Water, Water, Everywhere ...

Oh happy day!!! We have running water, in all the right places and nowhere else, cold, but running. But I am jumping ahead.

When I left the house this morning to walk our door bell / floor mob / bed warmer / dog, I saw that our trusty digger meister Greg was here already. After having found water yesterday, we asked him if he could quickly dig a trench from the well to the house before he was taking off to Colorado until next week.

A little later Jim's (our well meister) well-hooker-upper-guy showed up and went right to work, you guessed it, to hook up the well. He said, that he may have to rent a jack hammer to get through our stone foundation wall (which should be about 20 inches thick). Being money conscious (hey! are you calling me cheap?! I said money conscious!!! ... ;-), I suggested to chisel away, while he was busy doing other stuff. In case you don't know me, I am stubborn, and if I put my mind to it I can be really stubborn.


After about an hour I saw the light. This was largely because there was a lot of loose rock inside the stone wall. I wasn't not sure whether I should be happy about my accomplishment or concerned about the composition of the wall that carries the whole house. I chose happiness.


Yes, the hole doesn't look very big, but I didn't want to create a bigger opening than necessary. Meanwhile, the well-hooker-upper-guy had rescued the pump from our old well, and started lowering it into our new well.


Last not least, he ran wiring and tubing to the house (through a tiny opening in the foundation wall, which some cool dude had chiseled out ... oh, I'm so vain ... ;-).

Inside I had already run some PVC piping to connect to the tube coming in from the outside, as well as the wire for the pump, and after we had let the PVC cement cure for a while it was time to put the system to the test.

Gush!!! Water came from the pump through the tube and the PVC piping into the pressure tank. and that was it, it worked, we had water coming into the house again (and not from a roof leak, like it was until we got the new metal roof).

Next I slowly turned on the individual water lines to test if water was getting there, and at adequate pressure. Eureka, it worked.

The only thing that didn't work yet was the hot water. I still had some soldering to do, and hook up a few loose ends. By 6pm I knew that there wouldn't be any hot water today, as I didn't want to finish the day by starting the boiler and the hot water heater, which could result in problems, and I wasn't willing to stay up all night, plus after 9pm all the hardware stores and home improvement centers are closed, so if I needed something I was out of luck.

But I hooked up all the connections for the hot water and test ran it, and it all worked without a single leak, until I noticed that the pressure on the hot water line had dropped. Then I noticed that the pressure on the cold water line had dropped, too. #@%$!!!

After looking around for leaks, checking the pressure tank and such, I concluded that it might be the solenoid valve, which is part of our UV treatment system (if the solenoid valve is broken, there is no water in the building). I was mentally mixing an extra large martini, when E! mentioned that maybe it is the particle filters in the water system.

I had my mind set on the solenoid valve already (did I mention that I am stubborn?), but at least I wanted to rule out the possibility that it could indeed be the filters. After quickly running to Lowe's and getting new filters I put them in, and lo and behold it worked!!!

We really hadn't replaced the filters ever since Jeff installed our new water distribution system, and I guess firing up the new well added a lot of particles, but I never expected such a tremendous drop in pressure.

Anyhow, all's well that ends well ... punny, aren't I ... ;-)

Dirk