[Water] [CamelotCohousing] Water pressure?

Thu Aug 14 17:09:17 EDT 2025

Adam had a detailed write up on this when it started acting up again. I'm
attaching it here.

The short of it is that the booster pumps are taking ~30 seconds to spin up
when needed and, under heavy load, that's allowing the system pressure to
drop.  The long term solution likely involves the plc programming to be
updated, but finding a programmer isn't trivial.

MT

On Thu, Aug 14, 2025, 4:45 PM Mary Hinton <mehinton99 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yochai, TL;DR for this whole thread is:
>
> Camelot and Mosaic's (Sawyer Hill EcoVillage as a whole) water system is
> award-winning (seriously, but I forget which year) but it is currently
> haunted, and a combination of manual intervention and/or water/fire service
> vendor calls is happening if not daily, at least weekly.
>
> Welcome to Camelot! (I promise this is temporary, for some value of
> "temporary"...or at the very least, it is not the expected behavior of the
> system and we are employing paid and volunteer water-ghost exorcists to try
> to return the water to normal, award-winning status)
>
> On Thu, Aug 14, 2025, 4:34 PM Tara Halwes <tarahalwes at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Reminder:
>> *If anyone is *currently* experiencing low or no water pressure, please
>> immediately contact the water list, cc'd.*
>>
>>
>> Other notes:
>>
>> We had the cistern filling *very* briefly today for a few minutes between
>> 2:30-3pm. We checked the fresh water level before and after just to be sure
>> we didn't affect anything. There was no significant change to the level.
>> There was an active alarm at the Mosaic Common House Shortly before that
>> which is why we deployed to the pump house to make sure the fire cistern
>> level was still good for next time, in case this alarm had caused
>> sprinklers to go off. None of that should have any effect on individuals'
>> water pressure at home.
>>
>> Otherwise, if folks having ongoing milder issues would like their
>> observations to be useful for general troubleshooting, please include date
>> and time of the observed behavior, especially when it's:
>>
>> - More than 24 hours after a known sitewide water issue
>> - That faucet has been opened more than a few times since the most recent
>> known water issue and you thought it had cleared by now
>> - You're not aware of any known water issue, but the sputter
>> self-resolved before you had time to finish the thought "maybe I should
>> call Adam"
>>
>> Again, if anyone is *currently* experiencing low or no water pressure,
>> please *immediately contact the water list, cc'd*. You can also copy all
>> of Camelot, or individuals, but the important thing is to notify the water
>> list, as they need to know immediately when there’s a potentially new
>> problem with the water outside of what’s already been reported, such as
>> the outage this past weekend.
>>
>>
>> @taraha
>> 508-361-9605
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 14, 2025 at 15:42 Gregory Stuart Pettigrew <
>> gpettigrew at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Same at 61 and my hot water heater is 3 months old.
>>>
>>> - Gregory Stuart Burdick Pettigrew
>>>
>>> On Thu, Aug 14, 2025, 15:39 Bonnie Heile <bonnie at librarylady.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Same issues at 76 and my hot water heater is only two years old.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Aug 14, 2025 at 3:32 PM Ryan Welch <welch.ryan.d at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> It’s certainly not “normal” behavior, but it is common. We’ve
>>>>> (communally) had a lot of water trouble this summer.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't know if it's worth reporting fluctuations anymore, but for
>>>>> true loss of pressure you should email water at sawyerhill.org ASAP.
>>>>>
>>>>> It's interesting to hear that you've lost hot water a couple of times.
>>>>> We have a traditional water heater as opposed to your solar system, but
>>>>> it's been sputtery and (even more) noisy since we lost pressure last
>>>>> weekend. It's only gone out fully once this week. We've been attributing it
>>>>> to the age of the heater, since afaik it's original to the house.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Aug 14, 2025 at 2:58 PM Yochai Gal <yochaigal at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In the past week we've had a lot of water pressure issues in our
>>>>>> home. The shower will suddenly lose pressure, then return again a minute
>>>>>> later. The same thing has happened while washing dishes as well. We've also
>>>>>> lost hot water on at least two occasions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is this normal behavior, or should we follow-up with someone?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>>
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>>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/camelot-cohousing/CAFmGPc%2BUDPzj5zrmwJYdQ_%2BWSt7h5982LtyTBrfQkRBEA-%3DyAA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
>>>>>> .
>>>>>>
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>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/camelot-cohousing/CA%2B%3Dmhf8mSBnzymgNZBiuGen0fF_Wwjmsm6U95SQpqke_u1rWOw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
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