Please wait...
Wed Apr 10 2019 15:36:08 EDTfrom IGnatius T Foobar @ UncensoredSounds like you just need more bandwidth. Doesn't everyone have a 1 Gbps fiber connection coming into their house? <big stupid grin>
Ah, if only. I've got no option for fiber at my current location, yet. AT&T fiber isn't available for me, the new, semi-local MetroNet hasn't been run to my area, yet. I have Comcrap and get 250Gbps, but I'm just not willing to let my kids suck it all down.
Tell me more, though. I have a septic system with a lift station pump, and ethernet in my garage.
I'm using this alarm from Septic Solutions. I believe you can order it without the included float switch. I wired mine right to the float switch wiring that was already in my garage, attached to the old alarm.
Setup was really pretty simple.
I also have ethernet in my garage, which feeds to the AP in the space above the garage where my son lives. I just didn't feel like stringing more CAT6 around my garage.
By the way, I found another buriedPVC pipe, and there's a lot of water coming out of it. Before I lose my shit over this one, though, I'm going to have to trace it back and see where it goes. This one might just be a drainage line for the uphill side of my own property. But if it goes up to the neighbor's house I may have to launch something unpleasant into it.
Oy, vey.
Oy! I found a THIRD pipe. Look at this picture.
This one is, without question, going many feet straight into the neighbor's property. And what's coming out of it looks and smells like effluent from a septic system (black and funky instead of light brown and earthy). Look at the color of the mud going from the middle of the photo towards the bottom left.
Now I have to figure out what to do. I suppose I could ask him about it but that probably won't work out too well. I could take it up with the building department. Or I might just plug it up to the property line and let him deal with it.
This is land I'm trying to clear and turn into a section of well-maintained lawn. I don't have the big machinery and the laborers he has access to (because he's a professional landscaper). Perhaps a can of expanding foam would take care of things, and if he goes to "fix" it he would have to deliberately dig up my yard. Or I could just send some fireworks up the pipe. That would be fun.
Here's another photo:
Reference points here are the fence (upper right in the photo, generally on the property line), and the piece of rebar, showing the length and direction that I was able to get that piece of rebar into the pipe. And of course the black smelly effluent coming out of the pipe.
I don't think I'd be reacting as calmly as you are. The neighbor must've noticed
you clearing the area. He probably knows what's coming.
I'm not reacting all that calmly ... I've been obsessing over it and restraining
myself, which as most of you know is more than I customarily do. I'm a big
fan of flipping out first and then acting rational later.
I went to Lowe's today (which just opened really close to my home ... yay!) and bought a couple of 4" caps. One is a "Fernco" type rubber cap which will go on the pipe that's spouting clean water. If it turns out that this pipe goes to a drywell in my backyard and we develop a drainage problem, I'll take it off and deal with the drainage some other way. But the other cap is a regular PVC cap that will be solvent-welded on to the end of the pipe that's spewing septic effluent. That pipe only goes a few feet before it crosses directly into the neighbor's yard. If his yard starts "ponding" (that's the technical term for having effluent rise to the surface, dontcha know) he'll have to deal with it.
I went to Lowe's today (which just opened really close to my home ... yay!) and bought a couple of 4" caps. One is a "Fernco" type rubber cap which will go on the pipe that's spouting clean water. If it turns out that this pipe goes to a drywell in my backyard and we develop a drainage problem, I'll take it off and deal with the drainage some other way. But the other cap is a regular PVC cap that will be solvent-welded on to the end of the pipe that's spewing septic effluent. That pipe only goes a few feet before it crosses directly into the neighbor's yard. If his yard starts "ponding" (that's the technical term for having effluent rise to the surface, dontcha know) he'll have to deal with it.
Do you know how long he has lived there? Is there any possibility that he doesn't know the pipes are draining on your lawn?
This is the guy that dumps leaves and other yard waste over onto IG's property.
I don't think he gets much in the benefit of the doubt.
The guy might be a schmuck but did he dig up the property and place the pipes there? I believe in "innocent until proven guilty".
Zillow says he bought the house in 2001 and the historical aerial photos on
the county GIS maps show that he's done substantial work on both the land
and the house. Other neighbors have told us the same thing: despite having
improved their home greatly, they're not popular people in the neighborhood.
Machines which can be "tuned" by ninja cats are onsite often.
If I wanted to be an asshole about it, I would simply call the building department and/or the health department and point out that his septic is draining into a public waterway. But I'm trying to *avoid* a confrontation. Capping the pipe will be fine for now.
Machines which can be "tuned" by ninja cats are onsite often.
If I wanted to be an asshole about it, I would simply call the building department and/or the health department and point out that his septic is draining into a public waterway. But I'm trying to *avoid* a confrontation. Capping the pipe will be fine for now.
I can appreciate not wanting a confrontation with a neighbor.
I hate such things. Like it or not, you have to figure out how to live next to each other. Ideally, everyone gets along. If there's a conflict, finding a resolution that doesn't involve dickery is preferred, so everyone can still get along. But if he's fucking determined to be a douchbag, you can probably get a neighborhood to fuck him so hard he'll think his ass was a highway.
I would want to take the legal high road first. If things escalate you want to make sure you do everything by the correct way. Talk to him first, then talk to the city. Or better yet talk to the city and make sure what the correct resolution order is. Have a witness with you when you speak with him, another neighbor would be best.
This could get nasty, if you did everything correctly then you have the advantage.
