Plumbing saga pt. 1
Feb. 8th, 2007 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoSo, the well crew arrived about 9 am today (after I was at work) with a backhoe. They dug up around the well head and found, as we had already inferred, the tee connection that took water off to the barns. Not only did it have no shutoff, it used plastic or nylon joints. Fortunately it had been buried four feet down and was not frozen or otherwise damaged. They took that off, and installed instead a brass tee connection and a heavy duty buffalo box (curb stop to you folks who live outside the midwest.) That's one of those valves that lives at the bottom of a long tube with a cap on it. To turn the valve, you remove the cap and use a long(!) wrench with a fork on the bottom of it. We'll have to see about getting one of those wrenches just in case we need it in the future.
So now the barns are on their own branch line that can be shut off at the well. And they are shut off now until things thaw out, which could be a couple of months. The ground under the horse barn is saturated and frozen, and there's no way to dig that up until the thaw. But at least we can have water pressure in the house again, for nice things like laundry and showers and washing dishes.
The cost was not as bad as I feared. I guessed that with the backhoe and a crew of two for 4 or 5 hours, plus parts, it would run me a thousand. It was only $600. Of course, the hydrants in the barns still need to be dug up and replaced, but that comes later and now I can choose when to do it. We will have good quality brass Woodford/Iowa hydrants put in.
The only problem, and it's no small one at the moment, is that with no water supply in either barn, we have to carry water to the horses and sheep in buckets from the house. That's eight or ten buckets a day, no small chore. I'm debating ways to make it a little easier, like getting a sled and using a couple of those big water cooler jugs that we will fill up by running a hose into the garage from the kitchen. The distance to be covered is about a hundred feet, which isn't too terrible except that it is not level and at the moment there's about four inches of packed snow over all of it. When the snow is gone we'll have to use a wagon.
The temperature outside is still just 11°F, well below the high that was predicted for today.
So now the barns are on their own branch line that can be shut off at the well. And they are shut off now until things thaw out, which could be a couple of months. The ground under the horse barn is saturated and frozen, and there's no way to dig that up until the thaw. But at least we can have water pressure in the house again, for nice things like laundry and showers and washing dishes.
The cost was not as bad as I feared. I guessed that with the backhoe and a crew of two for 4 or 5 hours, plus parts, it would run me a thousand. It was only $600. Of course, the hydrants in the barns still need to be dug up and replaced, but that comes later and now I can choose when to do it. We will have good quality brass Woodford/Iowa hydrants put in.
The only problem, and it's no small one at the moment, is that with no water supply in either barn, we have to carry water to the horses and sheep in buckets from the house. That's eight or ten buckets a day, no small chore. I'm debating ways to make it a little easier, like getting a sled and using a couple of those big water cooler jugs that we will fill up by running a hose into the garage from the kitchen. The distance to be covered is about a hundred feet, which isn't too terrible except that it is not level and at the moment there's about four inches of packed snow over all of it. When the snow is gone we'll have to use a wagon.
The temperature outside is still just 11°F, well below the high that was predicted for today.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 12:34 am (UTC)http://www.wagerco.com/valve_and_curb_keys_and_shutoff.htm
and here
http://www.aymcdonald.com/ProdList_Water.cfm?getgroup=42&sendCat=4
Looks like we could order a key for somewhere between $50 and $70 plus shipping for about ten pounds weight. That's not quite as expensive as I'd feared. I know you don't usually just walk into a hardware and buy one because in many cities only the water department and licensed plumbers are supposed to have them. Of course that doesn't apply out here and we own the well and the valve.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 03:32 am (UTC)