Well, Almost

I got my new Fleck water treatment system installed today.  Almost. 

My friend Hannah's* husband Steve* came over this morning with their kids Stevie* and Letty* and by 2:45 or so had all the piping soldered and in place before he had to run to keep another obligation.  All I had to do then was finish replacing the old or missing hangers and fill the filter and softener with media and water and set them going.

Only one thing:  Steve's* not big on reading instructions, and though I printed out the directions last Saturday and skimmed them over, it slipped my mind to tell him one very important thing as I was assisting today:  You have to have the stainless steel bypass valve in the "Service" position before inserting the horizontal input and output fittings into it.  So there I was early this evening:  I'd gotten the filter tank all filled with media and water (from my neighbors' hose tap) and fitted with its valve, and I'd connected it into the water system with flexible connectors.  Now I could turn on and use my own water to finish filling the brine and softener tanks, assuming that the softener bypass valve, which as yet was hanging off the pipes separate from the meter and the tank, was on "Bypass."  It was, but from my reaction you would not have thought so.

"Oh, carp!!"  And I grabbed the instructions.  Oh, carp, carp, carp.  Steve had put the piping in with the valve in the wrong position, and now I couldn't turn it to "Service."  I tried calling the Ohio Pure Water people for advice, but it was after 6:00 and their phone was on the machine.

Steve came over later this evening and we took the stems off, unsoldering the 90 degree elbows from the vertical risers.

Well, you can guess what happened.  It's why this will be a short post, for me, with a paucity of pictures.  We couldn't get the elbows back onto the bottom of the verticals.  And of course, despite I'm embarrassed to say how many trips back and forth to Home Depot and Lowe's, I didn't have any spare 90 degree fittings lying around.  And it probable doesn't matter, since Steve thinks he'll probably have to cut off the soldery ends of the verticals anyway.  Meaning we'll need a couple of unions, too.

Steve plans to be over here at 9:00 tomorrow morning "to get this done and over with."  So guess who has to be up and over to the local Lowe's at the crack of dawn?
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>As it turns out, Steve's return trip was necessary anyway.  When I'd gotten it through my head that a) the softener valve was in the Bypass position, and b) that meant I could safely turn on the water, I found that he'd turned the service entrance valve off so hard that I couldn't budge the handle.  It's still off till tomorrow, and I'm making do with water I put aside for this project, and hand sanitizer.