Category Archives: Well

Jan 16 7 comments
Plumbing, Weather, Well

Minus 11 and counting

It was cold last night, so cold I could hear the boards on the deck cracking as they froze. With the snow squeaking underfoot, I checked the thermometer on my way out the door for an early morning emergency call, -11° (F) it read. It may have been colder.

I was laying awake last night worrying about the pipes. We had a pipe on our heating system freeze a few years ago.  It had a very cold draft blowing on it all night and I woke up to discover our bedroom was about 35°.  I was able to heat up the frozen section and get the water moving before it burst, but I must admit, I was a bit lucky in finding the frozen spot and applying the right amount of heat to it without burning down the house.  The drafty spot has been fixed.  Now I am more concerned about the well water supply pipe.

I buried it 48 inches deep (or deeper) except where it gets close to the house. There it is about 36-40 inches deep. That is because it comes into the crawl space, which is only 48 inches deep itself.  I had to come up a few inches to get away from the footing.  I worry that with this really cold weather, the frost level may get down to that depth, in which case, we are screwed.

Therein is the problem with do it yourself.  If something goes wrong, there is nobody to call, no insurance claim, only that sinking feeling that something will have to be done over, yet again.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Jul 14 5 comments
Plumbing, Well

Iron Filter for Potable Water

Iron in well water is a very common problem. Everyone within a 20 mile radius of us and perhaps beyond has some type of iron in their well water. When we first moved into our dream house, I noticed two water softener bypass valves left by the previous owner. I never really cared all that much for water softeners, they tend to leave the water feeling too soft; like when you are in the shower it feels like you never can rinse all of the soap off. They also have a tendency to make the water taste slightly salty. I am not a big fan of drinking salt water. So I decided not to hook up a water softener.

A few days after we moved in, I discovered the real reason for the “water softener” bypass valves. We had Iron in our water, lots and lots of it. So I did some research iron in water and found out some interesting things. There are two types of iron found in water, soluble and insoluble. Insoluble iron already oxidized, so it is the type you see; in other words you run the water and it looks brown or orange. Soluble iron is a little more tricky, it is not completely oxidized so the water looks clear until you let it stand for a few minutes, then it turns orange or brown as the iron reacts to the oxygen in the air.

We have both. Therefore, I decided that I should use a two stage iron filter to remove first the insoluble iron. This iron is already oxidized to either (FeO) or (Fe2O3) which means the molecules are bigger and will be caught by a sand filter. The soluble iron (Fe) is taken out by the Green Sand filter, which uses an ion exchange to create the iron oxide, then removes it.

Meet the twins:

Two stage iron water filter

The unit on the right is the first stage, which is a sand filter (Kenmore 625.348324), also sometimes called a clarifying filter. The sand filter backwashes every three days and uses about 60 gallons per back wash. The unit on the left is a Green Sand filter (Kenmore 625.349225). It uses Potassium Permanganate (KMnO4) during each backwash cycle to recoat the green sand. It backwashes every 4 days and uses about 40 gallons of water during each back wash cycle. After each backwash by the green sand filter, the water is a little pink. Running it for about 30 seconds gets rid of this effect which is due to excess Potassium Permanganate.

The filters are installed so that they may be removed from service for whatever reason without turning off the water supply for the whole house by including a service bypass loop. By turning the 1/4 turn ball valves to the vertical position, both filters are taken out of the water system.

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I used 1 inch type L copper pipe for all the water connections. I like working with copper better than PVC or PEX for some reason. I suppose it takes a little bit of skill to solder a pipe, versus clamping something onto a hose barb.

water filter service bypass loop

I can’t wait to take my first shower! This well has more pressure than the old one did because I purchased a pressure switch with a 40-60 PSI range instead of a 20-40 PSI range.

Little update:

This is a side by side comparison of the water from my well. The water in the glass on the left is from the kitchen sink tap. It has been filtered through the iron filters described above. The water in the glass on the right is directly from the well before passing through the filters.

Filtered water comparison

Update 2

After a few weeks of experimenting, I have been able to adjust the backwash schedules to once per week for both filters. I think, initially the well had a lot of insoluble iron in it because it was sitting unused. Not that we are using the water, the iron content has gone down a lot. This is time of year when it is dry out, the water table drops and for some reason, the iron problem is more pronounced than in the winter. Therefore, I think the once per week backwashing should be good for the whole year.

