make it short, I worked all day chipping ice and digging in frozen ground to get at the pipe. I got it  out, brought it down to the house, thawed it by the stove and stuck it back together, I finished about an hour ago.

We are slowly building pressure as the flowing water melts the ice and the power is back on, I hope, for the rest of my life!

So what did I learn from this? We need a small genset for emergencies, when the power goes out around here, I call me, and that despite the trouble I wouldn't want it any other way!

Happy New Year everyone! May the Lord bless and keep you all.

Jon

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captain nodge

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2011, 04:54:41 AM »
Thats a well written and gripping (no pun intended) little story, sounds like it could be an ongoing problem this iceing up, obviosly
pruning the tree will help,you should definatly get a small genset as the amount of fuel used by repeated visits to the troublesome
spot, not to mention the hassle, would be better spent, also you would have more time to write a book about your off grid exploits
which you are obviosly good at, all the very best, keep it up CN


TomW

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2011, 08:04:19 AM »
Years ago in another life I had a spring fed water system that suffered this same fate crossing a plowed section of driveway. Scraping off the snow exposed it to freezing in deep cold.

I finally just stashed a pile of firewood near it a.nd just built a fire on top of the pipe path on the road. It would drive enough heat into the drive to thaw the pipe for a couple days of -20 to -30 F weather after which I would just do it again. The drive was crushed rock so the fire didn't bother it much and the pipe was galvanized steel.

Fire is your friend when stuff is frozen. Carefully implemented anyway. Lots easier to pile on some wood to burn than burrow through frozen dirt / ice.

The part you removed to thaw by the stove maybe could be protected by a few inches of styrofoam or other sheet building insulation laid over it & well to the side then covered with dirt. Whatever you cover it with be sure it is air tight it doesn't take much of a draft to freeze a pipe. Frost generally only travels down but can go sideways "under" insulation in extreme cold.

Just a few thoughts from one who has battled frozen water over the years. Never owned a hydro set up so not sure what works there?

Maybe on that inlet you can build a grate that you can set over it on legs and build a fire above the ice dam?

Tom


thirteen

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2011, 01:05:07 PM »
I will have my water pipe going under a road and the over a creek. When it is installed this year I will have another pipe going along tied to my water pipe. It will go out to a box across the road from the house. The box will be well insulated but it will also have a small covered vent. This box will only be about 70 ft from the house. The creek is about 20 ft from the house. The pipe running across the creek will be in a culvert with the water pipe suspended in the center and foam insulation will round the pipes. Then over to the house.  I heat with wood and cook with wood. I have made up a bracket where a small fan taken from a computer fits into. This will be mounted next to the stairs about 4 ft off the floor with a switch to turn it off and on. I tried it last fall and it works but it does take a long time for the pipe to get warm. The pipe (black plastic 2in) is still on top of the ground but after about an 1/2 hour you could feel the warm air.  This will keep the pipes from freezing when Old Jack Frost penetrates the ground and the piping under the road can only be down about 12 inches then it is solid rock. I will have some traffic on the road which will force the frost deeper into the ground. This will solve my for seeable freezing problem. I will have another pipe from the house going out to my sugar shack for other reasons. This will work for me but I thought I would give you an idea to play with.
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HiddenMountain

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2011, 09:03:07 PM »
Update.....

Thanks for the ideas guys :)

We have full pressure and power today. Wooohoooo. As a matter of fact, I have better pressure than usual. I'm guessing it's because the almost all of the water is forced into the coanda by the ice cap that has formed around it. We're getting a steady 35 amps and it's usually happy at 30 to 32.

If it wasn't for the ice dam upstream I doubt we'd have had any problems. It ran flawlessly all last winter. No, the problem was a lack of water, a serious problem for a hydro system! Because the flow was so slow, the water had less resistance to freezing.

Years ago in another life I had a spring fed water system that suffered this same fate crossing a plowed section of driveway. Scraping off the snow exposed it to freezing in deep cold.

I finally just stashed a pile of firewood near it a.nd just built a fire on top of the pipe path on the road. It would drive enough heat into the drive to thaw the pipe for a couple days of -20 to -30 F weather after which I would just do it again. The drive was crushed rock so the fire didn't bother it much and the pipe was galvanized steel.

