2018 POTD Thread Archive

[JimDawson]

Kudos on the repair Jim. A true machine nut would have let the leak go while they built a back hoe to avoid using a goon spoon though.
Interesting to see different methods. Is that pvc pipe with glued joints running to the house? Up here I've only ever seen coiled polyethylene pipe used.

Greg

Thank you Greg. I thought about building a backhoe. Or at least renting one.

Yes, glued PVC to the house. Pretty common around here. A few years ago everyone started switching over to PEX for new installs.

 

[RJSakowski]

Made a crank adapter for the mill. This allows you to move the knee with a drill, in this case via a 3/4" hex.

Just last weekend I finished installing a 3 axis DRO on this mill and being able to adjust the Z up and down with a cordless drill was a big time and labor saver.

View attachment 272251

I would like to thank Frank Ford for an old post that describes the easy way to cut the notches. While you can buy adapters commercially, my mill doesn't follow the Bridgeport standard so it was DIY or nothing. Overall it was a fun project and it fits perfectly.

View attachment 272261

Along the same line, I made an extension for my mill/drill which bought me an extra two inches of x travel. The extension was cast from aluminum scrap. It was maybe thirty years ago so my recollection is faint but I believe that I had used an RT to cut the ends.

 

[RJSakowski]

Not exactly in the shop, but a project nonetheless.

About 2 weeks ago the dogs started tracking mud into the kitchen from outside. But I hasn't rained here in about a month, there is no standing water anywhere. They like to dig a hole and lay in it when it gets hot so I just assumed it was coming from that, but I couldn't find any mud, just some dry dirt. Well it turns out I was wrong. I followed one of them out by the the fence and found the mud.

It turns out that the well water line was leaking at the wellhead, about a gallon a minute. Wasn't enough to really cause a water pressure drop so didn't affect anything in the house so I didn't know I had a problem. So grab a shovel and start digging around the well casing, I can see where the water is coming up at so dig in that area.....Until I hit a big tree root.

Then the fun begins. Ok, dig around the root, carefully, so not to hit the electrical cable or actually break the pipe. Finally was able to get air under both ends of the root and no pipe or cable in the way, so grab the chain saw and cut the root at both ends, about 4 inch diameter. It was pretty much welded to the pipe, had to make another cut to get it loose. Also pretty much destroyed the saw chain, they don't like mud.

All this time the water is still leaking into the hole, but I was able to dig a channel to keep the work area dewatered. I didn't turn the well pump off because I didn't want groundwater leaking into the well so I was keeping the system pressurized.

Ok getting closer to the leak, so dig a bit more and.......Hit another big root. So start digging around that root and now I'm deep enough that my drainage channel is no longer working and I'm below the lawn grade so I can't go down any more. So off to the rental shop and rent a trash pump. Dug a sump for the pump pickup and keep digging.

This time I found the electrical cable and the water pipe, kind of under the root. Clean out under the root and grab the chainsaw again, got that root out by cutting it into 3 pieces. So now I have about a foot of the water pipe exposed and know exactly where the power wire runs. But......

The water pipe connection to the Pitless Adapter is back under another even larger root, about an 8 inch or so. By this time I'm into this about 1 1/2 days. Now it was time to turn off the pump, cut and cap the water pipe on both sides of the cut to keep the mud out. So dig out around the pipe and remove a couple of small finger roots that were intertwined with the power cable. So after more digging to get some working room I was able to cut and cap the water pipe.

Now time to attack the big root, and the one that started the whole problem. Tried getting through it with the chainsaw but the chain was so dull by now it was useless. So grab the Sawzall and start removing pieces of root. About 2 hours later, I can finally get to the broken fitting.

I didn't get any pictures of the process, but I did take a few after the repairs were made.

