Living room sofa; mostly clear, 26.0 F, 0633
After we had lived here for a year or so, we discovered that the well we were using was not on our property. It was on our neighbors property across the street. The well itself was a old, hand dug tile well, close to the road. None of that was good news, and it was something else that the “home inspector” failed to mention.
Thus informed, we drilled a new well on our property. She is a beauty; Two hundred and twenty three feet deep, producing one hundred gallons of cool clean water a minute.
Next project was to install a pump and new pressure tank. I went with the new pressure tank because the old one did not have a bladder and it would lose its air pressure often. The bladder tank is nice; pressurize it once and it should be good forever. I used 1 inch PEX from the pump to the pressure tank, then 1 inch copper to the main distribution point above the water heater. That means you can take a shower and flush the toilet at the same time.
I rented an excavator and dug a trench 4-6 feet deep to the house. The ground here is very rocky, therefore the PEX and electrical wiring was sleeved in 3 inch PVC DW pipe. This protects the PEX during back fill.
I used a drill and a hole saw to make a hole in the well casing for the pitless adaptor. The static water level of the well is 60 feet below ground level.
I installed a Goulds 10GS10422 1 HP submersible pump at a depth of 200 feet. This is a two wire pump, meaning the pump starter is on the pump motor, not next to the pressure tank in the house. I also installed a torque boot five feet above the pump to prevent repeated twisting of the PEX pipe during pump start. Twisting during start up will eventually break the PEX. The torque boot diameter was adjusted to the interior diameter of the well casing according to the instructions that came with the pump. Additionally, a 3/8 polypropylene safety rope was attached to the pump in case the worst does happen. That way the the pump does not end up in the bottom of the well.
Lowering the pump into the well by hand wasn’t too bad. It actually took a bit of force to move the pump down into the well for the first 60 feet or so. The most challenging part was hooking the pump onto the pitless adaptor five feet or so into the well casing. Even that was not too hard.
Perhaps the least enjoyable part of any job like this is the cleanup. I waited for the rain to come so the soil would compact down to the right level. After that, It took a few weeks of rake work to level this out. I had to cart several loads of medium sized stones back to the stone wall in the woods. I seeded it with grass and now it looks like nothing ever happened.