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Sunday, November 13, 2011

Water Issues (All different and non-related)

Hey all,

I guess you can say things are settling down.  Major projects out of the way.  Freak snow storm out of the way...

Dishwasher - We do have a few things going on.  The dishwasher is becoming increasingly annoying.  At 1st I thought it was me (being a guy running the dishwasher) and putting things in that I shouldn't be, but it's been getting progressively worse.  Our dishwasher leaves a white residue on almost everything, the residue can generally be hand-washed off, but don't get me started on  how annoying that is.  I heard a few of the neighbors complaining of the same issue, so I wonder if it's something in the water.  We use the ready-pack thingies where the amount of detergent is predetermined.  I've tried the powder style AND the Cascade gel style.  Have also tried using the Cascade rinse-aid and that sure didn't help.  If I slide my finger on the inside plastic of the door, there is a dusty white residue.  I'm getting very close to calling GE and requesting service.  Is it possible this is a hard water issue?

Aquarium - I've been having a heck of a time with Green Water in our 25 gallon aquarium.  I can do complete water changes and it comes back in a few days.  So green you can't see the fish.  It's essentially a form of algae but lives in single cell microbes (sorry bio folks....).  Long story short is that it lives everywhere, including in the fish.  I'm told it's a result of too much food and too much light.  I put up blinds over the sliding door which reduces 90% of the direct sunlight.  The rest is ambient, still not enough.  Apparently now that the green is here, I need to starve it away.  I can try leaving the light off and changing 2 gallons a day for a month, that 'should' starve it little by little.  To be honest, I'm not that patient, and I travel at least 2 of the next couple weekends.  The other option is getting a UV Sterilizer Pump which essentially vaporizes the green gunk as it passes through. This should clean up the problem as well as clear up (pun intended because I'm a dork) any future issues.  Waiting for the UV thing to show up in the mail!

Radon Pipe - This issue has been on-going since the 30-day Walkthrough.  It looks as if water is coming up through the radon pipe in the basement.  It's usually just a smaller puddle, and the pipe is a foot away from the sump so it's more annoying than anything.  I don't believe the finished basement is in danger.

Ryan had people come to seal it up, failed.  I think they came back and that didn't work out.  So now they're going to an outside company called "Foundation Restoration" and his guy couldn't figure it out, so the owner of the company came by.  He's been doing this for 17 years an thought he had seen it all, this is a new one for him.  His only 'out of the box' theory is that maybe there was water coming from the roof into the radon pipe from above and the leak is not actually ground water.  Jury is still out, they're talking about coring a new hole, moving the pipe and cementing the old one out.  I don't care, just want it fixed.

Other than those items, things are progressing.  I have plans ready to build 4x8 basement shelves but don't want to do that until the radon pipe issue is fixed.  Oh well.

2 comments:

  1. WOW! That Radon pipe thing just sounds awful! I hope they get it fixed soon!

    Sorry to hear about the fish tank too. We went to our local fish store, bought a test kit and tested the water once. Returned with the results and they gave us chemicals to clear it all up and it worked. I hope your fish can "see" you soon.

    We plan on replacing our dishwasher soon. I don't think anyone likes theirs at all.

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  2. The dishwasher issue could definitely be hard water. We have dealt with that before by pouring a cup of white vinegar in the bottom of the dishwasher and running a full cycle without any dishes. This cleans all the hard water residue from the inside of the dishwasher. We did this once a month and it helped a lot. We had to do this with our "builder grade" dishwasher. When we replaced with a better dishwasher, we no longer had that problem.

    Sorry to hear about the fish and the radon pipe. I have no experience with either, but I hope you get the answers you need to resolve the issues!

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