Today, we took the opportunity of a very nice sunny day and that the hole was reasonably dry, to tackle the job of installing and burying our new Rainwater Filtration Module, at the end of the swimming lane. We have had to wait for a few days whilst the rain drained out of the hole (The roof of the garage drains into the hole at the moment – it will connect to the filter soon)
Lots-of-water-in-Filter-hole
We started by digging out the hole of the excess material that had slipped in during the rain we had last week and got a wheel barrow load of gravel and sand mixture to provide a good and firm surface. We used our laser site level to make sure the bottom of the hole was set to 1metre below ground level.
Then we built a ramp come platform (made from three 4.8metres 2inch by 4inch planks screwed together using lots of pieces of plywood) and placed it across our hole (the far end supported on the mass wall against the fence and the other end packed on to the dirt pile), ready to take our 140kg cabinet!
We laid the module on the trolley, put on some extra temporary support arms at the top of the cabinet (for connecting lifting straps to the winch motor) and carefully rolled it out of our workshop and around to our ramp.
Filter-on-its-way
After a struggle to get it upright, and then sliding it along the ramp and then trying rope but finally settling on nylon straps to lift it clear. We pulled the ramp away and lowered the whole cabinet down into our hole. After some fiddling around with the straps and the supporting arm plus also tidying up the gravel surface again, we got the thing landed solidly into place at last!
It was getting dark by this time so we got out our flood lights and carried on with drilling the seven fixing holes into the concrete blocks of the swimming lane’s wall and screwing concrete bolts into the back of the cabinet and then covering up the metal work with more polyester resin.
The last job was to secure the vertical side “lid” to enclose and seal the joint with plenty of PU sealant and a couple dozens of screws.
Filter-installed
It was pitch black and tomorrow, we will finish the task of connecting the various pipelines to the new filtration module, including doing a leak test! Phew what a long day it was today!!