Entropy

Relax in southern comfort on the east bank of the Mississippi. You're just around the corner from Beale Street and Sun Records. Watch the ducks, throw back a few and tell us what's on your mind.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

Cute, I can see your reflection in the shiny chrome... I am impressed by how clean your sink looks, when I recently took a picture of my sprayer repair my sink was less pristine. :oops:

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Yesterday was too cold (40s) for me so I took the day off from digging in my yard. Today is forecast for 60s so I'll continue uncovering the old pipe... I have cleared about 65-70' so 50' or less to go. 8-)

The old buried pipe is still partially occluded so back ditch water only pulled down to mid pipe (2 of 4" diameter)... lower than a week ago. I am thinking about adding a sediment filter to the intake port (swimming pool filter socks look promising). It will not matter much for heavy run-off that will just flow across the yard. Slow drainage will still empty the back ditches.

I have 100' of new pipe waiting in my carport and a second 100' on order (due next week) so I am very optimistic I will soon have drier back rain ditches, by a few inches (my Christmas present to myself). That said I still have much manual labor to go.

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The shortest day of the year just happened so my solar driveway lights will have an easier task from here. I remain convinced one of my two lamps is faulty (symptom looks like low solar cell output). The same one lamp turns on 15-20 minutes earlier, and shuts off hours sooner than the other. Yesterday without much sunlight, the rogue lamp only lit about a half hour...The good one was still on dimly for a couple hours. In the crystal clarity of hindsight the $4 replacement cost would have been a winner for that one at least. The last time I replaced one, I replaced both to insure they would both work the same :oops: , next step is to replace just the bogus one... not that I need driveway lights anymore. :lol:

JR
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

Solar driveway lights are defying logic... last two nights the formerly weak one stays brighter longer... whatever.. :lol:

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DSCF0079.JPG
Got the old drain pipe completely uncovered late yesterday. Trench flow immediately clogged again from loose sand in the trench... Still some standing water in the back that will help guide me with grading the pitch of the new pipe(s).
DSCF0078.JPG
I am ahead of schedule because pipe was not supposed to arrive until after christmas.

Still refining my plan... this time will be betta... 8-)

JR

PS: Life is still giving me test answers after the test... The sod roots were hard to cut through with my shovel even after sharpening my shovel knife edge with a file. I didn't have this epiphany until about 15' from the end, but my (new this year) long handle axe cut through the sod roots like butter. I wish I figured that out sooner. :lol:
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

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More progress and a new experiment

First I found my missing pair of (cheap) reading glasses that fell into the ditch and were lost in the mud for almost a week. Not much worse for the wear, some of the lacquer paint is peeling off...

I am still dredging loose sand/mud from the bottom of the trench as water is still flowing from back to front. This is ideal for setting pitch/grade. In rain ditches water level is truth. Back ditch is not dry yet but front outlet water a couple inches above bottom of front culvert pipe (a good thing).

My recent epiphany is that it would be good to get a handle on the fine silt/mud in the back ditches before it even gets to the drain pipe. Easier said than done and I have already abandoned a few of my more fantastic ideas. Today I reset the drain/catch well that was at the head of my drain pipe about 50' upstream toward where the silt/sand is coming from.
DSCF0083.JPG
You can see just to the left an earlier experiment where I tried to make a crude silt filter from a muslim cloth bag. I put similar DIY cloth filters over both shorty pipes stuck into the old drain.
DSCF0084.JPG
This picture shows how much silt got stuck in the free standing cloth bag after only a couple hours in the ditch.. I suspect more silt accumulation will make it an even better filter.

I don't expect this to trap fast moving silt, but might catch some slow moving silt. We'll see. I need to give this time to produce results. The light colored streaks to the right (outlet end) of the old drain reveals that silt/sand is still making it through (we got silt).

Merry Christmas all

JR
[edit too early to declare victory but I just looked inside the reset old drain and muslim bag on the inlet side is already filling up with sand... as the classic movie line goes "We're gonna need a bigger bag" :lol: [/edit]
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billshurv
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Re: Entropy

Post by billshurv »

Short of putting a sizable silt trap at the inlet end not sure much you can do. Which adds another service job to do, but at least only one lot of desilting in a known location!

