Good help is hard to come by in the middle of the night in remote Alaska!
There is a relatively complicated setup here at the lodge to regulate the power that comes from our hydro-electric plant. We have a load controller that keeps the power at the proper frequency by adding more or less power to water heaters just off the kitchen. It also has a series of steps, where it will switch loads on or off depending on the available power. Our third and fourth steps direct power to a second water heater. Both the first and second water heaters have had the thermostats removed, which means the water can actually start to boil off. The water from these two heaters then goes into a third water heater before supplying hot water to the lodge.
When we have problems with our power, it always happens in the middle of the night. Usually, it's during a cold snap, and a low voltage alarm will wake us from a sound sleep. We jump out of our nice warm bed, start shutting circuits down, throw on warm clothes and headlamps, then snowshoe up a rough trail including some really steep slopes of snow and ice to get to the hydro intake. There, we step into the icy creek and manually scrape the ice off the grate that is blocking the intake . Once done, we come back down the hill and wait a few hours for the hydro line to fill back up, adding circuits to the system as the power comes back to full strength.
The other night, instead of a voltage alarm, we were jarred out of bed at 4 AM with the roar of what sounded like an avalanche coming from the main floor. Since we have heard this before, we knew that the water heaters had overheated and blown up one of the supply lines. Rushing downstairs, we ran through a cloud of steam in the kitchen towards the water heater closet and what sounded like a jet maneuvering for a carrier landing in the pantry. Cold water was spraying all over the water heater room from the broken supply line, and steam from the overheated water heaters was also blowing out of the line making visibility in the small room almost non-existent.
We have a procedure down from past crises--it's like everything else, the first thousand times are the toughest. First we find the closest valve to shut off the water supply. The next step is to shut off power to circuits that with power-sensitive equipment, like electronics or refrigerator/freezers. Then we turn on as many electric heaters as we can to bring the resulting high voltage down before we turn off the load controller. This shuts off the power going into the overheated water and keeps the elements from burning out if too much water boils out. Once we've reached this point, it's time to run up to the shop (usually through snow and ice) barefoot and in my boxers to look for parts and tools to repair the water line. Once the supply line has been fixed, we refill the tanks with water, then turn the load controller back on. We do a little cleanup, check for leaks and make sure the load controller is working. On the first occurrence last week, we then did dishes and both took showers as we wanted to run a lot of new water into the system to cool it off.
This scene was repeated the next night at 2 AM as a different part of the supply line blew up. After the third occurrence in three nights, I figured out that we must have a faulty pressure relief valve. Since the pressure was not being released, steam and boiling water was being forced backwards into the supply line and either the heat or the pressure caused the line to break. Luckily, we had a spare valve in the shop. After replacing that valve yesterday, we had our first full night's sleep. Today we heard the valve releasing pressure and we know that it's working properly. We can relax a little until the next problem rears its ugly head.
Here are a couple of blown out supply lines--I don't think these will ever hold water again!
A few days later, the load controller started to act up. Power loads would swing high to load and the steps weren't coming on normally. I checked the elements and one of them had burned out. We have spare elements, so I was able to swap that out and we were back in normal in no time!
Our friend Chuck came for a visit right after our water heater escapades. Chuck helped me replace the faulty heater element.
Here's the old element--I don't think it was bent like that when it was new!
There's no such thing as a channel lock that is too big!
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