Popularity: 6% [?]

May 13 20 comments
Plumbing, Well

Well Pump Installation

This is a big one. In September of 2005 we discovered that our well was not really on our property. In fact, it was located across the street! That means that if anything happens to the pipe coming from the well to our house we are basically out of luck since the town will not dig up the road to replace a private well pipe. In the words of the town highway superintendent “What the hell is your well doing across the street?” Ah, they don’t mince many words around here, do they? It is, after all, a valid question, one of the many I had for my “home inspector” who has since stopped taking or returning my calls.

Obviously, we needed a new well drilled on our property, which we did promptly. Then, for the next year and a half it proceeded to precipitate at a rate which made digging the trench between the house and the well out of the question. We tried once, only to have the trench quickly fill up with water and collapse. Fast forward to today!

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The Kabota KB161 excavator has been dropped off and quickly put into action. A four foot or deeper trench was completed in about four hours. It began to slowly fill with water, but not nearly as bad as last time.

As discussed in two previous posts, all of the well equipment has been on site for a while. My brother in law is a plumber and managed to get it for me at cost courtesy of C.N. Still and Sons Plumbing and Heating in Millbrook, NY.

The first thing I did was lay out the pipe run between the house and the well. This is 1 inch in diameter PEX pipe. Since we have rocky soil around here, I decided to sleeve the PEX in 4 inch waste drain PVC. Within the PVC pipe also runs the electric feed for the well pump (#10 3 wire UF), a #2 ground wire, and a secondary run of 1/2 inch PEX back out to the well head location.well-trench-with-pipe.jpg

The reason for the #2 ground wire, we get a lot of lightening around here, since my background is in RF and electrical engineering, I like to ground everything. I mean really ground everything. Part of a good ground system is to have every ground potential point bonded together forming a single ground point reference. This is important because more than one ground reference can cause problems if lightning strikes near by. This is the way we do it at mountain top tower sites with huge steel towers. It works there, it should work here as well. I will bond the #2 wire to the copper pipe at the well pressure tank and then run it over to the electrical panel and connect it to the ground buss there. If you are really interested in lightning grounds let me know, it is one of my favorite subjects.

The pipe between the house and the well is buried greater than 48 inches deep to stay below the frost line. We get a lot of cold winters here, so I wanted to be sure that we did not have any frozen water supply lines.

Then, cutting a hole in the six inch well casing. I used a standard 2 inch metal hole saw, by the end of the cut it was ruined, but it got the job done. The other option was to use a acetylene cutting outfit, which would have cost more than the hole saw to rent. Attaching the pitless adapter to the well pipe was difficult. I broke one drill bit on the well casing.
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Next, I laid out the rest of PEX pipe and cut it to 195 feet. Our well is 210 feet deep and the drill company said to install the pump and the 200 foot level. I subtracted the four foot depth of the pitless adapter and added a foot as a fudge factor. Once the pipe was cut, I installed the 1 HP well pump on the end with a brass hose barb securing it with two hose clamps. Then a ran out the well pump wire and safety rope along side of the pipe. I used the water proof splice kit to attach the well pump wire to the well pump and I secured both the wire and the safety rope to the PEX pipe every ten feet or so using black wire ties. When heating the tubing on the splice, it states to heat until the tubing shrinks around the wire and the water proofing material oozes out of the end, but not too much. I take if if the tubing starts to smoke, that is a little too much heat. I attached the torque boot about 2 feet above the pump.

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Putting the pump in the well was a little difficult. The pump itself is quite heavy, include the PEX and the wire and it gets a little ungainly. I had a little problem attaching to the pitless adapter. I needed my wife to hold a flash light so I could see the part attached to the casing. Once I found it the two parts slid together.

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well-finding-the-pitless-adaptor.jpg

Finally, feeding the PEX and electrical cables through the basement wall and into the new pressure tank. I actually went into the crawl space under the kitchen. Unfortunately, somebody filled the hollow cinder blocks with concrete. It was no fun at all trying to make an inch and a half hole through 8 inches of solid concrete.