The view from outside of the work area.
View attachment 272393

That's a lot of dirt, you get down about 8 inches and it's gooey clay, nasty stuff to dig in. A few pieces of root laying around
View attachment 272394

And the repair, a piece of schedule 80 screwed into the Pitless Adapter, and schedule 40 for the rest. It's about 3 feet down to the pipe. The other piece of pipe that is capped off was abandoned when the pump was replaced in 1989, I have no idea where it goes. The root system all grew in the last 29 years. I may dig out that big root laying on top of the pipe, it's not connected to the tree any longer.
View attachment 272395

For those of you who do not know what a Pitless Adapter is
View attachment 272398
The white blob just to the left of the well casing was the big root that actually broke the fitting.
View attachment 272397

That tree was probably a lot smaller 29 years ago. I have no idea when the well was dug, but I'm guessing that tree was about Christmas tree size when the well was installed, it's about 100 feet tall now, and maybe it was planted after the well was in. Not the best place for a tree that will develop a large root system. The good news is that there are a lot more big roots holding the tree up, so even with what I took out I'm pretty sure it won't fall over in the next wind storm.
View attachment 272396

I suspect this has been leaking for a year or more and just getting worse over time. It just finally surfaced in the last couple of weeks. I'll be filling in the hole with pea gravel, not going to fight that clay again if I ever have to go back into that hole. I'm getting too old for this, that was a lot of work.

Jim, I can well appreciate your work!
The same thing happened us a year ago. Our well was put in in 1973 and until two years ago, had been untouched (the pipe from the pump rusted through and dropped the pump another 40' to the bottom of the well).
On a Saturday morning, my wife noticed a stream of water downhill from the well. I pulled the cap to check the situation. We have a different means of bringing the connection out from the well. There is a cast iron donut with two O rings which seal to the casing . Water comes up to the bottom of the donut into the chamber between the two O rings and out through a fitting in the side. A peek inside showed that water was not coming past the upper O ring which meant it had to be outside the casing. A quick measurement indicated the fitting was at least 48" down from the surface.
Ok, this looks like a substantial dig. Considering that we could be without water for several days, One of the constraints was that we kept the system operational as much as possible during the repair. When I had renovated our system, I put in an 80 gallon pressure tank and a check valve between the house and the well so we could hold pressure even though the line was broken. (hindsight, that check valve was what kept us from realizing we had a problem sooner!) We were probably pumping 2/3rds of the water through the leak with each cycle and it was immediately obvious that I would need a waste pump or scuba gear to do the repair myself.
The better half convinced me that we should call in the profession so we called our local well digging service. Diggers Hotline came out to verify that there were no buried lines in the vicinity of the work zone which they did but failed to search for the buried LP gas line which ran about 2' from the well head. The electrical power guy did so as a favor using a "witching" rod he improvised from one of his flags.
The well diggers came out with a good sized tracked backhoe and after a little hand digging to locate the gas line, he commenced digging. I think he only took a couple of swipes to remove about 2 yds. of dirt; that would have taken me all day. As they got close ti the line they had to prceed by hand to locate the line and the electrical service running with it.
Once the line was exposed, it was obvious what had happened. The casing fitting is 1`-1/4" FPT followed by a 1-1/4" x 1" reducing bushing, and a 1" MPT x 1" hose fitting to polyethylene pipe. The 1" steel adapter was completely severed at the base of the threads. After moving the poly line out of the way, a light dink with a screwdriver and a pair of Visegrips unwound the remaining thread did the job. They chased the threads and installed a new adapter, this time brass.
Their time at the site was just over an hour. I'm a DIY kind of guy but sometimes it pays to call in the pros.

 

[Boswell]

Our well pump is at around 800ft below the surface. When there was a down-hole failure the second time, we fixed it but I installed a rainwater collection system. Since that time about 5 years ago we have been living 100% on rainwater with the well as a backup that we have not yet needed. If/when it fails again, we will not repair it. Each time we had to pull the pump it took a crew of 3 people two days to pull and then replace the pump. The actual repairs took about an hour. Now all the parts to my water system are above ground and easy to access, inspect and repair.

