On the road again!

Posted on October 14, 2010 by sonjabarrie

On the road again!

Yeah back on the road up to Utah, I think this needs to be my signature tune!  Spent over 6 hours driving yesterday and another 6 plus today and my back is telling me about it. The drive was pretty good though thank goodness, no problems at all, let’s hope the drive back is as easy.  So why am I here again so soon, well it’s going to be winter too soon and I need to get the houses winterized ready for the snow and freezing weather we have here in Utah.

And today’s lesson is……….

They have this weird thing here that has to be put in between the culinary water source and the sprinkler system and is known as an RPZ which is basically a backflow preventer.  It means the water that was in the pipes to the sprinklers can’t run back into the culinary water system.
 

WHAT IS AN RPZ?

  • A Reduced Pressure Zone (RPZ) is a type of backflow device that protects the drinking water of your home, business, and/or the city water supply. The purpose of this device is to prevent back pressure and back siphonage.

Backflow preventer

You’d think they would make one that can stay out in the weather wouldn’t you? At least 50% of the states have weather that drops below freezing at least some time during the winter so why don’t they make them so that they can survive the winter!

The box these things come in does say they can be drained and they will survive but believe me they don’t.  We couldn’t get one off one winter so we gave up and left it there, sure enough come spring the thing leaked like a sieve and $150 later and a lot of sweat, blood and almost tears we got it replaced. 

Needless to say now we make sure they are taken off after the system has been drained and stored in a basement somewhere so they won’t freeze and then we get to do it all again next spring.

I say ‘we’ as in the Royal We!  It’s me and whoever I can get to help me as Tim is back at the ranch working.  I could call someone to go to each house and take them up but we’ve made that mistake before, when you are not there to watch the person you have hired all kinds of things go wrong.  They don’t store the units in a frost free area, they forget to cap the pipes, they leave valves shut that should be open.  As usual it is someone else’s problem and they do the minimum required.

Backflow preventer installed

Backflow preventer installed

Still it could be worse, I could have missed my weather window and it could have already snowed and frozen them so one has to be thankful for small mercies!

Thus endeth the lesson…………………………
 

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