"...do it yourself."
Just got further confirmation of that. A few months after we bought our current house (in 2018), the water stopped. I was travelling home that day (a Friday in August, 2019), and wife called to tell me the shower quit that morning when she was washing her hair. Turns out, a pipe nipple between the well and the house rotted off (dissimilar metals).
Smart wife called the New Homeowner Protection Plan underwriter (1-year free with the mortgage), and a "crew" (of apes?) was sent promptly. They replaced the submersible, which had burned itself out due to continual use (the broken nipple), ignoring the swamp adjacent to the well casing. They wanted another $2500 to hustle their backhoe up the hill to dig up the line. I arrived home about 4PM and grabbed a shovel. An hour later, I had the break exposed. Got some parts Saturday morning, and we were back in business that night.
Fast forward to Wednesday last week. I got out of the shower, and wondered, "why is the water pump cycling on and off every 30 seconds?" Looked at the gauge, watched it cycling between 60 lbs and 30 lbs. Drat. Water line can't hold pressure again. Only this time, no swamp in the yard.
Whatever, pump's coming up before she burns up. Guess what. STEEL nipple in the nice Myers pump. F'ing IDIOTS! The pump was dangling by the wires when it reached to top of the well casing. Not only that, the riser was rigid PCV, 20-foot sections date-coded 2010 and joined by iron couplings! I could have spent an entire day trying to dig the remains of the rotted nipple out of a 7 year-old pump. Instead, I used my better judgement and ran down to Lowe's dropping $569 on a new pump and another $157 on a 100-foot coil of 1" water line. Stabbed the rigged, new pump at 7:50PM on Friday, took a shower at 8:15.
Next day (yesterday), it was the 2001 date-coded pressure tank, but that's another rant.
You get what you pay for with these "free" homeowner protection offers....Why does this sh*t always happen when I am travelling for work?
Pfffft!
-Paul
PS, I had been wondering why, for the last year, my inline filter had been plugging up every 3 weeks with clay. Was it the drought? No, it was the leaking steel nipple, spraying down the inside of the well casing, directly above the pump intake.
PPS, Got a nice read on my well's parameters. 76 feet to the bottom, only 26 feet down to the water level. Pump is 66 feet down, 10 feet off the bottom of the hole, and 40 feet below the water level. Nice amount of reserve, after 2 years of severe drought! Quelled a lot of my worry about running out of water!!! Sleeping well, these days...
Just got further confirmation of that. A few months after we bought our current house (in 2018), the water stopped. I was travelling home that day (a Friday in August, 2019), and wife called to tell me the shower quit that morning when she was washing her hair. Turns out, a pipe nipple between the well and the house rotted off (dissimilar metals).
Smart wife called the New Homeowner Protection Plan underwriter (1-year free with the mortgage), and a "crew" (of apes?) was sent promptly. They replaced the submersible, which had burned itself out due to continual use (the broken nipple), ignoring the swamp adjacent to the well casing. They wanted another $2500 to hustle their backhoe up the hill to dig up the line. I arrived home about 4PM and grabbed a shovel. An hour later, I had the break exposed. Got some parts Saturday morning, and we were back in business that night.
Fast forward to Wednesday last week. I got out of the shower, and wondered, "why is the water pump cycling on and off every 30 seconds?" Looked at the gauge, watched it cycling between 60 lbs and 30 lbs. Drat. Water line can't hold pressure again. Only this time, no swamp in the yard.
Whatever, pump's coming up before she burns up. Guess what. STEEL nipple in the nice Myers pump. F'ing IDIOTS! The pump was dangling by the wires when it reached to top of the well casing. Not only that, the riser was rigid PCV, 20-foot sections date-coded 2010 and joined by iron couplings! I could have spent an entire day trying to dig the remains of the rotted nipple out of a 7 year-old pump. Instead, I used my better judgement and ran down to Lowe's dropping $569 on a new pump and another $157 on a 100-foot coil of 1" water line. Stabbed the rigged, new pump at 7:50PM on Friday, took a shower at 8:15.
Next day (yesterday), it was the 2001 date-coded pressure tank, but that's another rant.
You get what you pay for with these "free" homeowner protection offers....Why does this sh*t always happen when I am travelling for work?
Pfffft!
-Paul
PS, I had been wondering why, for the last year, my inline filter had been plugging up every 3 weeks with clay. Was it the drought? No, it was the leaking steel nipple, spraying down the inside of the well casing, directly above the pump intake.
PPS, Got a nice read on my well's parameters. 76 feet to the bottom, only 26 feet down to the water level. Pump is 66 feet down, 10 feet off the bottom of the hole, and 40 feet below the water level. Nice amount of reserve, after 2 years of severe drought! Quelled a lot of my worry about running out of water!!! Sleeping well, these days...
