Time Travellers Journal

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, the pump on the swamp cooler stopped pumping water into the pads that make it work. Due to our hard water, replacing the pump every year or three is something we've become accustomed to doing. Yesterday afternoon, Lisa undertook the repairs.

( Pump Doesn't Pump )

Lisa opened up the swamp cooler and replaced the old pump with the new one. While the impeller now worked, no water went though the system. Further investigation led her to remove the top of the cooler so she could get at the screw that held a T-shaped distribution pipe. The pump sends the water up to the T-shaped pipe, which sends the water to the pads on the back and sides of the cooler. When she removed the pipe, she found that it was completely clogged. Fortunately, the build-up hadn't hardened, and she was able to get it out by forcing water the "wrong way," blowing air into the pipe, and poking at the clock with a probe.

There was also a lot of crud in the bottom of the cooler. Lisa and I carried the cooler outside and she washed all of the crud out. While we were doing this, we kept hearing a periodic thumping noise coming from the minivan, which was a few meters away. Investigating, we discovered that one of the power door lock switches was stuck in the "unlock" position, meaning that it would periodically try to unlock the doors. Poking at the switch got it unstuck, and I'm glad of that, because not only was it unlocking the doors, but it would have eventually run down the battery.

We carried the cooler back inside, Lisa reassembled everything, I brought in buckets of water to refill the tank, and she turned it on: Success! The cooler started pumping water as it should, and soon thereafter, we started getting cool air wafting through the living room.

I thanked Lisa for doing this. She's much more handy with these sorts of home repairs than I am. I can carry things, buy parts, and so forth, but knowing what to do is more up her alley.

There is a fish and chips food truck that visits Fernley around once a month. For some reason, I typically get notifications of them coming here after they've already moved on to a different city. This time, I knew they would be here today, stopping at Big R Ranch & Home. As it happens, I needed to go there anyway. The water pump on the swamp cooler has stopped pumping. I think there's just been too much hard water build-up in it. Also, the pads into which the water is pumped have too much build-up in them. It's easier to just replace the pump and pads than to try and clean them. So I went over to Big R, bought the swamp cooler parts, and went outside to get some fish.

( On The Hook )

It was pretty good fish.

As Kayla headed out for breakfast this morning, she snapped a photo of the "Strawberry Moon," which if I'm reading right is about the largest the Moon will appear in our sky for a long time.

( Moon Over Fernley )

The camera phone is of course not very good for taking this sort of picture.

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