Hardware store voyage

Spent 3 hours going to and fro from the hardware store today. The initial mission was to get, primarily, a shop light, a heater, some silicone caulk (optimistic), and a good utility knife. I ended up also getting a sump pump (thanks to Kevin and Avi's suggestions), some dremel tool accessories for cutting, a rope for my Halloween costume, some hooks for my bathroom, and a bunch of stuff for Heather.

I came back and studied the lower drain pipe again. It can't be twisted off because the pipe T's to another line, and because it's L shaped and, even without the T, would hit the ground. I removed the silicone caulk, and it appears the PVC pipe is nicely and fully seated. It's going to have to come out. Which means the tank is going to have to get lifted.

I called Brian to discuss, and we concluded that the thing to do is to lift the tank from the ceiling to that it is easier to work on. 4 eye bolts sunk into studs and some straps should do it. So, back to the hardware store to pick up appropriate eye bolts and a matching drill bit. Came back and did the use-a-small-drill-bit-to-find-the-studs trick (sorry Heather), and sank the four bolts. I used a strap and lifted myself from each hook individually -- the tank probably weight 300-400lbs empty, and I arranged the hooks to be pulled almost straight down under load. So, there should be a factor of two safety margin.

Brian will come over next weekend, and we'll tackle the lower leak. The fiberglass shell of the tank will have to live outside for a bit whilst we work on the plumbing.

I've set up the end of the tank with power, lights, and heat so I've got a comfortable place to work, and I've cleaned up all the detritus.

Next week, the tank gets lifted, and we can see the full plumbing system more clearly.

Maintaining 93.5 degrees.

A goal with the float tank is to have the water at skin temperature, about 93.5 degrees F. This way, the body doesn't register the contact with the water -- it's a neutral experience.

But... how do you keep the water hot in a float tank? Well, it's a lot like a hot tub, except with really salty water. Apparently, and I haven't fully researched this, the standard big-resistor-with-water-flowing-over-it-inside-a-pipe approach doesn't work well for float tanks because the salt induces a whole lot of corrosion. You need a heating element and a controller.

The LilyPad comes with a bunch of resistive heating elements mounted in the bottom of the tank, along with a suitable (if rather old-skool) temperature controller. The issue is, according to Brian that 1) the resistive elements (think: heating pad or electric blanket) will eventually wear out, and they are hard to replace and 2) you don't want to be sitting in all those electric fields. I'm not convinced at all about #2, but I hear #1. The solution is to go with a pump-based heater, like a hot tub has. Basically, a length of tube which acts as a heat transfer device.

Corrosion, however, makes this a problem. Brian spoke with a representative from Balboa, a hot tub equipment manufacturer, who thought about the conductivity of the water and concluded the element might last a couple weeks with the highly saline salt water flowing through it. It has something to do with the conductivity of the water and the extra corrosive properties that such water has when flowing past an electric field. I can beleive that.

So: what do other tanks do? They use resistive elements in the floor. Why don't I just use the system I have? Well, it might burn out. And that would suck. Then why not put in a standard hot tub element. Well, it makes noise - the pump has to be on - and, it'll corrode too fast. You'd like to have a perfectly quiet float, right?

The solution, I hear you cry, is, I think, this: get a heating element where the hot material COILS around the outside of a stainless steel tube (vs. being submerged in it) and use that as the primary heater for the tank. But, when in the tank (see note below), use the existing resistive pads. This should extend the life of the pads dramatically, while allowing a quiet float on a separate control system. These exist and can be purchased. (Fabricating new objects with clever theromdynamic properties is to be avoided.)

Brian's tank has a whole separate heating system, where regular water is pumped through stainless steel tubes which pass through the main body of water, acting as a heat exchanger. Great solution, but requires a lot of changes to the tank.

My plan, at this point, is to add a coiled-around-the-stainless-tube heat exchanger, put inline with the main filter circulation pump, and to turn this off and use the pads for heat control when in the tub WHEN TRYING TO MEDITATE and remain conscious. If trying to sleep, no reason not to use the pump -- I'm a sound sleeper. This will doubtless cause some control and UI problems later, but such is life. And I guess I'm not that concerned about harm from small electric fields.

