Time to put those huge water barrels to use.. Needed to make a small stand for the water change station to be slightly elevated to allow room for the pump.
Went with 1.5" .250 wall thickness steel tubing. 267 lbs for just the steel. A bit overkill, but we figured with over 5,000 lbs of water, we didn't want to take any chances.
Don't have any experience with metal fabrication, etc... so.. next hurdle: trying to figure out how to cut the tubing!
A 14" abrasive disc saw was hardly tickling the steel.. and after 10 minutes, was about a quarter of the way through. Looked like the steel was being tempered more than anything..
Got a new toy.. a slow (relatively speaking) cutting miter saw..
A cut that took about 10 seconds or less. Good enough for this project!!
Our first attempt at building a steel stand..
Temporary tack welding
A quick mock up..
Literally, hours of brain power wasted trying to figure out how in the world to fit all the plumbing, valves, and pump, into a tiny space.
Okay, for real this time..
More tack welding
Another mock up...
Afterwards, everything was taken to my very helpful neighbor across the street who laid down some very serious welds with his huge MIG.. Afterwards, primed, and painted.. and voila! Was actually a fun project and we're confident this thing can survive an earthquake..
Next dilemma.. a smaller water storage container to fit between the containers that are now 4" larger than expected, and the already-installed stainless sink... Ugh.
A few days or searching and we decided on a 55 gallon Ace Rotomold. 18" x 18" x 44" tall, with expensive shipping, like last time.. Ugh.
Making a little stand for it..
So cute..
One of four pex heating loops that will be going into the sumps. This Pex-Al-Pex stuff is actually pretty cool!
Another huge pex loop.. Still need to finalize the system design and order the necessary components to put this into action.,
An updated sump/plumbing photo.. excuse the dirty floors.
Water testing the jetted tub..
Time to plumb the water change station.
Pure water feed for the awesome Spectrapure RO system that was ordered. At the end of filling up the fresh water container, and periodically during operation, this system actually draws up fresh RODI water from the fresh water container to "pickle" the membrane for future use.. this eliminates any TDS creep that you would normally see with an R.O. system.. To keep the line from curling up inside the 8' tall barrel, we used a piece of spare acrylic rod and zip tied the 3/8 line to it.
Top of the water change system.. this is 10' up in the air. Notice the 2-3" clearance between the mini split AC unit and the top of the barrel.. tight tight tight spacing for this entire project..
Water change station.. almost done..
Needed space to mount the RO system, and future recirculating heat system, with LOTS of plumbing in the wall directly behind.. So.. this piece of plywood will serve a very useful job, providing us a medium to screw into.
Starting to make some water.. tanks are so close to getting wet!!
Time to wrap the plywood and make it look pretty and durable. We used "polywall" utility paneling.. It's almost like FRP, and is pretty resilient, durable, and waterproof. We then framed the edges with aluminum trim for a cleaner look. Can't believe it, but we don't have a picture of it all completed.. Will have to take one.
RO system temporarily mounted, and starting to make a small batch of salt water.. With this water change system design, we can quickly open up a 200 gallon box of IO, grab a 50 gallon bag, and just dump it in, without having to measure out the correct amount of salt. The little white barrel wasn't absolutely necessary, but the alternative would have been climbing a ladder about 9 feet to dump salt into the top of the black barrel... No thanks.
Went with an amazing Spectrapure UHE system.. 1:1 ratio, 100 gpd, comes with booster pump, computer controlled auto flush, and high/low floats already included. Was originally going to DIY a system using an Apex with solenoids and floats.. but why reinvent the wheel when something like this is already available in an easy-to-install package.. 420 TDS coming in, 3 TDS coming out of the membrane (99%+ rejection rate).. We expect this DI resin to last A REALLY LONG time.. Sweet!!
Starting to work on the bathroom.. this photo was taken 4 days before our baby girl was born..
Plumbing up in the attic.. excuse the mess.. The white coiled up tubes are the copper line sets for the AC units that still need to be installed, before summer comes!
And that's it for now guys.. still a work in progress, but slowly getting there.. in between the 2-3 hour newborn feeding sessions..