improvements

New bilge pump

We naturally love water, but same as with the fire, it is a good servant, but a bad boss. Recently we found out that our otherwise quite dependent bilge pump Rule 1100 started malfunctioning. First the float switch started to get stuck and refused to get lifted by the water in the bilge. Soon the motor would start working only sporadically and when it did work, it wouldn’t have enough power to lift the water.

I tried to get inside, but the motor is sealed in a plastic body of the pump, so we decided to order a new one, which is by the way, quite improved, the float is hidden so it cannot get dirty and stuck. At the same time we ordered an inline check-valve for our manual bilge pump Gusher 10. We were looking for a similar strainer that we had before, but the advantage of the strainer, other than being able to be attached to the floor, is not so clear to me, so I just attached a piece of strong plastic netting on the check-valve to get a cheap strainer. The netting is naturally important to prevent hard large objects getting into the bilge pump and puncturing the membrane.

Now everything is back in working order and we sleep a tad sounder, i.e. until there’s water in the bilge which triggers an annoyingly alarming buzzer…

Recycling continues

By Petr Šimon & Jana Benešová

When I was a small kid back in the communist Czech and Slovak Socialistic Republic, a friend of mine introduced me to this marvelous new gadget – a digital watch. The Vietnamese throw them into the garbage when the battery is dead, said my friend. Yes, that marvel was battery operated. I’ve never seen battery operated watch. Why wouldn’t the Vietnamese replace the battery instead of tossing the whole watch I didn’t understand. My friend just shook his head and pointed out to me again that the fact that these can be found in garbage cans is what I should be concentrating on.

Surely I did peek to garbage cans for a while then before emptying the content of our household bin. Yes, there were no plastic bags used then. All went to the bin, we would fold an old newspaper on the bottom, and the bin would have to be cleaned from time to time, because it would start to smell quite badly. I guess we were quite ecological back then, regardless of the fact that people didn’t know much about being ecological.

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Anti-gravitation equipment

By Petr Šimon

I’ve spent yesterday fighting the power of gravity, the adverse consequences of the centrifugal force and the malignant inertia.

Few years ago – yes, we are already counting our life with Janna in years, this was autumn 2009 – when we converted the original small wardrobe and wet locker into much more specious wardrobe shelves, we knew right away that we will need something to prevent our precious garments to fall out. It was obvious that they will fall out and they did. Not too often, though. Actually they stood put in many hairy conditions, so we didn’t feel too bad about postponing what should’ve been done much earlier.