Rhonda Bracey: At Random

In this case, the title of this post reflects a tiny pinprick hole in a water pipe that resulted in a LOT of water damage in just a few hours. Who would’ve thought that such small thing would lead to repairs and remediation that took seven weeks to complete? Much of that time was drying time, but there was still a lot of work to do to get it back to normal. All this happened last October, but I haven’t written it up until now. Much of this is a record for me as to what happened and how long it took. NOTE: We work from home, so the leak would’ve only been going for a few hours before being noticed. Had we worked away from home, or been on holiday, this could have been MUCH worse.

So, what happened?

Wed 16 Oct 2019

1. Approx 3:30pm: Discovered a large patch of wet carpet in the bedroom at the entrance to the en suite bathroom and on the other side of the wall from the walk-in-robe (WIR). Identified that the water had seeped through the wall from the WIR. The WIR ceiling had water coming down from it, via the cornices and wall, and the alarm system box above the top shelf of the WIR. The water was pooling on the top shelf of the WIR, then running down the wall that adjoins the en suite shower. The carpet in the WIR was soaked, the back wall of the WIR was soaked as were the skirting boards, and water was still running down. The carpet on the other side of the WIR was soaked, as were its skirting boards—there’s possibly damp in that wall too.

   

   

   

2. Raced outside to turn off the water main as we suspected a pipe had burst in the roof space. Called the plumber to attend ASAP.
3. Approx 4:30pm the plumber attended. He went into the roof space, and located the source of the leak, which was still running, though not as much. It was the hot water pipe from the hot water system (HWS) to the en suite shower. He got us to turn on the hot water tap in the shower to drain the rest of the water out. The cause of the leak was a very small hole/tear in the pipe. The plumber took photos, then cut the pipe and capped it as a temporary solution. The plumber identified only one insulation batt that was quite wet and removed it from the roof space; he put it in a large garbage bag and we put it in the bin.
   

   This pipe is only about 12 mm (half an inch) in diameter

4. Meantime, we were running around madly trying to mop up the water from the carpet in the WIR and outside it, and remove clothes and shoes that had been wet by the leak, as well as storage boxes on the top shelf of the WIR.
5. I emailed my handyman (away on holidays) to let him know that we would need him very soon. He gave me the contact details of a handyman friend of his (Eric).
6. I emailed my insurance broker to let him know and ask what to do next. He told me that no insurance policy will pay for the plumbing repair, just for finding it and the damage caused by it. Go figure!
7. I called the alarm system people to see if someone could come out to check that the alarm box and its contents had not sustained any damage.
8. During the night, we continued to mop up water using old towels, using the washing machine to spin out the water every so often, then laying them down again to soak up more water.  We also ran a pedestal fan in the WIR to try to evaporate some of the moisture (not very successful).
   

Thu 17 Oct 2019

1. I called three different carpet cleaners before I found one (Village Carpet Care, Bunbury, Western Australia) that had the equipment and knowledge to extract water from carpet in the hope of rescuing the carpet from potential mould and avoiding replacement. They came late in the afternoon. The carpet guy pulled back the carpet, cut out the wet underlay, extracted as much water as he could and left us with two floor-level fans (not heated—heated fans promote mould!) to help dry out the carpet and concrete slab. He will come back next week after everything is dry to re-lay the underlay and carpet and treat and steam clean the carpet. After the underlay was removed and the carpet peeled back, the extent of the water damage—both inside the WIR and outside it—was revealed. In addition to the carpet, the concrete slab in the WIR and outside it was wet, as was the wood holding the carpet in place, and very likely the skirting boards and wall between the WIR and the entrance to the en suite (still to see evidence of moisture—the handyman and the carpet cleaner both said it could takes weeks or even months to know the full extent of that damage). After extracting the water, peeling back the carpet, and cutting out the affected parts of the underlay, the carpet guy placed two powerful floor fans—one in the WIR (under the lifted carpet) and one at the entrance to the en suite—to dry out the carpets. We had these fans on constantly from 8am to 11pm for the next few days, and kept the windows in the bedroom and bathroom open for cross-ventilation, as well as running the exhaust fan in the WIR for those hours, and the air-conditioning. The aim was to extract as much moisture as possible from the carpets and save them from being replaced, if possible.
   

