More fosse fuss

During our holiday in July it became evident that the submersible pump to the fosse wasn't working and constantly tripped out the house electrics We've had a catalogue of issues with shorting out of the electrics within the fosse manhole and has been subject to early blogs. All came to a head when eventually we couldn't re-set the main fuse because it had tripped out so many times that it took out the whole of the ground floor electrics. I decided to take a look in the manhole to see if I could dry out the electrics.

This is where it went went wrong and my day was going to get worse. The concrete manhole lid was cracked and unfortunately I let one piece of it drop into the manhole taking out the riser pipework on the way down. I now was left a problem of how to repair the damage. The first problem was how to lift out the pump as this depended lifting it out by its riser pipe. Unconventional as it may be this also depended on the strength of the connection between the bottom of the riser pipe and the pump casing. So I decided to lift it out by its electric cable whilst guiding its ascent by the riser pipe. Once out I worked out a repair and returned from Bricomarche with the bits and made good the break putting in a removable link so the pump could be separated from the riser pipe for ease of future maintenace. I then found that the connection between the riser pipe and pump had not been made correctly and been taped up to stop the parts separating. This soon came apart when I examined it and try as I may I could get the bits to screw together properly.

Fortunately, I was able to get hold of the Contractor that fitted the fosse and he attended that evening and installed the correct fitting and approved the repair I had carried out. He also installed a water proof electrical connection and even used the piece of rope I tied to the lifting handle on the pump to lower the pump back into position. Privately I think he was impressed with the modifications I had made to the installation !! At least now I can disconnect the pump form the riser pipe and lift the pump out with a rope instead of the cable and above all my insistence on using a waterproof electrical connection has resolved the problem with the electric tripping out.

So all is well and I bless my good fortune in breaking the pipe in the first place as otherwise I would still be writing about this in months to come.