Quite the winter we've been having eh?
Some of us have been fighting it tooth and nail! Stupid physics!
We have had a fairly cold but snow-less winter up until a few weeks ago. That made it tough on my micro-hydro because half of my twin 500 ft penstocks are above ground and without the usual snow cover for insulation, it has been rather prone to freezing. We've had a few bouts of frizzle ice and frozen intakes. This is usually not a worry since the penstocks would normally have just drained, we'd fire up the little Honda and be fine until the frizzle ice melted. Not so this year!
I'm not sure just what went wrong, but it's been two weeks and I have just got a trickle now. A trickle is hopeful! My best guess is that it was a combination of things...
Over the last couple of seasons, the grade my penstocks rests on in the above ground portion has settled. Now, considering that they are only 3" poly pipe, and that the settling was about 4 inches below the bottom of the pipe, there was a 15 ft. long section where the water couldn't drain. Add - 25 with a good stiff wind and no insulation and bingo, frozen penstocks! Another problem was my vacuum release valves. They were covered by debris and frozen crap, so they probably didn't open when the frizzle ice blocked the coanda screen.
I'm hoping that my two weeks of chipping ice, tiger torching, and general cussing will pay off and that it will all be working again in the morning
Anyone else had the same, or worse
, fun with their systems this year?