   

   

   

2. The plumber arrived to repair the pipe. He had to gouge out and ‘chase’ the hot water pipe in the area above the shower, replace the pipe and reconnect it to the HWS piping in the roof. When finished, he cemented in the hole he’d made, leaving enough room for the handyman to patch the hole at a later date.
   
3. The alarm guy came in the afternoon and checked alarm control box at top of WIR—bone dry, so no water ingress..
4. I received an insurance claim form from the insurance broker.
5. Meantime, we identified all clothing that had got wet and needed to be washed (including many towels) and started doing laundry to prevent the clothes from going musty/mouldy.
6. I called Eric (the handyman) to get him to check the damage and see what needed to be done, in preparation for a quote. He found no evidence of any bubbling or bulging in skirting boards or behind paint, but he said that wasn’t uncommon at this stage and could take weeks/months to become evident. He left us an industrial floor fan (not heated) to help circulate air to remove moisture. He’ll quote me on the work needing to be done, based on this initial inspection.
7. Approx. 24 hours after discovering the leak and after mopping up as much moisture as we could from the carpet and having the pedestal fan blowing over it for at least 18 hours, it was still quite wet both inside the WIR and on the other side of the wall near the en suite.

Sun 20 Oct 2019

Eric (handyman) came to collect his blower fan and to discuss the next steps. He will likely return the week starting 28 Oct to:

• replace the insulation batt(s) in the roof space
• while in the roof space, check the attachment of the WIR ceiling/cornice to see if it has been damaged and will need replacing
• patch, paint etc. the partially repaired hole in the wall above the shower where the plumber had to replace the pipe
• replace some or all of the top shelf in the wardrobe.

After a few weeks/months, he will come back to fix any issues with bubbling paint, water damage to cornices/walls etc. that reveal themselves over time.

Mon 21 Oct 2019

The carpet guy returned and spent several hours reinstalling the underlay and the lifted carpet, treating the carpet, then steam cleaning the carpet.

Sat 26 Oct 2019

Received partial payment of insurance claim to cover things like the carpet remediation, alarm box check, plumber exploratory work (though NOT the plumbing repair).

Tue 29 Oct 2019

Insurance assessor arrived to assess damage and compare quote from Eric to what he thought needed doing:

• Didn’t need to see my photos—his moisture meter clearly showed that water had penetrated the walls (some readings were >80%; normal is <15%). Took readings on red wall outside WIR and wall inside en suite near cornice just outside shower stall. Did not take readings of pillar on outside wall of WIR.
• Advised that getting the paint off ASAP and drying out the walls with a fan was necessary to prevent further damage, mould, and a long-term wait before painting etc. can occur. Indicated it could be weeks before remediation work could happen.
• Decided that the red wall and skirting board outside the WIR weren’t showing signs of water damage and so crossed that off the quote, for insurance purposes. (Ultimately, these DID need quite a bit of repair/remediation, but weren’t an allowable claim on the insurance policy because the assessor deemed that they weren’t an issue.)
• Said that cornice and ceiling in the WIR didn’t appear to be structurally damaged, but didn’t go into the roof space to check.

After the insurance assessor left, I contacted Eric to arrange a time for him to start prep work

Thu 31 Oct 2019

Eric did these tasks:

• Replaced insulation batt that was removed from the roof space by the plumber
• Removed some of the melamine shelving from WIR to allow air flow (left the shelving framework for now—it will need replacing too)
• Scraped all paintwork from back wall of WIR and partial areas of side walls to expose the plasterwork; marked with pencil the extent of the water ingress on the side walls
• Provided an industrial floor fan to help dry out the walls; we left this on 24 hours a day for several days, along with the exhaust fan in the WIR.

Sat 2 Nov 2019

Received final insurance payment. Didn’t pay for everything, of course.

Mon 4 Nov 2019

Eric tested moisture in walls:

• Moisture in walls in WIR down to <10%, so the fan has worked well
• Moisture in walls on the other side of the WIR: approx. 25% on the red wall in the bedroom, and about 30% on the en suite wall, so still a way to go.