Fire is your friend when stuff is frozen. Carefully implemented anyway. Lots easier to pile on some wood to burn than burrow through frozen dirt / ice.

The part you removed to thaw by the stove maybe could be protected by a few inches of styrofoam or other sheet building insulation laid over it & well to the side then covered with dirt. Whatever you cover it with be sure it is air tight it doesn't take much of a draft to freeze a pipe. Frost generally only travels down but can go sideways "under" insulation in extreme cold.

Just a few thoughts from one who has battled frozen water over the years. Never owned a hydro set up so not sure what works there?

Maybe on that inlet you can build a grate that you can set over it on legs and build a fire above the ice dam?

Tom



Tom, thanks for the chuckle. I love the idea of a fire across the road to keep the pipe warm!

I bought a 1000' roll of polyethylene pipe last summer, but work was so busy I never had time to get it installed. I hope to do it this year and when I do, I'll be building a nice styrofoam insulated "house" for it to travel in until it goes underground....

Thirteen, thanks for the ideas.... I have my house water supply line, which is a 1" poly tube, in side a 2" pipe and that "dead air" has worked great as an insulating factor, but we still turn the tap on when it gets below -5, just to be safe....

And do we want to know what "other reasons" you have for your sugar shack? ;) ;D

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XeonPony

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2011, 10:49:45 PM »
Home made dynamite is really handy for cases like that! if not so venturous TATP or a Permaganate vaseline mix does a good job of ice busting!
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thirteen

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2011, 08:58:11 PM »
tell my 3 grils that they do not need any heat up there in the winter. Running water during the spring and thru to late fall , lights and still they complaint. They only go up there to the cabin two or three times a year but still always want something. But they do haul and split wood and stack it and will help me fix the place up, They even like to mix cement and pour it. They'll cook brownies but they make me do most of the cooking and the dishes. still a good trade off. Inside bathroom in two years.
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ghurd

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #7 on: January 07, 2011, 08:59:04 PM »
In the category of silver lining,
at least ICE is only a few moths a year.
Beavers are 12 months a year.

An effective solution for both?

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Ungrounded Lightning Rod

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2011, 11:47:09 PM »
I'd consider wrapping a bit of heating wire around the pipe and running the feed back to the house.  Wrap a bunch of turns around the intake end and a slow spiral the rest of the way.

When things ice up, turn on the emergency genny and send some of that extra power down to the pipe heater until things thaw out enough to get it flowing again.  You might still have to chop the ice off the coanda or break up an ice dam.  But no bonfires or digging.

joestue

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2011, 09:11:15 AM »
Home made dynamite is really handy for cases like that! if not so venturous TATP or a Permaganate vaseline mix does a good job of ice busting!

I pray you're not seriously suggesting TATP.
that stuff has killed more teenagers than any other home made explosive
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HiddenMountain

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2011, 11:32:23 PM »
In the category of silver lining,
at least ICE is only a few moths a year.
Beavers are 12 months a year.

An effective solution for both?



 ;D ;D ;D Thank you for the laugh! The beavers are way down stream from here so torching them isn't necessary...  :D

I'd consider wrapping a bit of heating wire around the pipe and running the feed back to the house.  Wrap a bunch of turns around the intake end and a slow spiral the rest of the way.

When things ice up, turn on the emergency genny and send some of that extra power down to the pipe heater until things thaw out enough to get it flowing again.  You might still have to chop the ice off the coanda or break up an ice dam.  But no bonfires or digging.

Yeah, heat tape run from a genset would be much better. Since it's PVC, a bonfire might be a bit too much heat! I never had any trouble last year and it was just as cold and windy. The problem was at the ice dam and those are just things that are going to happen. I'm just thankful that the dam was only 20ft. from the road!

Inside bathroom in two years.
  ;D :D

thirteen, I just got the inside privy hooked up two months ago and
Home made dynamite is really handy for cases like that! if not so venturous TATP or a Permaganate vaseline mix does a good job of ice busting!

I pray you're not seriously suggesting TATP.
that stuff has killed more teenagers than any other home made explosive
my life has changed for the better! Funny how women just don't like sitting outside in the freezing cold to "take care of business"......

