Day: March 17, 2019

Last year we had a flood in the basement so now that the spring has arrived and the sump pit is filling up quickly, we decided it was time to test out our pumps.

We have an extreme setup installed after the flood.  We have a primary pump, a secondary pump that triggers if the water level is higher than the primary float (that would essentially mean that the primary has failed) and we also have a battery backup pump which is set higher than the secondary.

Our first test was to see what happens when the primary is unplugged.  We started this test Saturday night at 8PM.  I chuckled as I realized no good ever comes from us doing tests on the sump pump during the night.

Sure enough, by midnight the water level was near the top of the drain inlet and the secondary pump had not triggered yet.  It does work, we checked it.  But I wanted to make sure the system works as it should without us being there.

I put a mattress down near the sump pit and slept until 3:30am when an alarm from the battery backup started blaring.  So somehow the secondary never triggered at all which eventually had the battery backup turn on!  Hmm…what to do there.  For hi

storical reference, this means that it took a full 7.5 hours to get to six inches from the top of the sump pit.  This is in the spring where the temperature outside was -5.

At 3:30am in the morning, there’s not much to do.  It was like waking up to a crying baby all over again.  I plugged the primary pump back in, watched all the water get out, and tried to figure out how to turn off this dang alarm that was blaring in my ear on a Sunday morning.  Maybe I should have consulted the manual BEFORE this experiment?

The weird thing is…after a few minutes, I heard this gushing of water coming back INTO the discharge pipe!  What the heck is going on there?  I decided that the pumps were working fine so it was time to go outside to see if there was something wrong with the other end of teh discharge pipe.  Visions of ice forming and blocking the front of pipe haunted me as I walked out in the crisp winter night.

No ice was found but there was a LOT of water in the ditch.  I think there was so much that a lot of it just crept back up the pipe.  After I spent ten minutes outside analyzing the situation, everything fixed itself by the time I got back inside.

As I write this, I have performed a few more tests on the secondary pump on Sunday but no matter where I position the float, it does not trigger on within a reasonable amount of time.  I don’t really like the idea of having water accumulate around my house for four hours.  At this point, I have stumbled upon the thought of taking the float switch off of the actual pump and clamping it to a pipe at a lower level and perhaps that will trigger it.  It’s not a bad idea.  I need to find a clamp with a clip on it.

Let this be a lesson to those out there with sump pumps…test your emergency system.  I had a secondary that didn’t even trigger on and that was installed by a plumber a year ago.  Imagine if the primary went on me?  I suppose the battery backup would have come in handy then.

It’s not often I win the weekly challenge amongst friends but when I do, I let everyone know.

Vero mentioned how Holly and Amanda were wondering how I get so many steps in during a week.  Now generally in the weekly Fitbit challenges we are up against Alan and he is kind of awesome getting his steps in.  I’m going to assume this week he broke two ankles and that’s why I ended up taking the trophy.

But getting back to the original question…how DO I get my steps in?

First off, this is a companion piece to one of my original entries where I talk about fitness in my life in general and how I managed to get fit.  I send this link to people who are excited to get into the Fitbit world.

Now, onto my daily regimen to get steps in.  I suppose I started rewiring my brain to avoid efficiency in terms of getting to Point A and B and I have swayed towards how to get more steps between Point A and B.

When I’m at a parking lot, I generally park far away from the store if possible.  Not only are there generally less cars there, but I get more steps in.

The same goes for walking down for a bite to eat at lunch.  Why take the most direct route possible when I can tack on an extra 15 minutes?

On a normal day, Vero drops me off at work and I avoid the escalators.  When I get into the elevator, I don’t bother hitting a button to choose a floor.  I just get off wherever the first stop is (which is generally the 2nd floor) and I take the stairs up to the fifth floor.  Granted, if the elevator is empty, I’m not a dumbass, I just pick the fifth floor.  All throughout the day, if I’m not with someone, this is my modus operandi to get some exercise in.

During my breaks, I get out of the office and walk around the complex where I work.  Oddly enough, Fitbit shows me that this is where the majority of my cardio workout comes from.  I find this quite odd considering I also take a walk outside at lunch and rarely enter the cardio zone.

While I miss hanging out with friends and playing cards/games at lunch, I feel that getting a walk in at lunch gets me in a good state to handle the rest of the work day.  It could be -40 outside and Etienne and I hike around the area.  We have a few different routes that we like to take.  We generally aim for 30-40 minutes so we can grab a bite to eat when we return.  I’ve always told myself that I can treat myself to a lunch if I put the effort into deserving it.

If Vero had dropped me off in the morning, I always walk across the bridge to Ottawa to meet her when she picks me up.  It’s generally around this time that my Fitbit tells me I’ve hit 10,000 steps which is around 4PM.

Depending on the day, the majority of my steps stop there but I have been making an effort to hop on the elliptical at least three times a week while I watch a show so I may get some more steps in there.  When I am always referring to steps, my main goal is to work my heart each day for 30 minutes.  Sometimes the elliptical is the only way I can get my heart working that hard.

The weekends are entirely a different story.  If I’m up with Sierra in the morning, I will hop on the elliptical while we watch some TV together.  We also try and get Sierra outside to tire her (and ourselves!) out in the mornings so it’s not impossible to rack up 10,000 steps a day on a weekend.  But it’s definitely harder than while at work.

Speaking about work, I work from home some days.  It was quickly apparent that I could go a day and accumulate 2,000 steps while working from home. I never realized how bad it is for our health to work from home!  I immediately changed a few things…I always drop Sierra off at daycare by foot.  I walk to the post office at lunch.  If I have a teleconference I hop on the elliptical and stop whenever I need to speak.  Generally I achieve at least 10,000 steps in a day this way which is pretty good considering I’m working from home.

That’s that!  Hopefully this has inspired others to get out there and walk a little bit more.  Remember, the goal is to have a strong heart.  Losing weight is just a bonus.