Eric’s advice: keep fans on and he’ll be back later in the week to take more measurements and plan from there.

Fri 8 Nov 2019

Plumbers here all day to replace the grey pipe in roof space with all copper. We decided to replace all plumbing inside the roof space with copper pipe—both the plumbers, the carpet guy, and the insurance assessor all said independently of each other that the grey pipe used 10–15 years ago was a bad batch. The carpet guy said he did water extraction and carpet remediation for about 300 houses a year just in the Bunbury area that had water damage from split pipes in the roof; the insurance assessor said similar, as did the plumbing company.

Mon 11 Nov 2019

1. Eric tested moisture levels. Good in WIR, but still 20–35% on outside wall, pillar, and en suite shower wall.
2. Eric stripped off paint in en suite to expose to fan air to dry out as much as possible.

Thu 14 Nov 2019

Eric tested moisture levels.

• Almost all are <15% in the en suite, but the pillar outside was still registering ~20–25%, so he focused the fan on that area.
• Moisture levels in the WIR are either the same or 1–2% higher than when the fan was on them, but still under 15%, with most under 10%.

Mon 18 Nov 2019

1. Eric tested moisture levels: Readings on pillar still over 20%, so he stripped pillar and part of red wall in bedroom and put fan onto this area. Also, put initial patch on wall above shower in en suite.
2. Air con serviceman here because no a/c going into the sewing room. Found a piece of ductwork had been dislodged fully from the unit!!! Only possibility was the plumbing team. I emailed the plumbers to let them know. A/c guy took photos and refitted the ductwork.

Tue 19 Nov 2019

Cleaner here; asked her to do 2nd shower as we had used it when the en suite shower was out of action a month ago. She discovered there was NO water to the shower taps. Called plumbers, who discovered that those taps had never been connected when they did the copper pipework! Added a T-piece in to pipe water to those taps.

Thu 21 Nov 2019

Eric tested moisture levels—all below 10%!!! Started work on sealing the walls.

Mon 25 and Thu 28 Nov 2019

Eric did main painting on walls, fitted WIR shelf etc.

Mon 2 Dec 2019

Eric finished off almost everything, including painting the feature wall in master bedroom.

Wed 4 Dec 2019

Eric painted last coat of red wall, final touch ups. DONE.

So, 16 October to 4 December—one tiny pinprick hole that spurted water and resulted in damage that took seven weeks to get back to normal. The insurance paid about 75% of the total cost of the repairs and remediation. Additional costs were for replacing the pipework in the roof with copper—that was always going to be our expense.

Yesterday afternoon we got hit by a big summer thunderstorm—dense dark cloud, thunder, lightning… First came the rain (16 mm in about 10 mins), followed very closely by the most frightening hailstorm I’ve ever seen. Within minutes the ground was covered in what looked like snow but was hail the size of an Aussie 10 to 20c piece (about the size of a quarter for USians). The pounding on the metal roof sounded like a freight train was rolling over it. The gutters and soakwells couldn’t cope and all overflowed, creating some localised flooding and washing away part of the driveway’s blue metal. In 10 minutes it was all over and the hail started to melt—it was still 25C outside! I took some photos and videos (my first attempt at videos from my phone, so be kind) to show the ferocity of this hailstorm. And I felt really sorry for anyone out driving in this—it would have been the scariest 10 mins of their lives.

I’ve timestamped the photos and videos (to the hundredths of seconds) so you can see how quick this thing was. All the videos and most of the photos before you get to the videos were taken from inside the house—there was no way I was venturing out into that! (The videos are all less than 30 seconds each. Note: I have NO control over what videos YouTube promotes at the end of each one.)

Update: According to the weather bureau, the town 25 km from us had less than 2 mm of rain, which means this hailstorm was very localised. I’ve seen no reports of it in the media, at all. And later speaking with those who live nearby, it seems only a strip of about 3 streets in my area got this hail. Perhaps it was a weather phenomenon called a ‘wet microburst’ or ‘downburst’.