Home made dynamite is really handy for cases like that! if not so venturous TATP or a Permaganate vaseline mix does a good job of ice busting!

I pray you're not seriously suggesting TATP.
that stuff has killed more teenagers than any other home made explosive

Not to worry guys, we'll stick to the ancient method of hacking and sweating... ;)
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Ungrounded Lightning Rod

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2011, 08:09:49 PM »
Home made dynamite is really handy for cases like that! if not so venturous TATP or a Permaganate vaseline mix does a good job of ice busting!

I pray you're not seriously suggesting TATP.
that stuff has killed more teenagers than any other home made explosive

Not to worry guys, we'll stick to the ancient method of hacking and sweating... ;)

Hacking and sweating has the advantage that you don't have to explain what you're doing to the sudden visitors from the Department of Homeland Security or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Also:  alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives should not all be used simultaneously.  Either of the first two can cause problems when combined with either of the second two (though cased ammunition HAS greatly mitigated the problems from simultaneous use tobacco and firearms.)

Boss

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2011, 10:37:10 PM »
Well I want to know, what is the other pipe for?
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HiddenMountain

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2011, 10:40:23 AM »
Well I want to know, what is the other pipe for?

Other pipe?



What am I doing up so early on my day off? 3 guesses.....

I have been having issues with ice again >:(

All was fine until I checked the pressure gauge last night and it was down by half. And away we go....

Freekin ice is building up and then finding new channels through itself. I had the few feet of pipe that comes from the coanda covered in snow, which makes a 1/2 a**ed insulation, but the ice it was piled up on broke away and took most of it with it downstream thereby leaving about 10ft of the pipe naked to the fridged world. (I am so glad that I didn't glue the first few sections together!) So I pulled them apart and cleared some of the ice from the pipe at around 2am, put it back together, re-piled snow all around it and expected to be back to normal when I got to the house...nope... It is barely trickling to the sink @ 3psi. It is at 10psi at the powerhouse whereas normal is 31 to 35psi. Hey, at  least it's still flowing!

And no, I haven't gone to the city and bought a genny. It's 100 miles and I'm not finished being stubborn yet. ::)

So, I'll be finishing my coffee and heading back up the hill to play in the creek this morning...at -19C... 8)
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ghurd

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #14 on: January 11, 2011, 11:34:57 AM »
I am guessing you have a 12V hydropower battery based system?

"I haven't gone to the city and bought a genny" kind of bothers me.
Guessing you have a plan to buy a 120VAC genny and use a car battery charger?

I think you would be a lot better off with :
an old lawn mower engine and a salvaged car alternator.
or
an old lawn mower engine and some kind of PMA (or even a high rated amps DC PM treadmill motor for occasional use).
or
Darn near Anything but a 120V genny and 20A 12V car battery charger!

G-
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Boss

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2011, 01:47:40 PM »
Quote
And do we want to know what "other reasons" you have for your sugar shack? Wink Grin
Oh sorry, not pipe, reasons?
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Simen

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #16 on: January 11, 2011, 03:12:25 PM »
Oh, i'm sure there are some pipes involved... ;D
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HiddenMountain

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #17 on: January 11, 2011, 05:43:20 PM »
I am guessing you have a 12V hydropower battery based system?

"I haven't gone to the city and bought a genny" kind of bothers me.
Guessing you have a plan to buy a 120VAC genny and use a car battery charger?

I think you would be a lot better off with :
an old lawn mower engine and a salvaged car alternator.
or
an old lawn mower engine and some kind of PMA (or even a high rated amps DC PM treadmill motor for occasional use).
or
Darn near Anything but a 120V genny and 20A 12V car battery charger!

G-

G-,

You are correct in guessing that I have a 12V Hydro-power system... My footer pretty much describes my system....

And, no, I would not be hooking up a battery charger if I was to get a generator. My inverter has a charging system built in so I would simply plug the charger into the inverter...... or......I could bypass the inverter and plug in my 120V system directly, although that would defeat the battery charging......... :-\

If I was to invest in a genny, it would definitely be a Honda, probably just a small one, 1000W would be fine.

