The Rest of the Plumbing Story:

We got all of the pipe in, then soldered a manifold onto the pipe to make one continuous pipe, then filled the whole thing with 60 pounds of air. (A pressure check is required for all plumbing.)  We found a few small leaks, fixed them and called for an inspection.

Well, it wasn't as easy as we thought it was going to be.  Any plumber that knows building code could tell you that you can't bury rigid copper pipe that has been soldered together.  Instead, you must use soft copper and run a continuous line with no splices, or use silver solder, which is more like welding than soldering.  We didn't.  Apparently the guy that I asked either wasn't really a plumber or didn't know code very well.  I thought that I was being pretty smart running a backup line, all proud because I had done the "base" plumbing myself. The inspector showed up, looks in my trench and says, "Nope. That won't work." I wanted to be really mad, but couldn't. I did the work. It was my mistake. So we pulled the rigid pipe (all 120 feet of it) and put in the flexible pipe, rigged the manifold again, pumped the whole thing up and called for another inspection.  This one passed easily and we got our very first signature on our permit. The whole thing wasn't very fun, but I bet I never make that mistake again!

In order to shut off the water flow from the cisterns to the house, we installed a valve box outside of each cistern wall.  These will actually be inside the house, under the finished floor, with lids that will camoflage their existence. We built the boxes out of scrap, pressure treated 2X12.  You can see the white cap on the pipe which will allow us to blow out the pipes to remove sediment if nessecary.

One inspection down, and ready for more!

Earthship Index