2:52:37pm

Oh, this is cool! We’ve got hail—wow!

2:52:40pm

Wow, that hail is coming down quick (3 secs after first photo)

2:52:46pm

9 seconds after the first photo – the hail is coming down even more. Time to go inside as the lightning strikes seem close.

2:52:55pm

18 seconds after the first photo — now that hail is getting a little bit scary

2:52:58pm (video)

From inside the front door, looking over the front lawn

2:53:48pm (video)

From inside the front door, looking over the front lawn

2:54:47pm (video)

From the side door, looking out over the driveway to the house across the road

2:55:26pm (video)

From the back door, looking over the back lawn and raised garden beds—the hail looks like snow

2:55:51pm (video)

The gutters and soakwells were not coping with the deluge of so much rain and hail in such a short time—this was getting a little bit scary…

2:57:11pm (video)

The soakwells were full and the water and hailstones had nowhere to go so they just pooled around on the concrete

2:57:36pm (video)

The soakwells were full and the water and hailstones had nowhere to go so they just pooled around on the concrete (apologies for the change of orientation of this video, but it shows the pooling water really well, so I didn’t want to delete it)

3:03:23pm

Five minutes later, the worst of it was over. The rain and hail stopped and I ventured outside to check for damage and to take photos. Already the ice was melting fast (it was still 25C—the temperature hadn’t dropped with the hail as usually happens), but I needed to record as much as possible in case there were damages that we needed to claim on insurance. Fortunately, I think we dodged a bullet on that! My “he’s a keeper” handyman will check the roof, gutters, solar panels etc. later this week to make sure everything is still OK.

Minor flooding on the back veranda—the water near the back lawn was about 4 cm deep, the skies had gone from dark grey to medium grey. We NEVER get water coming in past the line of the pillars.

3:03:33pm

More flooding at the back veranda. The ice is disappearing fast.

3:03:40pm

This soakwell just couldn’t cope with the deluge, so the water and hailstones pooled there for several minutes. The water here was about 6 cm deep.

3:03:49pm

This soakwell just couldn’t cope with the deluge, so the water and hailstones pooled there for several minutes. The water here was about 6 cm deep.

3:04:03pm

This soakwell just couldn’t cope with the deluge, so the water and hailstones pooled there for several minutes. The water here was about 6 cm deep.

3:04:55pm

15 minutes after it started, it was all over. All the hail was melting fast and the sun was out.

3:05:19pm

15 minutes after it started, it was all over. All the hail was melting fast and the sun was out. Steam was coming off the metal roof and the land as the sun started to work its magic.

3:05:32pm

Some small pockets of hail took longer to melt than others

3:04:45pm

Side yard. Hail is melting fast.

3:06:43pm

The water sloughing off the land and the gardens had to go somewhere, so down the driveway it went

3:06:50pm

The water sloughing off the land and the gardens had to go somewhere, so down the driveway it went, creating big gouges and carrying the blue metal to the lowest point (the kerb in the picture is about 10-15cm deep)

A day later, and the lawns and gardens are positively SMILING with relief at getting some rain. We haven’t had rain for months, so even though this was scary, the benefit to the garden is immense.

Warning—long!

I bought my current car (2008 model) in 2012 from my parents when they upgraded to an SUV around the time my Dad had a hip replacement and needed a car that was easier to get into and out of. It’s served me well and has given me almost no bother (except a couple of small light globes going out) in the 9 years I’ve had it. Until now. Now I think she’s slightly possessed, so I’ve called her ‘Christine’.

It all started when I went on a quilting retreat at the beginning of this month. This retreat is some 3 hours’ drive from where I live. I parked my car in their car park and except for the first night when I drove it into town, didn’t go near the car the four days I was there. When I went to pack the car at 6am to leave later that morning, I couldn’t open the car with the key fob. Nothing. My first thought was the battery in the key fob was dead, or the car battery was dead. I remembered there was an emergency key in the fob, so pulled that out and opened the driver’s door. I put my fob in the ignition and turned it on. Nothing. Not even the ‘whrr’ sound of a dead battery.