I think this gives me the best of all words, save for some loss of efficiency in coil-heating vs resister-in-pipe heating -- quiet floating, long lifetime for the existing resistive pads, and relatively few changes to the existing setup.

We shall see.

Leak The First

The LilyPod is known to have some issues with its plumbing: in other words, it leaks. Brian discovered this after he had a bunch of work done on it and set it up in his upstairs yoga studio, above a store with thousands of dollars of machinery directly underneath. The leaks were a serious disaster, and prompted him to drain the tank and bail on the process.

I'm not foolish enough, he says, boldly, to buy a something in non-working condition without some insurance plan. So, I've only put a (moderate, 1/5) deposit down until the tank works, at which point 3/5th more will be paid. Once it runs for a year, then the final 1/5th is paid. This ensures Brian stays motivated to make sure this completes -- pretty typical, as if you were paying a contractor.

And it's a good thing that I made this plan, for tonight I put maybe 40-50 gallons of water in, only to find that the bottom-most joint, a 3"? connection between PVC and fiberglass leaks at a rate of about 1cc every minute. Most unfortunate.

I futzed for a while fully localizing the leak, digging out with a knife a bunch of pink foam that the inner tank rests upon. I then tried to figure out if I could control/direct the outflow and leave the tank with water in it until morning, perhaps even filling it all the way to look for other leaks. This proved to be challenging, though perhaps would have worked via one mutilated Frisbee, some plastic, and a few miscellaneous materials. But I worried that some water might be running along the bottom-inside, where I couldn't see it. It seemed imprudent to leave water in the tank.

...which brings us to a lesson:

How to drain a float tank.

1. Siphon. Use a garden hose to siphon out the water til that doesn't work any longer. Start with a full hose, and get the out-end lower than the in-end. The LilyPod is in the garage, on the ground floor, so I can't get much elevation difference.

2. Bucket. Scoop with Tupperware or trashcans into plastic bins. Serious diminishing returns on this as the water gets lower. Probably pulled out 20 gallons this way.

3. Shopvac. Very fast. Pulled another 2-3 gallons.

4. Sponge & bucket. Slow. But gets the job done. Maybe 1 quart removed this way.

Positively Buoyant

I'm not entirely sure what has motivated me to get a Sensory Deprivation (aka Float) tank. But that's what I did today, after a couple months of questionably rational consideration and reflection. It's in the garage of ATC (Air Traffic Control, the house where I live), empty, awaiting 250 gallons of water, and about 1500lbs (no typo) of Epsom salts. Magnesium Sulfate.

I got the tank from my yoga instructor, Brian Bales, who no longer needed a second tank after closing his studio in Bellevue. With the help of many friends through the day (Jen, Heather (ATC's owner), Kevin, Brady, Geoff, Leo, Lesley, Mark, and Brian - thanks so much y'all), 1/2 of the garage was cleared of all my storage stuff (books, stuff for a full kitchen, burning man gear, furniture, pictures, etc) into a nearby storage locker, and the tank was fetched and moved into place. I offered 2 hours of float time for each hour of help -- but I think being part of the adventure motivates them too.

I'm hoping that in 3-6 weeks, I'll have it up and running. There are some plumbing issues, some electrical issues, and certainly some other issues I don't know about yet which will need to be resolved before I've got a functioning system. This blog is intended to document this process for someone else thinking about going down this road, and also, hopefully, to tell an interesting story. We'll see how it goes.

Which is about how I feel about the tank -- excited, curious, but at the same time, a bit skeptical, much as I was when I started practicing yoga 5 years ago, thanks to some friends who pushed (guided? coerced? urged?) me into when I was going through a bit of a rough patch. (One of whom, oddly, once ran a floating business in Wisconsin!)

Brian said today that his floatation tank has changed his life almost as much as yoga has. This is a big statement, coming from someone who'd dedicated the last 10 years of his life (or more?) to the practice and teaching of yoga.

Will the (my!) float tank have that kind of impact on me? Yoga certainly has...

So. We'll see how it goes.