Flushed with success

The problem with being an eco-pioneer (she wrote with tongue firmly in cheek) is that sometimes you are more like a guinea pig testing out the system for those who follow and 7am this morning was a case in point.

Back in August when this gizmo was installed, I pondered what would happen if the rainwater harvester ran out of water. When it first arrived I had been told that the system automatically switched over to mains water when water levels started to go down but this morning that most definitely did not happen. We woke up to find that none of the loos filled after they were flushed and once we'd wrenched off the panels covering the service duct you could see the lights on the right of the control unit were flashing on and off whilst the 'tank low' light was showing orange.

Fortunately for us, even though it was a Saturday, our wonderful erstwhile site manager was on site by 8.30 and he took the manhole cover off the harvester and refilled it from a hose pipe. As it filled the gague started to move from 30% to 100% full and we were able to flush the loos again, but the lights on the right kept flashing alarmingly. Everyone stood around wondering why it was doing that as the system now seemed to be working and then inspiration struck. Just above the unit is a control switch so I said why didn't we just switch it off and switch it on again....

..... and that, dear readers, is how we rebooted the system. All those years in systems support coming in handy at last!

Mind you, I'm still expecting the experts in on Monday to check the system's working properly.