At 7am I called the RAC (I’m a member, but as I found out, not a ‘high enough’ member, despite some <mumble> decades since I joined at age 17). They said someone from a nearby country town would be out in about 90 minutes. Two hours later and no-one had arrived, so I called them again. They told me the guy was sick and couldn’t come until at least the afternoon, but I could pay an extra $130 for someone to come from another town, and it would be another 2 hours at least before they got there (where I was staying is only an hour from Perth, so these times seemed a bit odd). I said I’d wait for the local guy, but in the meantime would call my dealership.

I described the symptoms to the service manager, and she said it may not be battery at all, but possibly the steering system, in which case a battery recharge from the RAC may not even work, and if it did, I’d have to drive straight to the dealership with NO stops along the way. So now the question was how to get the car to the dealership (remember, it’s 3 hours’ drive away) so they could assess it. Yes, there are some dealerships in Perth, but then I’d still have to get the car to Perth and then collect it from Perth at a later date. Having it local was really the only way to go.

Back on the phone to the RAC to change my request from roadside assistance (for a battery kickstart) to towing. The RAC person was most helpful and gave me quotes for getting the car to Perth (around $300) and to the dealership close to home ($800). And told me that my membership level meant I was only eligible for a free tow in the Perth metro area for up to 80 km round trip. (One reason I haven’t gone to a higher level is their restriction on towing to the metro area only—it’s useless if you’re outside Perth). My service manager said if I got the car to the dealership in Perth, then they could get it from there for $160 on a car carrier, for a total of around $460. But all this was a lot of running around and having to be picked up by my other half (OH), who already had a 6-hour round trip in front of him to collect me from the retreat location. Extra trips back and forth to Perth weren’t really practical.

Did I mention that phone reception at the retreat is poor, which meant going outside to make/take calls, and it was 42C that day, and I was in semi-panic mode?

I bit the bullet and decided to go with the tow direct to my local dealership. The towing guy from the nearby town called me shortly after and we got that all sorted—he would pick up the car the next morning (it was already 1:30pm by now and too late for him to get it to the dealership before they closed). I waited for my OH to get to me (that was an exercise in itself, as he’d never been there before), and we drove back home.

Next day, my car got delivered to the dealership by noon, and the service manager called me later that afternoon to say it was ready to pick up the next day. The steering system wasn’t at fault (thank goodness as that would’ve cost an arm and a leg), but the battery was severely compromised and they had to put their super-duper charger on it to get any response. They were all gobsmacked that the battery was dated 2008, and was the original one! It lasted 12 years, which was amazing. They replaced the old battery with a new one, and I drove the car home.

The service manager also told me that someone had very slightly touched my car’s front bumper with theirs and that the dealership would pay for it to be repainted. She showed me the damage, and it was a minor paint scrape at worst. But she insisted that they would get it fixed for me and we arranged for me to bring the car in the following Wednesday afternoon. I went about my normal business, going to the shops on Friday and again on Monday, with nothing untoward.

Late Tuesday afternoon, my OH went into the garage to get some drinks from the fridge and didn’t turn on the light. This was a blessing in hindsight, as he noticed that my car’s right rear tail light was reflecting back from the closed garage door. He called me and we noticed that the front right parking light was also on. I locked the car, unlocked it, relocked it, but no matter what I did those lights would come back on and start flashing intermittently. The service department at the dealership was about to close for the day, so I called the service manager right away. She got me to try some stuff with the headlamp switch but that made no difference, so she said to bring the car in straight away and hand it off to one of the other staff. Fortunately, she had a loan car available for me, so I was able to get home. Remember, I’d already booked the car in to go to the panel shop late Wednesday.

On Wednesday she called and said they were able to get the car into the panel shop right then, and had figured out that the light controller was faulting, causing the brand new battery to drain. After it had been to the panel shop, they got it back to the dealership, and had to wait on a replacement light controller part to arrive from Melbourne (by air to Perth, then road to the dealership some 2 hours’ south of Perth). Once they got that all installed and recharged the battery, I went back in to pay yet another bill (ugh!) and pick up my car on the Thursday.

