I spotted a news item today about traveller's sites, and noticed someone had made a comment at the bottom of the local newspaper's website edition of their article - albeit erroneously and misinformed with regards to the current status about our site in Wall Street.
http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/8416446.Severalls_travellers____site_idea_won___t_work__says_gipsy_supporter/?ref=rss
Technically the council originally only granted residency and permission for caravans on the small site to a past resident (Mr Grinrod) for 5 years for one immediate family only. This was revoked technically when a different family, the Dorans moved in. In July 2010 the family disappeared, leaving the site unoccupied.
Since then a yellow planning notice has been attached to the telegraph pole outside the site and letters sent to immediate neighbours only about an extension allowing caravans onsite being applied until 2012.
Whilst the Doran family themselves were no trouble, apart from their work vans going in and out dozens of times a day the only major problems we had were with their extended family during visits - what concerns me is that there is massive uncertainty about the quality of future tenants - I'd suggest to all residents that we all write to the council to individually object, as its unclear who might eventually return to the site, it could be a decent family like the Dorans, or the ownership could be passed on to another family by sale or lease/rent of the land - and we could be left with the problems Phil and Carol unfortunately faced in the past.
If you want to support or object to this application here is the link to the Tendring Planning website.
http://idox.tendringdc.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=neighbourComments&keyVal=L8DCONQB09L00
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Wall Street Sewage System update
Just to let readers of our blog know, that the weekend's work on the pump system and increase in flow efficiency has resulted today in the pit fluid level going down to the position of the pump, which is 4.5 metres down from floor level, a really big difference to what we saw before getting the key - back then the sewer pit was almost full, only half a metre down from floor level.
Our aim is to get the fluid levels in the galleries / manholes (near Robbie & Frank) down to sensible levels - as previously this was not happening or being checked by the previous management - which risked the system being backed up with solids at the extreme end of the pipework.
Now, as the levels have dropped so much, the clay pipe entry into the sewer is above the water level, which should mean the rest of the system is no longer full with water.
Now we've achieved this, the pump has been set only on the timer - I re-adjusted the time-switch to run for 1 hour each night today, and will closely monitor it over the next week.
Our aim is to get the fluid levels in the galleries / manholes (near Robbie & Frank) down to sensible levels - as previously this was not happening or being checked by the previous management - which risked the system being backed up with solids at the extreme end of the pipework.
Now, as the levels have dropped so much, the clay pipe entry into the sewer is above the water level, which should mean the rest of the system is no longer full with water.
Now we've achieved this, the pump has been set only on the timer - I re-adjusted the time-switch to run for 1 hour each night today, and will closely monitor it over the next week.
Monday, 20 September 2010
Wall Street Sewage System update
After finally obtaining the key for all residents, Puck, Andy and I took a good look at the sewage system over the weekend and did some thorough testing.
We considered several factors, how could we lift the pump more easily than I had with a friend last year, and how we could monitor levels, as it is extremely hard to measure the amount of fluid going into the system obviously.
I started out by first measured the average current to three phase pump, approx 1.8 Amps on a single phase, I also tested the pump under startup load, no problems either so the pump looks like it is electrically sound.
What was surprising was that after 8 years of maintenance, and pump specialists looking at the pump, nobody had realised that the pump itself had not been earthed, and the armoured cable to the control box had been linked to the contactor with a piece of 3 core mains flex! Whilst this would be ok in some situations, if the pump is double insulated and IP rated for immersion, the pump is actually suspended on a steel chain connected to the body of the steel pump outer casing. This means that should a fault develop inside the pump electrically, anyone touching the chains would most likely be electrocuted or at least get a very nasty 415 Volt shock - and with an open manhole that is 5 metres deep - thats a very dangerous situation!
I also discovered that there was a fault with the earth spike for the building, as when I put in a temporary earth, the motor tripped out, which made me realise someone had previously made a decision to not attach an earth to the pump rather than spending 5 pounds on an earth spike and making off the armoured cable sheath properly (which is an earth!)
Andy started to fit a ratchet chain block kindly supplied by Puck and tackle and a frame to support it, to enable us to raise and examine the pump more easily while I started to investigate the best way of fitting a time-switch onto the system.
I switched the pump on at 1.30am and it was switched off in the morning at 7.30am - At 10:30am on Sunday further investigation was made (removal of the outlet hose outside the building) proved that the pump was doing very little, with black sludge coming up - a trickle, rather than gushing out of the 2 inch pipe. This explained why the level in the sewer wasn't moving. Andy calculated 2 cubic metres had been shifted overnight. It was quite clear that the pump isn't doing its job, as a 2kw pump should shift that sort of quantity in an hour - even a pond fountain 400Watt pump would do better than that!
We lifted the pump, which of course with the right kit is now pretty easy thanks to our collective expertise and equipment - we discovered that the position of pump vertically is crucial to flow, if the pump is positioned too low, then it can't cope with the "black sludge" - and does very little. As soon as the pump was raised a few inches, and started again, we had a full flow outside.
