StillDragon® Community Forum

Welcome!

Be part of our community & join our international next generation forum now!

In this Discussion

Story About A Drip. ( Working Title; The Ripple Effect)

Some of you know parts of this story and there are some parts that are to come.
This is a few paragraphs in an attempt to put it in a line and show the events as i have seen them snowball and lead logically from one inescapable decision to the next.

It started as a smell.

I have a 300+ litre freezer that's been converted into a fridge by the addition of a controller. The conversion included gas manifolds, a cupboard bolted to the side of it housing a 4 tap beer font and the addition of six sanke soda kegs.

image

This contraption sat directly behind my lounge chair and allowed me to choose from any draught beer i liked in 4 steps. One of the lines punched through the wall behind to attach to a single tap font in the covered entertaining pergola outside directly behind.

image

This meant that even when i was entertaining, myself and guests had access to one beer outside and 4 more if you wanted to walk inside and get one.
Sound's ideal right?
Did to me until one time a year or two ago when one of the little O rings on the keg outpost was damaged and twenty litres of beer leaked out overnight into the bottom of the keg fridge and from there through the drain and into the carpet. :((

Fast forward to two weeks ago. We have new carpet and a vigilant eye on the O rings and all is good, except for this stale beer been in the pub at 9 in the morning smell.

Drip tray needs a clean out she said, so that's what i did. Next day the smell is stronger and starting to turn sour. Check the O rings and pull the kegs out and there is some liquid on the bottom. Replace an O ring and clean up the liquid, all fixed. Thank good no spillage in the tray that now sits under the drain.
This should dissipate over the next day or two.

Next day it's worse and starting to smell like vinegar, to cut a long story short, she tracked the smell down to a QD joiner under the font that had a drip that was dripping into the bottom of the cupboard and then into the NEW carpet.

Pulled the lounge to pieces and moved it, pulled the fridge out and the girls took turns on the carpet shampooer for 5 hours straight, two days in a row.

A decision had to be made and the logical one was that the keg fridge had to go. I just couldn't risk this happening again.

To Be Continued. 8-X

StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

Comments

  • l would never had a chance in hell of ever getting it in the house in the first place. But l can only imagine the ear bashing and nagging if it happened to me. Sounds like yours is a bit more relaxed, but keeping it all ouside sounds like a real good idea, no matter what our intentions are ....shit will happen....

    Better to hose concrete than shampoo carpets.

    Fadge

  • i feel your pain my 3 tap kezeer had a post go while we were away but fortunately i have a tiled back room so it was some moldy grout and steam mopping to clean it up and the bucketing out of the remaining 18L of beer from the bottom of the freezer.

  • Yep, she's a good girl and the suggestion and decision to move it were both mine. Her suggestion was to tile the area Ginger (which is what i said when we had the carpet installed but she overruled) but i knew it was an expense that was an unproductive one and one that would change the room for any prospective buyer in the future.

    Next installment tomorrow, there is some catching up to do and i'm watching cricket and drinking beer. :-bd

    Suffice to say that we may not get up to why the room smells like paint in one step. :-j

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • Well to take a step to the next ripple, i now have the keg fridge out in the entertain area, and conjecture goes on to what is the best solution.

    I figure i can run the single font out there still, just mount it where the 4 tap one was and i'm back in beer.

    As to a more permanent solution, after tossing ideas back and forward i got the tape measure and measured up the space.
    We figured that a kitchen dresser with hutch type arrangement where the taps were with the lines in one piece from tap to fridge through the wall should eliminate 95% of the risk of the dreaded spill.

    Two days looking at furniture convinced me that nothing i could find was exactly right and i figured why not draw up what i really needed, use up one of my last big slabs of bluegum from the shed and have something custom made?

    Pencil, paper and tape measure swinging i eventually came up with something that would fit the space, fit in with the other custom furniture in the room i had made and give us a lot more room.

    image

    Being above my pay grade as far as joinery goes it was off to a custom furniture artisan in a villiage up the road. A quote that ended up at $1100 cash was very good as most of the furniture i'd seen was more expensive than this. The bluegum was dug out of the shed, and the guy set off with a jigsaw and some sheets of pine.

    We had the first inspection on Friday and it is going to be superb. Should be ready and stained by tomorrow.

    barplan2.JPG
    528 x 534 - 49K

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited January 2015

    The cupboard turned up today and a couple hours with the drill putting the door handles on and mounting the font, drilling through the wall behind it etc and it's now a functional bar.

    image

    image

    image

    We're pretty happy with how it turned out after a disaster to reach a nice piece of furniture, a much bigger room that's been rearranged to maximise space etc.

    I just need to mount her ujsm dispenser and install some stemware racks on the bottom of the top to hang stemmed beer and wine glasses.

    1.jpg
    800 x 600 - 56K
    2.jpg
    800 x 600 - 54K
    3.jpg
    800 x 600 - 73K

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • Are you gonna serve the ujsm by gravity or use an inert gas like nitro to push it through a tap? I have thought of dedicating one of my kegerator taps to whiskey or at least a kegged (possibly barrel aged) cocktail like an old fashioned, but I am afraid I would suddenly and mysteriously lose my urge to do anything after getting home from work ;)

  • Sorry, much more basic than that. She has a wall mounted bottle holder/nip dispensor that needs to be mounted in there.

    You can see it sitting on the lounge in one of the photos. It will be mounted on the back wall of the bar next to the taps.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • Does your lower cabnit have a catch pan of some sort? Or is that not needed?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • I like the cupboard, and the price is more than fair, it looks really well done. But how will you handle all the additional people, who will like to be entertained a your place now? B-)

    StillDragon Europe - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Europe & the surrounding area

  • Oh boy, we totally love all the pale ales, had some great IPAs over there, something we don't have here... :((

    Looks like we have to get into beer brewing as well!

    StillDragon Europe - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Europe & the surrounding area

  • edited January 2015

    @Smaug said: Does your lower cabnit have a catch pan of some sort? Or is that not needed?

    There is the drip tray you see below the taps, it has a pan. There are no other joins in there now, the only joints outside the house in the fridge.

    image

    bar1.jpg
    800 x 600 - 59K

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

Sign In or Register to comment.