You’d think that would be the end of it, but not quite yet…

Either later that day or the next day, I decided to put all my stuff back into the car that I’d taken out when it went in to the dealership for the panel work etc. (maps, phone chargers etc.). One of the things I do is keep a mini pack of tissues under a flap in the dashboard where there’s a screen for the audio system etc. I rarely open this flap, and have only done so when I’ve been driving. This is significant. I repack my car with the bits and bobs, including the tissues, then close the car and lock it. The keys are in my hand, and this is a 2008 car, so there’s no ‘talking’ between the fob and the car as there is on more recent vehicles. I turn to go back into the house when I hear music. And it’s coming from inside the car! The CD (yes, this is an older car) that was playing when I last drove it, is now playing again. OK, so that’s weird. And creepy! I call my OH, and we try various things—start the car and move it out of the garage then back in again to see what happens, then turn it off. All is OK. Then I explain to him what I did when I repacked the car, moving the flap open as I do so (the car is off at this point). I lock the car and turn away and the CD starts playing again! At this point, the car becomes ‘Christine’!!!

I call the dealership in a panic fearing that the entire electrical system is out to get me. The assistant service manager answers (my main person is out). She has no idea what’s happening either, so I tell her I’m bringing it in to be checked. Off we go, me in my ‘Christine’ and my OH in his car. I get to the dealership and the service manager is back—she knows exactly what it is, as it happened to her in a similar model car just the day before. It seems if you open the screen flap when the car is off, the auxiliary entertainment system comes on—this allows a passenger waiting in the car to listen to music etc. when the driver is away and has the key fob. And it’s ‘by design’. Who knew?? Certainly not me, even after 9 years owning the car, and when I asked my Dad about it, he said he never knew either. So that was a wasted hour-long round trip for the two of us, but at least we knew the car wasn’t possessed!

While I write this, she’s being a good girl in the garage—no disco lights and music. I’m still calling her ‘Christine’ though.

We’ve been in this house for nearly 10 years. In that time, I’ve seen plenty of Australian Wood Ducks (aka Maned Geese) when I’ve driven to and from town — they tend to live near the water courses on the low-lying land close to the estuary. And I’ve seen maybe three snakes (likely dugites) in 10 years crossing the road on that same drive.

So imagine my surprise when a family of wood ducks wandered across our front lawn a couple of weeks ago! We’re up a hill at least 200 m from a natural water course, and we’ve never seen adults here, let alone adults with seven babies!

Then just two days ago, something caught my eye outside the office window at the front of the house — it was a snake, likely a young adult dugite. It slithered across the concrete pad, took in some shade behind the portico pillar near the front door, then slithered over the lawn and over the retaining wall beyond, then disappeared. The previous owners of the house (who built it) said they’d seen three snakes in the garden/around the house in the three years they were here, but in our 10 years, I’ve never seen one. Until now.

I purchased a Bluprint (ex-Craftsy) class the other day when it was on sale. And decided to watch part of it yesterday and tackle the techniques shown. The class was ‘Step-by-step Photorealistic Colored Pencil Portraits’ by Karen Hull (an Aussie!). I certainly didn’t have all the materials she used, and only had drawing paper (she uses matt or bristol board), but I did have a set of standard (i.e. not watercolour) coloured pencils that I hoped had enough range of colours to do things such as skin tones. I’m a couple of chapters in, and have already made inroads into the first eye and cheek area (with freckles!).

Progress so far:

And I’m finished:

Here’s the original photo I worked from:

My last two days’ of classes at the Quilt Symposium in Auckland were held in the chemistry lab at St Cuthbert’s School (the venue for the entire Symposium). We were surrounded with inspirational sayings, women role models, soft toys (I’m still not sure why they were there), and chemistry info sheets that were fascinating because they pertained to the real world.

If chemistry had been like this when I was at school I may well have continued on that path into university. Alas, chemistry in my day was dry, dull, and not at all relevant to ANYTHING as far as I could tell.

Here’s a small sample of some of the stuff that surrounded us in this chemistry lab.

What is it with people and large events? Do they have NO awareness of anyone else but themselves? Yes, this is a bit of a rant, based on my experience in the vendor mall at the Houston International Quilt Festival. Let me count the ways….

