Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to .....!

Al Launier

Member
Messages
1,683
Location
Bedford, NH
Yesterday morning my wife & I woke up to no water. Turns out the well pump motor died. Called an Artesian well company to see if they could respond to our water emergency. They could & would. After telling them to come on over, I had to snow blow/shovel 2' of compacted snow to provide a 4'-5' wide access path around the well head for the equipment that was coming. What a job!

Of course the well head was on a 10' dia. landscaped island that was fully grown in with Rhododendrons & a 4x4 pole to which was mounted a large 16" dia. cast iron antique bell that weighs a "ton". Unfortunately, the post was next to the well pipe (of course had to place it centrally to the islnad). Rhodos had to be cut down & I had to take a chain saw to the bell post to allow the "machine" room to sit over the well pipe to draw out the hose. The service guy came & replaced the pump & motor in less than two hours. Well done!

Back in business, but first I had to attach a garden hose to the base of the water tank & run the well water out to the driveway for 4-6 hours to clear out the chlorine that the service guy had dumped into the well (state law requirement) to kill off any residual bacteria.; had to do this before water could be released for house use. Well, I decided to be safe & ran it for 6 hrs. Wife & I could still barely smell the chlorine & the water was clear. Decided to run it another hour & the chlorine smell was gone, or so light we had to guess if we could actually detect the smell. Good to go! Removed the hose around 7pm & released the water to the house. What a day, nothing like waking up to a $1,600 bill! Time to catch up on water related duties. Life is good again.

Woke up this morning & no water. What the hell? Turns out the back-flush sediment filters (500 & 1000 mesh) had stopped the flow. The 500 primary filter was plugged solid with manganese & the 1000 secondary filter had trapped some particles as well. Fortunately, the filters did their job. Changed out the filters and we're back in business. JoAnn started a wash & we could both smell chlorine. Back to the garden hose to flush out the well water again. Will flush for 4 more hours & check the results. Used part of our emergency water supply to rinse out/dilute the chlorine from the clothing that had been soaked in the chlorinated water, and to make breakfast & coffee. Oh well, time to play on the computer.
 
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Had a very similar issue a year? Maybe 2 years ago. Oh well, I guess that what it takes to run your own water company...
 
Al,

I know it is not nice, however I am glad that didn't happen to me.

Several years ago we had a one-inch pipe break. It was down the bank from the back of the house. It ran over $700 worth of water before it was discovered. I thought that was horrible so I guess yours was HORRIBLE!

Enjoy,
JimB
 
Not a good idea to go dry in the winter time. Had the bad experience 6 weeks ago. Went for a drink of water and nothing. Next morning the well people pulled the pump and found the well was dry at that point which in turn burned up the pump. Had to drop the pump 49 feet to get back to water level. Next time I think I'm in for a new well. 5-8thousand . Not a nice idea.
 
Rural people problems. :rolleyes: :D

I have a 36" main water line running down my street, about 100 feet from my apartment kitchen. :p Great now, but if that puppy ever breaks the whole neighborhood is hosed. Literally. :rofl:
 
We are fortunate in one respect and that is the well provides 20 gpm of water, which is more than ample. The well itself is 425' deep & the pump is down 200'. If we ever had to lower the pump, that would be doable. Even in the so-called "drought" conditions we've had a few times in the past, following a winter/spring of little snow & rain, we've not run dry. The people next door have 2 Artesian wells, both down ~ 1,000'. One provides 1 gpm, the other 1/2 gpm. So we turn off out lawn sprinkler system to minimize any impact that may have on their water supply. We're lucky in this regard.
 
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