Flushing

While I love where I live and my house, I have had a multitude of plumbing problems here.  It all started with one leak under the house, but that was followed soon after with another.  This lead me to understand that the brass couplings used to tee off my main Pex water lines were slowly deteriorating.  Whether this was due to inferior quality or reaction with my high-in-iron well water, I'll never know.  But I think all in all, at least 10 fittings have had to be replace in the water lines running under the house in the crawl space.

Asian Lilies in the backyard

So, this week, when my water pressure dropped to near zero, I quickly assumed I had another leak.  I looked under the house and saw a wet area, so turned off the pump for the well and called the plumber.  I'm lucky that my plumber is a friend, his brother is married to my niece, so he's kinda almost family even.  Anyway, he kindly came at 6am the next morning and fixed the leak.  He made a comment in passing that it wasn't a really bad leak, and didn't seem like it was leaking enough to cause a drop in the water pressure.  Then we had a short conversation about how long well pumps last and he went on his way.  I put it out of my mind and carried on.

Flowering beans

Then, Monday night, the water pressure again dropped to almost none.  So, I messaged my plumber friend and he suggested I call the Well repair guys.  So, at 8pm at night, I called and left a message for the guys who actually dug the well here, and explained my problem.  I assumed I'd get a call back the next day.  But, within an hour, I had a call back and a promise for someone to stop in the next day to diagnose my problem.

One of my favorite day lily blooms

Today, a very nice man was here about an hour and found the problem, which is good.  Got me water again, which is good.  But gave me news that is pretty bad in terms of my finances.  Looks like I'll be flushing some money down the drain, or in this case, the well.

So, my water system has a pressure tank located in the well.  If this is TMI, sorry.

The pressure gauge and switch are located  in my utility closet.

What we found today was the gauge plugged with rust.  Because it was unable to give a signal to the switch to shut off the pump, my well pump had been running non stop, dead headed.

For a pump that is 14 years old, this is not a good thing.  

It's probably not a good thing for a brand new pump either.

By replacing the gauge and switch, he gave me back a working system, but either the pressure tank is damaged or needs a recharge and the pump is failing, so the water pressure is low.

At this moment, I could care less, I'm happy to have a working shower and flushing toilets.

Doubles in yellow

Tomorrow I'll be talking to those folks about my next steps.  It sounds like I get to flush about $1500 into my water.  It is a little upsetting, although when I think of the monthly payments I made to the City of Arvada for water over a year's time, there is an ROI to have my own well.

So, stay calm and carry on, enjoy the flowers and flush away.

Castor Bean leaves & hyacinth bean vines