After the usual eating and drinking too much took the littleuns out for a walk. The field where next doors soakaway is was it's usual winter bog. On the walk realised that the planned fibre upgrade to our village may be delayed. The muppets putting in the fibre had cited the cabinet on a corner where at least once if not twice a year someone loses it big time. Last time was about 3 weeks ago as noticed a car on its roof in a field. What we hadn't noticed until today was that the car had ripped the cabinet off its mountings. Didn't have time to examine closely but looked like the cabinet had been patched up. If this is the case the collision will have ripped out the fibre from the ducting and they will have to blow a new load through. Phooey. Looks like stuck at 3Mb/s for another year.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

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billshurv wrote: Tue Dec 25, 2018 6:12 pm Short of putting a sizable silt trap at the inlet end not sure much you can do. Which adds another service job to do, but at least only one lot of desilting in a known location!

In hindsight I am constantly dredging silt/sand out of the side ditch uphill from my buried pipe, so if I can get an effective silt trap uphill of that ditch I will kill two birds with one stone.

This could be a huge labor saving more than once every 12 years.

Trapping silt seems like a very old task, I'm sure there is some effective technology I just haven't stumbled upon yet.

JR
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billshurv
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Re: Entropy

Post by billshurv »

Attached is the brochure for the sort of thing they sell in uk for protecting soakaways. Has a removable basket to take the silt out.
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Turtle Enviro Silt Sentinel Brochure June 2018.pdf
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

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thanks looks interesting...

JR

[edit- I found a price and they seem pretty proud of that drain/trap.

I think I have yet another new plan to test... but not tonight. [/edit]
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Re: Entropy

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The turtle stuff looks nice but way out of my budget.

First things first, I checked my DIY silt filter (muslim bags inside standard drain)... and it is working. Not a 100% silt stopper but has collected a bunch of silt, just over night. Water is still flowing slowly in the ditch and this slow water is probably more of a vector for silt deposits than fast flowing water. I still see silt in the outlet end of my filter/drain so not complete remedy.

I believe I may be overthinking this. A few years ago I dig a silt well (deeper depression in the ditch that silt collects in). This fills up with silt so this is helping but was too little and years too late to keep my pipe from silting up.

New plan is to dig a new silt well 70' upstream from my buried pipe where the culvert/pipe on my uphill side is bringing in the silt. I will combine this with a second silt well right by the drain, and use supplemental cloth filters inside the drain. Even the porous muslim bags are trapping a bunch of silt.

To make maintenance practical I will bury plastic buckets in the bottom both silt wells. These will make it easy to monitor and dump out when they fill up with silt.

That's the easy part. A bunch more digging to accomplish before I put the new pipe to sleep (second run of pipe still hasn't arrived). Water is still flowing down the ditch from uphill, and it hasn't rained for several days. But this is helpful to get the down pitch of my trench optimized.

JR
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billshurv
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Re: Entropy

Post by billshurv »

well the premade stuff is there for people who can't be bothered, but inlet/outlet and a seperator principle should be able to be made up with fairly std parts. Another idea is here https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/landdrain.htm which is your silt bag idea enlarged. But given the amount of silt you have will possibly need replacing soon.

Intriguing problem You could always bury a rain water butt as the silt trap. 50 gallon Butts are cheap, albeit a deep hole required.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

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Tomorrow when I do my weekly food shopping I will pick up a couple small cheap plastic buckets (diaper pails are good size). The problem with burying a bigger silt trap is emptying it out later... :oops: modest sized buckets can be routinely emptied as they slowly accumulate silt/sand.

This morning there is zero rain runoff coming down my front ditch as it should be because it hasn't rained for several days.. Back ditch still has slow water flow because of so much silt in mismanaged ditches, uphill from my property.

Next gully washer will grab a bunch of loose silt but the fast flowing water doesn't drop the fine silt. My front culvert now has about an inch of new silt/mud waiting for the next heavy rain, to flush out.

I am optimistic I am getting a handle on this, while just replacing the clogged pipe would work for another decade+. I can learn from my old mistakes and make it better.

JR
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