But it is done. Our well is connected, we have lots of water and great water pressure. I ran it for about two hours to get all the turbidity out of the water. I also dumped about a cup and a half of bleach into the well head before putting the sanitary cap on. We will need to install a green sand filter, as the water has noticable iron in it. Fortunately I foresaw this and install a bypass feed for a filter.

well-trench-filled-in.jpg

Now the yard is a mess, but that will pass soon enough. I am going to leave it for a month or so while the dirt settles back into the trench, then I will rake it out and plant some grass.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Nov 23 51 comments
Plumbing, Well

Water Logged Pressure Tank

I wrote a post about our new pressure tank, which has an air bladder installed in it. Our old pressure tank does not have a air bladder installed. Pressure tanks work under the principle that gases can be compressed, while liquids cannot. When the pressure in the tank drops, the well pump turns on and pumps water into the tank, compressing the air bubble at the top of the tank. If there is no air bubble, the pump will cycle on and off very quickly causing a possible motor burnout in the well pump.

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If you have a bladder tank, the installer should have charged it properly, and once charged, it will not loose its air charge. A non-bladder tank will, over time, loose its air charge because the air will dissolve in the water and disappear out of the various faucets. Therefore a non-bladder tank should be recharged regularly with air. If you suspect a tank is completely water logged, it will not hurt to put a little air in and see if it makes a difference. The air fittings look like tire fill valves, and are normally located near the top of the tank, possibly next to the pressure gauge. You can add air with a bicycle pump, I would start by adding enough air to make the pressure gauge go up 10 PSI.
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To completely recharge the tank, turn off the pump and run the water until the pressure gauge reads zero. Add air until you reach the pump cut in pressure (low pressure setting where the pump turns on). Then turn the pump back on. This is the proper amount of air for your pressure tank. The pressure gauge should go up slowly until it reaches the cut out pressure (high pressure setting when the pump turns off).
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Popularity: 26% [?]

Oct 29 40 comments
Plumbing, Well

Well Pump Pressure Switch

I like lots of water pressure… remember the episode of Seinfeld when they were buying and installing large wasteful shower heads on the black market? I am that guy. I like my showers to have an average pressure slightly less than that of a sand blaster. Since I have my own well, I can be that guy without really feeling guilty that I am wasting everyone else’s water. To that end, the shallow well jet pump I installed last year had its pressure settings much too low. I can’t abide by that, so I went a tinkering with the pressure switch to get the pressure up to about 50 to 60 PSI.

Here is what I found: There are two main types of pressure switches on any type of well pump; Square D pumptrol, and everything else. Fortunately the all work on the same principle. The cut-in pressure is the low pressure limit that tells the pump when to turn on, the cut-out is the high pressure that tells the pump when to turn off. The differential is the difference between the two, usually about 20 PSI.

To some extent, the cut-in/cut-out pressures are predetermined when the switch is manufactured. If your pressure switch specifies a range of 20 to 40 PSI, then you will not be able to make it run at 40 to 60 PSI no matter how much you adjust it. That is because the switch operates using an internal spring to select it’s cut-in/cut-out. In order to make a lower pressure switch operate at a much higher pressure, the spring would have to be replaced, and you might as well replace the whole switch if you are going to that trouble. You can however, make adjustments in the 5 to 10 PSI range using the adjustment screws on the switch.

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Square D pumptrol pressure switchSafety note: See those wire screw terminals there? That is 240 VAC, so you want to turn off the breaker before you go poking around with a screw driver.
There are two pressure adjustment screws; one will adjust the cut-in and cut-out pressure, the other will only effect the cut-out. On a pumptrol switch, these screws are called number 1 (cut-in and cut-out) and number 2 (cut-out only). Those folks at square D are clever that way. To increase the cut-in and cut-out, turn screw number one clockwise, to decrease turn counter clockwise. To increase the cut-out pressure only, turn screw number 2 clockwise, to decrease, turn counter clockwise. Most every pressure switch works the same way.Image

Made in China pump pressure switchThe jet pump did not have a Square D pressure switch, it has something that looks like it was made in China. I was thinking it would not be difficult to replace it with a better switch, but then I thought, why bother? I am going to be putting the new well on line soon anyway, right? Right.

Update: This is a picture of the pressure switch with the wires attached. The diagram that comes with the switch shows a slightly different way to wire it, either way will work. I like to match colors so that the red wire is connected to the red wire, etc. Then again, thats just me, I suppose.

Square D pumptrol pressure switch wiring

Popularity: 89% [?]