A few weeks ago we were reminded that we really do live in out in the country. It was 8 pm and we were in the middle of our nightly bath with the kids when our water just stopped. We have a well and it's always made me slightly nervous, for example, I've always wondered how long can I let the water run before the well gets low or runs out of water.
When you live in town you don't have to worry about water. Even if your electricity is off, you still have water. Not here. If you have a well, it relies on electricity to pump the water out, so if the power goes out, so does your well. But our electricity was not out on this night, everything was working except for the water.
You realize pretty quickly when you don't have water, that you can't do very much without it. You can't flush the toilet, shower, cook, brush your teeth or give your kid a glass of water. It's a bit scary actually, to not have any water.
We put the kids to bed and Chris went to the store to get jugs of water and we put a call into the pump company and our plumber to see who would call us back first. We checked the basement to see if there were any issues that we could see, but nothing was obvious.
The pump guy called first thing in the morning and came over immediately. It didn't take him long to determine that it was nothing above ground that was causing the problem. We had a general idea of where the well was located, but because it's an old house, the well head was buried underground and we were going to have to do a little digging to find it. The pump guy left us to dig the hole, promising to return as soon we found the well.
Chris began digging, but he actually had a funeral to attend that morning, so I called our landscapers to see if they could send a couple guys over to dig the hole for us. Digging holes in our dirt is not easy, it is full of shale and rocks and it takes a long time to make any progress. Chris made a good start and the two landscapers finished it, finding the well head in a few hours of digging. When they were done we had a hole that was three feet deep and five feet across.
The plumber showed up with his assistant to check up on how things were going, the landscapers left, and the pump guy returned and opened the well. They pulled up the pump. The pump is attached to 100 feet of flexible pipe and they have to pull it straight out fairly quickly because if the pipe breaks (it was brittle due to it's age) the pump could fall back into the well and I can only imagine what kind of fancy equipment they would need to get it out then.
When the pump finally emerged, the pump guy said, "That's an antique!" We guessed that the pump was the original one that was installed when the house was built 46 years ago. Most pumps and wells are expected to be good for about 20 years, so this one lasted well beyond it's time, but I was still wishing that it had decided to quit about 5 years ago, BEFORE we bought the house. But that's how it goes with an old house, things need fixing and replacing and since we have decided not to sell this place, it's just what we have to do to live here.
The pump guy prepped 100 feet of new pipe, attached a new pump to the end of the pipe, extended the casing to be a foot above the ground so the next time we need to service the well we don't have to dig, and lowered the pump and pipe down the well. We could hear it when it hit the water. He then sealed it up with a bright blue cap. I'm not thrilled with the new decorative element in my backyard, but hopefully we can cover it with plants.
What I didn't know was that when you mess with your well and it gets all stirred up and contaminated, it needs a dose of chlorine to clean out any bacteria that may have been introduced when it was open and that chlorine needs time to clear out of the well. The sediment also needs time to settle down. Our water was back on, but we couldn't drink it, cook with it, bath the kids in it or wash our laundry in it until it was cleaner. We basically had dirty pool water coming out of our taps. But at least it was working again. It took about a week and a half to get back to normal and hopefully we don't have to worry about the pump for a while. I'm just wondering what will be next.
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