• People stopping in the middle of the aisle for no apparent reason. They just stop. And you walk into them. Move to the side if you need to answer you phone, respond to a text message etc.
• A group of friends wandering about together — one stops to look at one thing, while two booths ahead are the others who now stop and wonder “Where’s Katie?” with them both turning around and half heading back or wandering about. Here’s a tip: If you go to an event such as this with friends, it’s very likely you’ll have different things that attract you and that you want to look at. So why not say “Let’s meet back at xx place at xx time” and go off by yourselves. You’ll still meet with your friends, and because you haven’t been in each others’ pockets, you’ll have things to share instead of resentment that Susan wanted to look at all the bead things, while Jane wanted to look at fabric, and you wanted to look at machines, yet you all had to spend time on each others’ interests when you couldn’t care less. It’s really not that hard to agree to meet somewhere at a specified time.
• Meandering — yes, an event such as this has hundreds of booths, with lots of new shiny things to look at. Before you wander across the traffic, LOOK at the traffic and pick your moment to cross. Wandering aimlessly from side to side really annoys your fellow shoppers.
• Scooters and walkers — many people have to use these for mobility reasons and know how to handle them. But at an event like this, there is a scooter (gopher) hire place and as far as I know ANYONE can hire one, whether they need it or not. And they MIGHT get a 5-minute lesson in how to operate it. The end result is LOTS of scooters with clueless drivers who run into people walking. Add in the meandering thing above, and you have a recipe for disaster. And it’s poor form to use your scooter to get into some events early, like I saw one woman do on Tuesday night. She aggressively pushed and shoved her scooter to the front of the line for Winners’ Circle, then the next day I saw her walk off the escalator and walk to her classroom — no scooter required now!

End of rant.

For most of this year, my renewable energy rebates have been way down. When I compared this year’s billing to previous years’ rebates for the same billing periods, there was a noticeable drop-off. For example, from Nov 2017 to Jan 2018, the system fed some 800 renewable units back into the grid. From Jan to Mar 2018, a period of perfect, mild, sunny, summer weather, it fed only 79 units into the grid, compared to Jan to Mar 2017, when it fed 500 units in, and Jan to Mar 2016 when it fed back 408 units. The same pattern occurred over the billing cycles for the first half of this year — the feed-in units were down substantially, and we hadn’t changed our electricity use.

I called my solar PV people to see if there might be a reason for this big drop. On their advice I checked the overall output from the system, which was a tad down on the average, but not enough to be significant. We decided to wait another billing cycle and see if there was any change. When the latest bill arrived, it was clear that something was up. Instead of the usual 100 or so feed-in units over May to Jun (winter months), it was zero. Nada. Nothing.

I decided to take two measurements at the same time over two consecutive days of similar weather. And it was then I noticed that something wasn’t right with some of the figures displayed on the inverter. In particular, the PIN 1 and PIN 2 figures. When the system was installed, I was told that the PIN figures were the ones to focus on as they told me how much electricity the system was producing at any moment in time. The PIN figures have always been slightly different, but always within 50 or so of each other.

However, when I checked on these two days, the PINs were way out. For example:

Normally, these figures should be about the same. Instead, they differed by more than 1500 units. The same for the next day.

I got back on the phone to the solar PV people and sent them the photos I’d taken of all the displayed information on the inverter, and my concern about the wildly varying PIN numbers. Yep, something was up. They organised for a local solar guy to come out and check the system, particularly the arrays on the roof. And it was there that he found the reason. One of the two isolators (one for each array) was full of condensation, what looked to be salt (we live near the ocean), and some rusty grungy stuff. No wonder it wasn’t working! (click the photo to see it larger, with all the water drips on the top and back, and the salt particles on the dry surfaces)

Yesterday, he came out and replaced both isolators (I figure if one was like this after 5 years, the other might not be good either, even though he said it was fine and still well sealed). The new isolators have better weather protection (a new standard brought in since we had our system installed 5 years ago), so here’s hoping the problem has been solved for good.

When he’d finished, I checked the inverter display and both PINs were back to being within a few units of each other. Problem solved!