 

[RJSakowski]

Our well pump is at around 800ft below the surface. When there was a down-hole failure the second time, we fixed it but I installed a rainwater collection system. Since that time about 5 years ago we have been living 100% on rainwater with the well as a backup that we have not yet needed. If/when it fails again, we will not repair it. Each time we had to pull the pump it took a crew of 3 people two days to pull and then replace the pump. The actual repairs took about an hour. Now all the parts to my water system are above ground and easy to access, inspect and repair.

I recall a This Old House project where they were on a Caribbean island where the residential water needs were dealt with entirely by rain water collection. How do you deal with potable water? Is your well pump above ground?

 

[dave_r_1]

Rebuilt this small engine today. It's the one from my powered bagger/power vacuum projects, and this spring it starts burning oil pretty bad, so I swapped a Honda GX270 for it to keep working while I repaired this engine. Added oil and gas, and it fired right up, without all that annoying blue smoke.



This engine isn't complete yet, as I need to alter which direction the exhaust points (as previously it blew along the mower's fuel tank, slightly melting it), and I'm waiting for a larger cannister-style air filter to replace the stock setup, as the stock filter isn't particularly big, and has completely plugged up in only a few hours during spring cleanup (likely a contributing cause to the engine failing this spring). I'll need to fabricate an adapter for the carb and a mount for it. After I get these things done, it goes back into blower duty...

 

[Boswell]

I recall a This Old House project where they were on a Caribbean island where the residential water needs were dealt with entirely by rain water collection. How do you deal with potable water? Is your well pump above ground?

The well pump (that is only backup) has the pump at around the 800' point. The well hole is about another 100' deeper. We only run it a couple of times a year to keep it from silting in. For our residential water needs, I have 16,000 gal of above ground storage with a "demand" pump that turns on when water is needed. To make this potable, we run through a 20 micron and a 5 micron filter. Then it goes through a UV sterilizer, all designed for this purpose. I live in Central texas and have met the water needs of 3 people for 5 years and only once got below 3,000 gal. We have a metal roof and collect about 1100 gal per inch of rain.

 

[RJSakowski]

The well pump (that is only backup) has the pump at around the 800' point. The well hole is about another 100' deeper. We only run it a couple of times a year to keep it from silting in. For our residential water needs, I have 16,000 gal of above ground storage with a "demand" pump that turns on when water is needed. To make this potable, we run through a 20 micron and a 5 micron filter. Then it goes through a UV sterilizer, all designed for this purpose. I live in Central texas and have met the water needs of 3 people for 5 years and only once got below 3,000 gal. We have a metal roof and collect about 1100 gal per inch of rain.

Gotcha! Our house in Wisconsin was built around 100 years ago and had a 2,000 gallon cistern for the collection of rainwater from the roof. The outlet pipe ran into the kitchen where a a hand pump was located. Presumably, the cistern water was used for all kitchen chores.

There was another cistern on the hill above the house with around 6,000 gallon capacity and fed by a wind driven pimp. It provided pressurized water for the house which in turn allowed an indoor toilet instead of a privy and a sink and bathtub; a rarity in rural areas before rural electrification.

In the 1950's electricity was installed and an electric motor pumped the water when there wasn't enough wind. A deep well was drilled in 1973 and presumably, the cisterns were abandoned at that time.

Rainwater collection systems are becoming more popular lately although they are too small to be of any real value. The reservoirs that they sell are around 50 gallons. The water is used primarily for watering plants.

I believe that the rainwater collection system on This Old House was in season 25, episode 22, aired in 2004.

 

[MAKEITOUTOFWOOD]

I bought a Williams T 1 S tool holder. Payed $9.00. So not a big investment. It accepts 5/16 tool bits. I milled it down in the lathe. mounted it in a tool holder horizontal. Then did the cutting with a 3/4 end mill held in a 5c collet. This is Abomb79 style. He deserves all the credit. I wanted to be able to take advantage of the smaller tool steel. I’m happy with the results.

 

[Lordbeezer]

Made a 30-30 D reamer today out of drill rod..do I need to harden this ?. 1st one I made I cut flutes in it..it didn't work out..