The word of the week: water. We finally got the plumber up to get the system up and running. Turns out, it wasn’t as easy as plug and play—they thought they connected incorrectly and burned the pump out. We shut the system down and cut power. He ordered a new water pump and double-checked the configuration.

I took the ‘key’ up and turned the street valve into the OFF position, thinking it would stop water flowing into the house. We lost a full cistern of water instead. Talk about a stomach-churning experience.

The well guy arrived the next day to tell us they had installed the valve about halfway between the top and bottom of the six-foot deep cistern. When the plumber piped the water to the new house, they tapped into the original water line—the one that drains five inches above the bottom of the cistern. (That explains the errant leak that happened a few weeks after we had the system installed.) We capped the line and reburied it so it won’t freeze.

In the end, he thought the pump wasn’t maintaining pressure because we don’t have enough water pressure coming into the house from the cistern. When the pump shut off, the water leaked back toward the source. Once Mr. Plumber installed a check valve, the system pressure held, and the pump didn’t keep constantly cycling on and off.

Today, we’ll get the rails installed on the (temporary) outside steps and get the doors to nowhere blocked off so no one will get hurt. Tomorrow, we have our last inspection before we can move in. (Keep your fingers crossed we pass.) We’ll still have a ton of work to do before we can get more than a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy, but at least we’ll be living there while we get it all done.