Relief

As I had hoped, I was able to finish my company books and file both my GST and Income Tax returns yesterday AM.  This is a huge relief and quite frankly was stressing me out more than the house build.  I could not just farm it out to an accountant because the hard part of this was recreating all of the transactions for the last two years (lost in the data crash) and setting them to the right categories.  I am meticulous about scanning all receipts and statements and thankfully I did not loos any of these, but the harder transactions are those done electronically (web/email).  Copies of these ‘receipts’ are in many folders based on their original subject matter.

Then I clearly had used a different set of logic when entering them the first time as once re-entered the second time, I did not have a match  to what I had done previous.  Some were obvious but some I could never find and I suspect I may have even made a typo the first time around.  So a lot of effort was put into ensuring that what was re-entered for 2013, added up to what was actually filled for 2013 before I could start on 2014.  Once this was done, the rest was a piece of cake.

Now that this is off my shoulders, I will have Sundays and evenings free again to rest, do long outstanding chores, and even do some construction planning (what a concept).

I finished up the books at 11 yesterday morning and then went to site to find that the south pump GFCI was blown again.  Investigation showed that it was the actual pump and not the chord.  I had bought it 31 days ago so was worried that Canadian Tire would not take it back.  But I was thrilled to find out they have a 90 day return policy but more importantly a 5 Year Warranty on these electronic sump pumps.

I have to say, this 1/3 HP Electronic pump has performed extremely well as a pit storm water excavation pump, and when connected to a 1″ pipe instead of garden hose, it puts out a very high flow of water.  Research shows it does not handle extremely muddy water, but you are not allowed to discharge muddy water to the storm sewer anyway.  I have dug a pit filled with crushed rock and inserted the pump in there.  The water coming out is typically clear enough that it looks drinkable.

I have had two units fail however.  The first within hours of first use.  The bottom impeller seal failed and let all of the electric oil out of the unit which then filled up with water and shorted out. I do not know why the second unit I took back yesterday failed.  When I took it apart there was some corrosion on the circuit board.  I suspect the seal around the power chord had allowed water in over a long period of time.  But with a 5 yr warranty and no questions asked exchanges, this ends up being a much cheaper water control system compared to renting a pit pump.  1 week rental is way more than this electronic pump is worth. And on the rentals, unless you are able to set them up in a sump right from the beginning, there is no easy way to attach a float and you therefore have to baby sit it (including getting up during the night), because if they run dry they would burn out.

Once I got back from exchanging the pump, I set to rigging the reconfiguration of the tarp system.  The main cable now goes up very smoothly since the cable was changed and Sean from Burley was able to install the pulley block in the south tree.  This is going to make raising and lowering the tarp so much easier.  The winch I bought had no problems yanking the assembly up into the air.  By the end of the day, I had partially rigged four  new cables and tensioned the tarp on the main line about 85% of the way.

Today I continued rigging the new rope lines and the tarps attachment to them.  I completed the attachment points on the east side and did a test raise.  It was quite windy around noon and the new system had no problem handling the wind.  The ropes are taking all of the load instead of the tarp itself. But it was also raining (heavily) and there was pooling building up quite quickly.  The tarp was bunched up because the ropes were too tight and not allowing the tarp to stretch out enough.  This was an easy adjustment – just had to let out the various ropes a bit.  As I had ensured each rope had a few extra ft, this took no time at all.  But then it was getting dark and REALLY raining, so I called it a day.

I was able to see, with the tarp partially raised, that I will have to do cross ‘webbing’ underneath from rope to rope to prevent pooling.  I will do this on the diagonal so that the webbing itself does not create ponding. This will be tomorrow and Thursday’s tasks as well as completing the tensioning of the tarp on the main cable. (I will take a video of the system once complete and post).

Tomorrow will be a shorter day as I will be visiting the Wood Solutions Fair and specifically stopping by the TriForce wood web Floor truss both to meet the salesman I bought the trusses from.

Thanks for visiting.