After trying to take a bath on Thursday and getting only 30 sec of water I knew something was not right. Hoofing it out to the holding tank (after putting work clothes on) I could see that the water level was topped off and hear the pump running. But no water was going into the house.
I made it down to Ace and got a sub. pump to draw water out of the holding tank putting as much as I could into buckets and tubs (we have a 120 gal horse trough) until the tank was nearly dry. I also noticed our well pump was not sending water into the holding tank (not a good sign). Checked the well pump and it was drawing electricity but not pumping water up the hill. Shut it down to prevent any damage.
We called about 8 different companies and in the late afternoon 2 of the plumbers showed up. Neither was able to work on the holding tank/booster pump. One recommended a “friend” who had worked for Kester and the “friend” Bret did call back. Said he had just helped move stuff, had a truck full of said stuff, and once he had it unloaded he would call back (putting that call at about 6:30 Thursday night). Never heard from him again.
Jimmy Oliver from A&O Well Service did call on Friday morning. He had been out in Mule Creek all day on Thursday so he didn’t get our calls (no cell service), he had a job to do in the Mimbres, and could be out around 2pm. About 1pm he called from town to get exact directions and did show up around 2pm.
His first impression of the booster pump installation was that is was poor installation in that to service the tank you first had to empty (which I had already did emptying the water into our 120 gal horse trough), then go down into the tank, and finally work on the pump. Jimmy suggested that he would reconfigure the installation so that the pump could be pulled w/o having to drain and go down into the tank. Good, let’s do that.
T.J., Jimmy’s son went down into the tank and almost jumped out, there was a live mouse down in the tank (I had left the lid off the tank the night before). Gave T.J. the business end of the shop vac and after a few tries the mouse was sucked up (later drowned in the water in the shop vac). T.J. pulled the pump and then vac cleaned the tank (9 years of muck in the bottom). Jimmy noticed a “xx” valve (don’t recall the exact name but it’s a restrictor valve) between the pump and pipe to the house, and wondered why that was in the system. I set about taking apart the plumbing while Jimmy tested the pump in the horse trough. Pump was AOK, right flow, right pressure, and in spec current draw.
In taking the plumbing apart I discovered a .26″ size rock in front of the the .25″ restrictor valve hole, the reason we weren’t getting water into the house!
After about 4 hrs. we had the pump and electric re-configured (so next time it can be serviced w/o so much trouble!), put our remaining water into the holding tank, and fired up the system. Water filled the pressure tank inside the house in about 30 sec. Now the house had water (but the holding tank just had enough to cover the pump).
Down to the well head we went.
Once again Jimmy was disappointed by the poor setup. The check valve should have had a union between it and the well so that you could test the pump w/o having to drain the pipe leading up to the holding tank (180 ft. above the well head). So he had to cut the pipe (and for the next 5 mins what water we had in the pipe drained into the creek bed). He tested the pump. It was drawing the spec’d current but no water was being pumped. Now late in the day he said he could come back on Monday morn to pull the pump and gave us a number to call for a water truck delivery.
I called MeadowHawk Water service and the owner/operator, Tom, responded he was in Chicago, at the airport, and would not be back into Silver until Saturday.
Now for some more stage setting… Remember we had Tom King’s sister Ann and her partner (J.P.) from France staying with us?
(Bob, Ann, J.P., Tom, Sarah, & Pat reflected in the window)
No showers since Wednesday and now two days of hiking. And now the closest water is in Chicago. That’s when Tom said, “wait a sec. I’ll call my son-in-law and see if he could bring some out”. So about 6pm the wonderful truck with “Potable Water” painted on its side rolled up to our holding tank and topped it off. Thanks to Pat busy rounding up any spare container we probably had 750 gals of good water stored around the house.
NOTE: The min water delivery was 1,000 gal for $75 but that tank had no more than 700 gals as we drained it dry. In any case we now had water to shower (and we all needed it).
We had Tom King, Ann, J.P., and Sarah over on Friday for a wonderful dinner (steaks by Bob and scallops by Patty) so the day ended well (and it was full too) with a little sky gazing…
The next thing was on Saturday, we had a nice lunch at Diane’s where I left my ATM card. Didn’t notice that until Sunday 2 hours after they closed and wouldn’t reopen until Tuesday. Thank you again Pat for retrieving my card on Tuesday.
Monday about 8:30 Jimmy and T.J. show up (yeah!) After 2 hours of pulling pipe (21′ sections of galvanized 2″ pipe)
the first section with indications of water came up (it was wet. I could stop worrying about a dry hole). Water was at 582′. Up to now each section of pipe had water in it because of check valves installed in the pipe, but now the pipes were empty. This indicated a hole in the pipe or at the junction of the pump and last section of pipe. As the last section of pipe (750 foot level now) came up we could see a 1/4″ hole at about the middle of the section. There is were the water was going!
The pump looked to be in good shape, Jimmy would take it back to the shop to check and clean it out (don’t expect any problems there). Now another decision. Replace the 1 section of pipe w/galvanized, replace that section with schedule 120 PVC, or replace all the sections (9) that were in water with PVC. I went with the latter. Jimmy called around and of course no one in Silver has a stock so it has to be trucked in from El Paso. Should be in on Thursday with Jimmy planning to come out on Friday to put in the pump/pipe and get the installation reconfigured right!
Now just to be sure that we didn’t have a “copper theft” problem we loaded the 750 feet of pump wiring onto our trailer and have it stored up at the house. It would be about $4k worth of copper wire at today’s prices.
So that is how I spent my weekend. Those 2 nice nights…. with lots of stars…. no moon…. I slept through it all! Too dog tired to open up the observatory. Oh well….
At Least there is a
… at the end of every story. –Bob
The amps on the pump were low meaning it was not under load (not pumping water). They played around with it for a while to no avail and no water! So Jimmy thought it might be a bad check valve at the last section of pipe or in the pump. Nothing to do but pull all 750 ft. up and check the check valves (again). By Friday afternoon the had pulled the pump to within 200 ft. of the top when our afternoon thunderstorm struck. With rain and lightning all around they camped out in the shelter of the truck. Done in by the weather for today!
