emergency well repair

[Bullfrog]

We came home and saw a lot of water near the well house. I opened the small door and the pressure tank had rusted a small hole in it and it was really spraying out hard. you would know, it was directly at me also. This causes the pressure to drop and makes the pump go on and off which will burn it up. Being Sunday, my options were limited. I went to Lowes and looked for a ratchet strap and some flat rubber sheet gasket just to temporarily stop the leak.

An older guy was in there, he told me, "Living in the country, we couldn't just run into town all of the time. My daddy would just sharpen a green stick and hammer it in the hole. how big is the hole?"

I told him about 1/8" and he said, "Follow me."

We went to the screws and washers. I got a screw with threads all of the way to the head and a big rubber washer. Being as the grandkids were coming over to get into the river, I just put on my trunks and opened the door. It was hard to get the screw started with the pressure and the hole wasn't quite round, I got soaked and it felt pretty good.

So I killed the pump, bled off the pressure with the hole and tapped the screw in a little with a hammer until I could get it going. I held my breath and started the pump. It held without a drop leaking. But now I have the excuse to redo the entire pump house like I've been wanting to.

 

[sissy]

lucky it was just the tank my well pump went out and had to pull up 400 feet of hose to get to the pump and had to replace after a little over 8 years everything .I looked into the well X 1 bladder tank made by amtrol and it is great it regulates the flow of water so you don't get dips in water when you are running more than 1 item .I also bought there extra storage tank and replaced the automatic filter and added a settlement chamber before the filter .Expensive but figured why not upgrade everything and did the work myself so no paying hourly rates .Since I have pex it was simple to connect everything .

 

[j.w]

Good you got it fixed for now Bullfrog! Nice that the old guy was there to help.

 

[Bullfrog]

I've been wanting to redo the well house anyway, it just took a back seat to the porch. I'll take all of the ugly, rotten walls down and paint new wood to replace them. I'll have to haul some sand from the river, remove the old pressure tank and round cement block it stood on. Then shovel in sand and tamp it down good with a metal tamper as it has settled crookedly. I'll make darn sure there are no leaks, then put the new wood back on. Pictures coming this weekend.

 

[j.w]

I don't know much about wells except that ours is just a pipe straight down about 45ft to the pump I guess and we get water so makes me happy.