I suspect that zooer is probably right, but lacking the courage to confront
him about it I am taking the quietest approach. The pipe that had septic
effluent coming out of it has been capped. I don't know how much PVC cement
actually remained in the joint because I was having trouble getting it to
spread evenly, but the joint was so tight that I had to file a small bevel
onto the end of the pipe and then hammer the cap on. It isn't coming off
by any means short of a hacksaw. The pipe stub has been buried and I'll be
backfilling the whole area some more and planting grass.
That leaves the other pipe, the one whose direction makes it ambiguous whether the other end is on my land or the neighbor's, and is pouring out *clean* water, but at a much higher rate. I'll probably let it flow for a couple of days so that it washes the rest of the dirty water out of the ditch. I have a *removable* (Fernco style) cap that I plan to put on that one.
The biggest problem right now is ... once you get that smell on your hands, it sticks with you, even after multiple washings.
That leaves the other pipe, the one whose direction makes it ambiguous whether the other end is on my land or the neighbor's, and is pouring out *clean* water, but at a much higher rate. I'll probably let it flow for a couple of days so that it washes the rest of the dirty water out of the ditch. I have a *removable* (Fernco style) cap that I plan to put on that one.
The biggest problem right now is ... once you get that smell on your hands, it sticks with you, even after multiple washings.
I have a septic tank and a pump station on the side of my land which is closer
to the *other* neighbor, and my field is behind the house, way uphill (his
is in front, downhill, so it's probably gravity fed while mine uses a pump
station).
If you're suggesting that some of what's coming out of the "clean" pipe has been through my septic ... yes, I'd say some of it, but the flow has way more volume and is more constant than what I'm dosing into the field. I think most of it is just groundwater settling down to the lowest place it can go.\
If you're suggesting that some of what's coming out of the "clean" pipe has been through my septic ... yes, I'd say some of it, but the flow has way more volume and is more constant than what I'm dosing into the field. I think most of it is just groundwater settling down to the lowest place it can go.\
Today I filled the end of each pipe with expanding foam to slow down the rate
of water egress, but there's still a trickle coming from the area since they
are perforated pipes. I will probably end up bringing in a truckload of fill
to put over the area.
Ok, new rant. The neighbor's septic is still leaking into my yard but I'll tackle that later.
The light went out in one of our bedrooms -- a bulb that hasn't been changed since we moved in about five years ago. I went to replace it and -- WTF!
It's a GU24 fitting. Why would *anyone* put ONE single GU24 fixture in a house that has E26 everywhere else?!?
(For those not familiar ... E26 is better known as "the regular screw-in light bulb" in North America.)
GU24 came into existence about a decade ago, when the People's Republic of California decided that they wanted to make a new light bulb socket that was incompatible with incandescent light bulbs. GU24 was the result: a bi-pin fitting that is actually quite nice. In addition to the form factor, the specification also dictates specific wattage limits and heat dissipation requirements, designed to make it impossible to build a GU24 incandescent bulb.
The following events then took place:
1. Chinese-made E26-to-GU24 adapters immediately appeared on the market
2. California made these adapters illegal
3. The E26 world transitioned to CFL and LED *anyway*.
Yay progress, yay LED industry and free market efficiency, booooooo California big government meddlers. Now we're left with random light fixtures that require harder-to-find bulbs. Yes, I know I can just drive over to Lowe's and buy the bulb I need, but now I can't relamp this ONE fixture in my house from my existing supply of spares.
Thu May 23 2019 18:48:03 EDTfrom IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored
GU24 came into existence about a decade ago, when the People's Republic of California decided that they wanted to make a new light bulb socket that was incompatible with incandescent light bulbs. GU24 was the result: a bi-pin fitting that is actually quite nice. In addition to the form factor, the specification also dictates specific wattage limits and heat dissipation requirements, designed to make it impossible to build a GU24 incandescent bulb.
Heat dissipation? Frak
The GU24 bulbs that I've seen have either been LED OR Halogen...the latter being hot as hell and impossible to replace without burning one's fingerprints off, on them, if they haven't been powered off for quite some time.
Interesting. I thought Halogen didn't make the cut for "energy efficient"
bulbs. I know that GU10 halogens are all over the place, as that's the standard
fitting for halogen track lights, but I've never seen a GU24 halogen.
I'm thinking the government will probably eventually kill gasoline-powered cars the same way they killed incandescent light bulbs -- simply by making the energy efficiency requirements so strict that they simply cannot be met with the conventional technology.
Don't get me wrong -- I *like* the GU24 fitting. It works well, has a satisfying snap-in and snap-out, and the bulbs can be manufactured using a lot less extra material. But we live in an E26 world and no one wants to replace all of their fixtures or keep two kinds of bulbs on hand. I suppose adapters would work (the "legal" kind, that fit GU24 bulbs into E26 fixtures) but with LED bulbs available with E26 base, no one is motivated to change, so now we're stuck.
I'm thinking the government will probably eventually kill gasoline-powered cars the same way they killed incandescent light bulbs -- simply by making the energy efficiency requirements so strict that they simply cannot be met with the conventional technology.
Don't get me wrong -- I *like* the GU24 fitting. It works well, has a satisfying snap-in and snap-out, and the bulbs can be manufactured using a lot less extra material. But we live in an E26 world and no one wants to replace all of their fixtures or keep two kinds of bulbs on hand. I suppose adapters would work (the "legal" kind, that fit GU24 bulbs into E26 fixtures) but with LED bulbs available with E26 base, no one is motivated to change, so now we're stuck.