My well died ...

[FOMOGO]

I've been having to raise my pump every 5-6 years, as I have iron bacteria which turns to a rusty slime, which is harmless to ingest, and is for the most part removed by filters and water softener for the house, but precipitates out in the well and has slowly changed the well depth from 40' to 30, and has finally reached the point where I cant fill the pressure tank without having the pump kick out. Normally you could bail out the sediment, but this stuff solidifies into a solid that I have had to break off of the pump with a hammer. I have a good well (80' deep, without the rust issue) on the property next to me, so I decided to attempt to get water from it. Trenched over 600', 7' deep, and ran 1 1/2" (to make up for friction loses on the long run) line from that well to the house. I didn't want to have to buy 600' of #8, 3 conductor wire, so utilized the existing wiring and pressure tank in the other house to feed the new line to my house. Got everything plumbed in, including a frost free spigot at the well, so I can back drain the lines from both houses when I winterize. One thing I didn't consider was the difference in elevation between the two homes, which is around 100'. When I got everything hooked up, and the pressure tank in the upper home set at 30/50 psi. I was getting 85 psi at my house. Reset the pressure switch to 20/40 and now I have 55/75 at my house. Over all it has worked out great, as I have better quality water at higher pressure, and considerably (30%) longer times between softener regeneration's. The old Ford backhoe performed admirably, but developed a bad leak at the lower radiator hose outlet, and things got really hot before I noticed. When I went to pull the lower hose, the the brass outlet piece came with it. Had about 100' of trench left to back fill, and with the nights getting below freezing, I wanted to get it finished, so I bowwerd the neighbors old 63 case to finish up. Of course I had to fix it first, bad hyd hose, but much easier than the radiator repair. Have the radiator out of the machine now, and have cleaned it out with dilute muratic acid, and have it filled now with baking soda/water. Will probably get it soldered up later today. All in all, quite the adventure. Mike

 

[Steve-F]

Nice place you have there!!!

 

[Gaffer]

Bummer for the repairs, but you have yourself a little to a moderate slice of heaven there!

 

[Janderso]

Living out in the country where you are has it's pros and cons.
Beautiful place to live.
That trench looks it was dug by a true professional.
I assume you live in area that has had less than normal rainfall for the past 20 years??
Many wells are going dry. It looks like you are in good shape!!

 

[C-Bag]

All in all, quite the adventure.

Always is. I’m just glad you had a solution. Equipment you can usually fix but no water is tough. Why is it no matter how small the job is around the house it always turns into an all day sucker? I’m more floored when it doesn’t lead to the dominos of doom.

 

[FOMOGO]

Thanks, we like it. Mike

Nice place you have there!!!

Definitely much dryer than in the past. back in the 70's thru the 90's we used to get a half hour rain shower pretty much every day. You could almost set your watch by it, 2:30 to 3:00pm. This year was brutal, my creek dried up for the first time ever, and that was in late June. The last 20 years have been up and down. Hoping for a good winter. Had two days of good rain last week, probably more than all summer combined. Fortunately I was assured global warming is a Hoax, according to are former fearless leader. Mike

Living out in the country where you are has it's pros and cons.
Beautiful place to live.
That trench looks it was dug by a true professional.
I assume you live in area that has had less than normal rainfall for the past 20 years??
Many wells are going dry. It looks like you are in good shape!!

 

[Larry$]

When I was much younger my parents house had a 265' deep well. Hard water with iron, calcium & manganese that deposited on everything. Maintaining a well gets expensive!

 

[f350ca]

Great job on the trench. Where I live you can't stick a shovel in the ground without hitting a rock, and every 2 feet of trench you'd hit a boulder, and probably find a bedrock outcrop in the middle. lol
Have loved with wells most of my life.

Greg

 

[woodchucker]

that 100' of extra height is quite a bit of extra pressure. wow..
My well system is without a water softener. I have never liked that oily feel you get from that water. while they say its better for your system, I kind of like the hard water.. Have had hard water all my life.

My son's system has a softener, very slippery...

Would love to have more pressure though...

 

[Winegrower]

Steamboat is a great place. The coldest I’ve ever been, -35F, and the best day skiing, were there at Mt. Werner. It was the same day.