No End to It

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

This is the pump housing for our artesian well . . . dismantled. Early last week, our water pressure suddenly dropped — not prohibitively slow, but much less than the norm. That is not unheard-of; in a couple of years past, when the spring winds are especially bad (we regularly get 60-70+ mph gusts), we've had a drop in pressure and the seepage of sedimentation into the line. As far as we can tell, it's because the winds are so strong that they actually move the standpipe, allowing sediment in. So we initially hoped that it would turn out to be something similar, despite the lack of high winds.

Nope.

It got gradually worse, until by the end of Friday, we were at not a whole lot beyond a trickle, even at full blast. The shower was absolutely pitiful (and our showers in this place are bad enough as it is). But there was no hope of dealing with it until today.

Early this morning, before his doctor's appointment (oh, and that's a whole other thing, lemme tellya, and I was not happy to be unable to accompany him, nor with the findings, but that's for later), Wings called the guy who did the plumbing portion of the original well install. They've known each other for decades, Wings trusts him, and he promised to squeeze in a diagnostic call between other jobs.

He showed up mid-afternoon with his employee, and they got to work. We now know the source of ridiculously high electric bills, what the co-op audit couldn't seem to find.

But we had no way to tell. The submersible pump is extraordinarily quiet; I couldn't hear it even with the housing opened. The two Davids had to get their ears right over, and then they could only hear it because they knew what faint trace of sound to look for. With the housing on? Forget about it. We had no way of knowing that 1) it was on too often, for 2) too long a period of time, and 3) accomplishing too little. At the point of the above photo, that was not, of course, a done deal; there was still the possibility of water-table or other issues.

But we got lucky. More over the jump:

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

This is Wings helping the two Davids remove the pump. It sits at the bottom of the main well pipe that holds the standpipe. David the company owner thought we probably had a 60- to 70-ft. well.

Oh, no. Twice that. What you're seeing above is between 60 and 80 feet of pipe, with another 40 to 60 feet not yet pulled out.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

At the end of the 120-ft. pipe sits the well pump itself. It's electric. It was also a mess. You can see, even in the photo above, that the whole thing is a rusty orange-red. Apparently it also was not bound especially tightly during the original install, with the wire taped only every twenty feet or so; you'll see the difference below in a bit.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

David #1 (the company owner) called the one supplier in this tiny town likely to have a 6-horsepower submersible pump in stock. We got lucky: They did, and he took off into town to pick it up. Meanwhile, David #2 (the employee) went to work on prepping for the new pump. 

When it arrived, this is what it looked like, above. Nice and clean, shiny and silver.

This is what the old one looked like, below:

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

And the light  doesn't give you a clear image; it was actually much more rusty-red than it appears. Also filthy.

Now, you can't just insert the pump and go. Oh, no.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

First, the wires have to be connected, and done so properly. This involves stripping and soldering, and so there they were, on their knees in the grass with flux and solder and a portable iron.

Yes, that's a tiny grass fire you see there.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Once soldered, the wiring has to be taped securely to the pipe to prevent it from working loose over time. Wings is helping them wrangle the unwieldy thing, while David #1 wraps it over and over and over with electrical tape, nearly mummy-style.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Once taped securely, David #2 feeds the pump, now attached to 120 feet of pipe, back down into the well. He makes it look easy.

It's not.

Just like pulling the pipe out, putting it back in is heavy-ass work, and it can't just be dropped in; it takes regulated speed and control.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

David #1 is out of view off to the right, holding up the top end of the pipe. Wings is helping feed it to David #2, who is slowly feeding it back down into the well.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

All of that? In the photo above, it's now all inside. What you're seeing is the very top connection, the pump switch assembly, attached to the pipe, where the wiring hooks into the upper part of the electrical system at the top of the housing.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Water!

We're not done yet. We also don't know what the butcher's bill will turn out to be. We'll find that out toward the end of the week.

Because it turns out that there's a faulty sensor on the pump switch.

This is a big problem. If it can't sense the water pressure, it'll blow. Unfortunately, David didn't have a sensor (it'll have to be ordered), and we were running out of time and daylight anyway by this point.

He's tied up with previously scheduled jobs, some of them fairly emergent, over the next few days. The absolute earliest he can get back is Thursday, and probably later. In the meantime, we have a fix of sorts, but it takes some doing.

He left a pressure regulator with us. It screws onto the faucet at the top of the standpipe, and when the water's on, it gauges how much pressure is accumulating. 

When you turn on the spigot, the pressure climbs very slowly at first; when it hits about the 40-lb. mark, it starts spiking fast. 

It needs to stay below 70 pounds to be safe.

And there's no way for the sensor to read it and kick in the auto-shutoff.

So. We turn off the breakers to the pump at the breaker box. Then we screw on the pressure gauge and turn on the spigot. Then we turn the breakers back on and wait . . . and watch, very, very closely. It needs to be off by about the 60-lb. mark, which means that I start walking to the breaker box when the needle hits 55 pounds. Shut the breaker off, come back and shut the spigot off, unscrew the gauge. What's now stored in the tank is enough for the two of us to take showers (which, considering the tiny water heater in this place, never exceed five minutes anyway, of that). It gives us enough for kitchen stuff, washing hands, flushing the toilet, all the usual stuff. 

First thing tomorrow morning, I'll be out in the cold, repeating the whole process.

But for now, we have water, and we each had an actual hot shower a little while ago, and now we are both absolutely beat.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.