But I'm thinking I should just get my hydro system working properly once and for all.....yep, I like that plan the best.  ;D
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tanner0441

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #18 on: January 11, 2011, 06:34:32 PM »
Hi

In the movies to clear ice or log jam the just drop in a stick of dynamite, much quicker than a flame thrower, and to my thinking much more fun......

I have a 2Kw suitcase inverter generator which is a Chinese copy of a Honda it my motor home, I am impressed it runs 2Kw all day, (well for 6 hours) on a tank of fuel. it has all the usual safety features, low oil level etc. and with the intelligent throttle system only works as hard as it needs to. It was only a third of the price of the Honda. ??The only moan I have is though it will handle surge loads it trips at 2150 W and you have to shut it down to reset.

Brian.

ghurd

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #19 on: January 11, 2011, 06:59:49 PM »
"Honda"
If you have one of the little 2.0 ~ 2.5HP sitting unused, lots of options to connect it to.
It does not take many HP to spin something that's Not a car alt.

'Fused' made one with spare stuff.  Hard to keep it from pushing 15A at 30V at much over idle, last I knew.
This is when it was 12V,
http://fieldlines.com/board/index.php/topic,130121.0.html


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Ungrounded Lightning Rod

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #20 on: January 12, 2011, 12:03:26 AM »
But I'm thinking I should just get my hydro system working properly once and for all.....yep, I like that plan the best.  ;D

Maybe if you could put your pipe and coanda UNDER the ice layer it would just keep working until the whole river froze solid.  B-)

XXLRay

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #21 on: January 12, 2011, 04:16:03 AM »
Thermite (not termites) does a good job on ice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAEBlJQkEdM

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #22 on: January 12, 2011, 06:39:08 AM »
While the going is good I thought I would add some humour to your problem.

The trebuchet, as built by the Romans and developed by modern man.

This You Tube clip should offer some ideas for ice clearance, and the beauty of it is that you could put your wife or mother-in-law in the sling as well - or both together. For Canadians you could load up with frozen dead otters, the occasional moose seeking new pastures, or a plain old fashioned piece of engine block from a John Deere tractor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wVADKznOhY

Smile please!

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TomW

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #23 on: January 12, 2011, 12:00:58 PM »
 Saw a video some time ago of a Crazy Texan tossing Cadilacs a LONG ways.

Not sure if it was youtube or some TV show?

Tom


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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #24 on: January 12, 2011, 01:33:56 PM »
But I'm thinking I should just get my hydro system working properly once and for all.....yep, I like that plan the best.  ;D

Maybe if you could put your pipe and coanda UNDER the ice layer it would just keep working until the whole river froze solid.  B-)

My wife just said the same thing last night.... DON"T TELL HER SHE'S RIGHT!

So, here we are, running on the batteries, because the water is trying to be a solid again... Unfortunately, the coanda is surrounded by a frozen ice block, and trebuchet's and thermite will only make a mess of it. (Nice to know there are some sick folks on here, it's good to get out once in a while, eh?  ;D :o)

We have a whopping 2psi but it IS flowing and the temperature is supposed to get above freezing today, as it snows another 2 feet..... Which is great for the snowmobile, but that's another forum.... ;)
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TomW

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #25 on: January 12, 2011, 02:10:33 PM »
as it snows another 2 feet..... Which is great for the snowmobile, but that's another forum.... ;)
Well, snow is actually a fairly good insulator and the price is right!

There is a spot on our drive we do not plow specifically so it has snow on it. Helps the water line survive -30F for a couple weeks lots better than the scraped off drive.

Might help if it gets thawed to toss a pile of snow over the problem area [on a board / sticks or ?] Lots of ways to keep water moving. None easy.

Best of luck on it and remember Spring is coming.

Tom

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #26 on: January 13, 2011, 01:16:57 AM »
as it snows another 2 feet..... Which is great for the snowmobile, but that's another forum.... ;)
Well, snow is actually a fairly good insulator and the price is right!

There is a spot on our drive we do not plow specifically so it has snow on it. Helps the water line survive -30F for a couple weeks lots better than the scraped off drive.