I replaced the old timeswitch, which I had fitted yesterday - which didn't seem to advance, over to a low-cost plug in version, which will be more easy to replace in the event of a fault, and re-wired the previous control box so that the emergency stop button would function again.
The timeswitch has now been set to run from 1.30am to 5.30am in the morning, so we can take advantage of night electicity rates (economy 7). As the pit was still quite high, we decided to override the timeswitch from 2pm onwards to reduce the pit's fluid levels and get the manholes down the road back to a sensible low level.
Andy will look at the old pump unit and attempt to refurbish it, and my next job next weekend will be to fit a proper earth spike and run an earth cable to the pump connection in the control box to make it completely safe.
We also discussed investigating the flow rate at the end of the pipe at the sewage works, so we will investigate that in due course.
We considered several factors, how could we lift the pump more easily than I had with a friend last year, and how we could monitor levels, as it is extremely hard to measure the amount of fluid going into the system obviously.
While I looked thoroughly at the electrical installation - Andy and Puck scrutinised the pumping.
I started out by first measured the average current to three phase pump, approx 1.8 Amps on a single phase, I also tested the pump under startup load, no problems either so the pump looks like it is electrically sound.
What was surprising was that after 8 years of maintenance, and pump specialists looking at the pump, nobody had realised that the pump itself had not been earthed, and the armoured cable to the control box had been linked to the contactor with a piece of 3 core mains flex! Whilst this would be ok in some situations, if the pump is double insulated and IP rated for immersion, the pump is actually suspended on a steel chain connected to the body of the steel pump outer casing. This means that should a fault develop inside the pump electrically, anyone touching the chains would most likely be electrocuted or at least get a very nasty 415 Volt shock - and with an open manhole that is 5 metres deep - thats a very dangerous situation!
I also discovered that there was a fault with the earth spike for the building, as when I put in a temporary earth, the motor tripped out, which made me realise someone had previously made a decision to not attach an earth to the pump rather than spending 5 pounds on an earth spike and making off the armoured cable sheath properly (which is an earth!)
Andy started to fit a ratchet chain block kindly supplied by Puck and tackle and a frame to support it, to enable us to raise and examine the pump more easily while I started to investigate the best way of fitting a time-switch onto the system.
I switched the pump on at 1.30am and it was switched off in the morning at 7.30am - At 10:30am on Sunday further investigation was made (removal of the outlet hose outside the building) proved that the pump was doing very little, with black sludge coming up - a trickle, rather than gushing out of the 2 inch pipe. This explained why the level in the sewer wasn't moving. Andy calculated 2 cubic metres had been shifted overnight. It was quite clear that the pump isn't doing its job, as a 2kw pump should shift that sort of quantity in an hour - even a pond fountain 400Watt pump would do better than that!
We lifted the pump, which of course with the right kit is now pretty easy thanks to our collective expertise and equipment - we discovered that the position of pump vertically is crucial to flow, if the pump is positioned too low, then it can't cope with the "black sludge" - and does very little. As soon as the pump was raised a few inches, and started again, we had a full flow outside.
I replaced the old timeswitch, which I had fitted yesterday - which didn't seem to advance, over to a low-cost plug in version, which will be more easy to replace in the event of a fault, and re-wired the previous control box so that the emergency stop button would function again.
The timeswitch has now been set to run from 1.30am to 5.30am in the morning, so we can take advantage of night electicity rates (economy 7). As the pit was still quite high, we decided to override the timeswitch from 2pm onwards to reduce the pit's fluid levels and get the manholes down the road back to a sensible low level.
Andy will look at the old pump unit and attempt to refurbish it, and my next job next weekend will be to fit a proper earth spike and run an earth cable to the pump connection in the control box to make it completely safe.
We also discussed investigating the flow rate at the end of the pipe at the sewage works, so we will investigate that in due course.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Very High Tide across Beach Road & Ray Creek!
My Stepdad today noticed how high the tide was at midday today while walking his dog - for a Lee-Over-Sands resident like me who lives behind the sea-wall and not owning a dog to walk regularly has meant that I've always been blissfully unaware of how high the tide gets sometimes across the "other side" of our sea-defences.
I was pretty amazed at what I saw... The creek had vanished.... and the sea was at the foot of the sea-wall height, approx 2-3 metres from the top.
Amazing stuff - and for residents of Wall Street who would be otherwise under water, as you can clearly see from the picture below...
you can see the difference in height between properties on the Beach Road side compared to Wall Street...
...Its good to see the seawall is doing its thing - well - it will until 2050 apparently, which is when all maintenance of the sea-defences will be cancelled!
I was pretty amazed at what I saw... The creek had vanished.... and the sea was at the foot of the sea-wall height, approx 2-3 metres from the top.
Amazing stuff - and for residents of Wall Street who would be otherwise under water, as you can clearly see from the picture below...
you can see the difference in height between properties on the Beach Road side compared to Wall Street...
...Its good to see the seawall is doing its thing - well - it will until 2050 apparently, which is when all maintenance of the sea-defences will be cancelled!
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