~ My Old Well ~
Two weeks ago, my well was pumping mud and sand, then no water at
all! This well was nearly 50 years old and I'd been having problems for
several years. When the well man tried to "blow off" the water... (pulled
up the old pipe and pumped a vast amount of water out), the water never got
clearer than a milky color. The screen at the bottom was probably
caput. Time for a new well! I went four days without water prior to
my well man checking it out. Then to get me water, we connected a garden
hose from my neighbor's outside faucet to my outside faucet with my pump turned
off. My neighbor's well water flowed through my house pipes and I was able
to use water as if nothing was wrong.
This is a picture of my old well access after
digging. The rules today (in my county) say that a new well must
be at least 30 feet from the house, and not in the same area as the
septic. The road is only 21 feet from my house, so I needed a
variance. This is usually not a problem, but the county can then stipulate
other more costly material such as double casing, etc. I lucked out and
got a variance without the added stipulations and my case was treated somewhat
as an emergency. I still had to wait a week for the new well to be
drilled. I continued to use my neighbor's water hookup.
My old well was between 75 to 90 feet deep. The rules for a new well
in my location now, says the minimum depth must be 220 feet. They went
down 250 ft. It was a rainy Friday and I had to wait until the following
Monday for the new well to be connected to my pipes. They put chlorine in
the well to kill any bacteria but this meant that after I was connected, I had
to run water from my outside faucet (through a garden hose) for three more days
to get out the chlorine taste (like strong pool water). I live
adjacent to a creek and ran the water into the creek.
Two days later a neighbor I had never met but lives two houses down,
knocked on my door at 6:30 in the evening. She said, a lady across on
the other side of White's Cove told her that I had water running over my
pier! I had to explain to the lady about the new well and why I was
running water. She said, "Oh was that the activity I saw over
here?". I said "Yes, I had to get a new well and I have to run the water
for 3 days because of the chlorine. "We try to look out for each other"
she said. I said "Yes, I came over to your house a year ago and told a guy
there that his parked truck has had it's headlights on for an hour". When
I knocked on the door, some barking dogs scared me half to death!".
I sent in a form to the county who are supposed to come out at two
different times somewhere between 8 and 10 days to test the water and see if
it's potable. If they've been here, I was not aware of it and I
have not received any kind of confirmation from them.
Since my pipes are copper and are easily corroded by minerals found in well
water, it seemed that my pipes sprung a leak about every 3 months. I
decided to replace all the copper pipes with CPVC (plastic pipe).
Hopefully this will be done this coming week.
Now that you know the story, I'll post a few related pictures starting with
the attached of my old well access. The law here also says the old well
must be filled in, which it is now. Back at my fathers home when I was
young, he used a second well to irrigate his garden. No such luck
here.
If you read all of this, congratulations, and thank you!!! This
means I can be very brief in the forthcoming series of related "well
pictures".
All "well" shots were created with the following unless otherwise
mentioned...
Cha cha, Canon Power Shot A560, SPM, IrfanView.
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