Might help if it gets thawed to toss a pile of snow over the problem area [on a board / sticks or ?] Lots of ways to keep water moving. None easy.

Best of luck on it and remember Spring is coming.

Tom

Thanks Tom  :) Yep, in a few months, all of this misery experience will be a memory. We got a good 18" dump of the white stuff last night and today, so my insulation from above is in place now.

But for the life of me, I couldn't understand the lack of water pressure  :-\ ???

I even went so far as to completely hack the ice from the intake box/coanda screen, and remove the coanda. Now for the weird part, when I took off the screen and let the water free fall into the box, the outflow pipe was at full flow, whereas before it was just 1/2 of the volume... So just for the fun of it, I put the coanda in with the little arrows that are painted on it pointing upstream, a definite no no as far as I understand. And guess what? Full flow from the outflow pipe! Well, I don't care about right vs wrong when I get water into the pipe! What is really strange is, it has worked just fine with the arrow down orientation for 2 freakin years! What the.....

So the good news is, you are reading this because we got the power on again. The bad news is the turbine is making a "r r r r r ...." noise now. Never did that before, it was always a nice high pitched whine. I think I might be putting new bearings in it soon.
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XXLRay

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #27 on: January 13, 2011, 03:47:37 AM »
Btw: Do you have pictures of the ice dam?

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #28 on: January 13, 2011, 10:39:34 AM »
. The bad news is the turbine is making a "r r r r r ...." noise now. Never did that before, it was always a nice high pitched whine. I think I might be putting new bearings in it soon.

Sorry to hear that. Maybe it has a chunk of ice in it someplace?

Winter has a way of bringing out the problems in mechanisms.

I really wish I had hydro to "worry" about.  ;D

Always jealous of those systems. Reliable power with predictable abilities and output at least when they are operating as intended.

I will say it again Spring is coming. I promise.

Tom

DamonHD

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #29 on: January 13, 2011, 12:34:12 PM »
Yeah, yeah Tom: you say the same thing every year and it's getting tired...  %-P

Rgds

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Ungrounded Lightning Rod

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #30 on: January 13, 2011, 09:50:51 PM »
. The bad news is the turbine is making a "r r r r r ...." noise now. Never did that before, it was always a nice high pitched whine. I think I might be putting new bearings in it soon.

Sorry to hear that. Maybe it has a chunk of ice in it someplace?

Like right in the turbine with the runner rubbing against it?

HiddenMountain

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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #31 on: January 13, 2011, 10:44:44 PM »
Btw: Do you have pictures of the ice dam?

Sorry, no. I even thought about getting some shots of it but in the panic, I completely forgot. And now there's about a foot and a half of fresh snow on it all, so.......

. The bad news is the turbine is making a "r r r r r ...." noise now. Never did that before, it was always a nice high pitched whine. I think I might be putting new bearings in it soon.

Sorry to hear that. Maybe it has a chunk of ice in it someplace?

Like right in the turbine with the runner rubbing against it?

That was my first thought, that something had made it past my defences, aka coanda, but that would have been impossible. The temperature came up enough today that I felt it was safe to check it out. I pulled the nozzles out and had a look and there was nothing to see there. I grabbed the turbine and tried to get some side to side movement or thrust movement and it's all tight. I put it back together and it only made the noise again once I turned on the second nozzle.  :P :-\  So my only guess is that it's because of the reduced pressure that it's not as "balanced" as it was before. Now, WTF is causing the reduced pressure?!?! It can't possibly still have an ice build-up in the pipe after running steadily for 24 hours? Can it? Our water is super cold, so maybe it is.....
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Re: Dam ICE!
« Reply #32 on: January 14, 2011, 08:39:59 AM »
HiddenMountain;

First, I don't know anything first hand about hydro. I have dealt with liquid flow issues in other applications and in winter, however. Anywhere there is a slowing, narrowing or direction change in the water flow it can ice up first

Could loss of pressure in be related to an obstruction / bubble or hunk of ice somewhere on the outflow side or would that be obvious? Something non obvious like a new ice structure that makes the outflow go past an obstruction, bend or whatever? If so, maybe one blow with the axe could remove it.

Just spit balling here.