Insulated Well House

[hunterridgefarm]

Finally got started on the well house! Hope to have it complete in the next few days.

First pic shows 4x4 in ground and footing poured between. I wanted to make it easy to take apart if needed. The footings between the post are about 6" below grade with rebar driven into the ground and laid in the footing. This way if I need to trench fir the work shop hook-up I can remove the sides and lift the footing out.

I might have went a little overboard on the design

2nd and 3rd pic shows framing. all held together with screws, all treated wood. My design will allow me to remove any side by removing 4 screws on the inside and some screws on the outside.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

I wraped the frame in felt paper and put two layers of insulation. One layer was cut to fit inside the frame the second layer was to fit inside nad cover the frame.


Second pic shows wood side. The wood is screwed to the post and nailed to the frame. I should be able to remove the screws on the frame inside and the screws on the post and remove the side.

If all goes as planned I should complete the top and trim work tomorrow.

 

[RadarTech]

nice Loader!

Looks like we must be in the same area..

Having just finished a little well run myself. I thought I would share a few things I learned recently...

1. Pipe heat!
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?acti...44&Ne=4294967294&Ntk=i_products&Ntt=pipe+heat
this stuff is cool!

2. Utility outlet in the pump house... Lights and pipe heat.

3. EXTRA pipe!!!
I bought enough fittings and pipe to replace the last 5-8 feet of the lines from the well head to the ground penetration towards the house.

I figured that if there was enough cold weather to burst the pipe, I may not be able to get off the hill to go get it, or may not be able to find an open store..

One of the building inspectors I had told me that 18-24 inches of dirt is the best insulation we can get.

So I buried the edge of the line under quite a bit of dirt!

just a few thoughts...

Hope it adds to the already great project you have going on there!


Later,
J

 

[BigD23]

Your project's looking good...Here's a pic of my pump house in the snow...The hose bibs are freeze proof and the clamshell top for the house is insulated...The complete cement/wall/floor foundation goes down in the ground over 4 feet...So far it's kept us with water.

Don

 

[westbrooklawn]

I'm in the middle of building a well house right now also. At this point it is covered with an upside down trash can with a some bricks on top (advice of inspector to pass final inspection... albeit not much freeze protection). My question may be a little off topic, but I would like to install a 120 volt connection in the well house to provide for heat tape or a light bulb for heating. There is currently 230v in a junction box at the top of well which provides for the submersible pump... is there any reason I can't pull off one hot leg and the nuetral (and of course ground) to get 115v for what I want? Any electrical guys who could provide some advice? Thanks.

 

[EddieWalker]

I have something similar for my back flow valves on my water line. It's a requirement for commercial water lines that requires the water line to come out of the ground, go through the valve and then back under the ground. Besides being a waste of money, it freezes up solid on cold days. My "well house" is very similar to yours, except I still haven't put in the insulation. Just building the walls and roof have stopped it from freezing up. When it gets down into the teens, it froze up on me and I had to plug in my electric heaters next to it to thaw out my pipes. Not fun on a day when your wife wants to take a shower and do her hair before going to work!!!

One thing that I found out about mine the hard way is that wasps love to make it their home. Every spring I find their nests inside of it. I've learned to open up the top first thing in the morning, when it's cool out and they are less active. Then spray the heck out of it and run like mad!!! I do this two or three times a year. This year I'm going to try putting a bag of mothballs in there and just opening up the bag. Putting them in loose doesn't do anything as they just disappear rather quickly. Maybe a full bag of them, still in the plastic will work?

If you don't have wasps, then it's not a problem. If you do, take a little extra time working on the seals for the opening if possible. I'm still working on mine, but as you can tell, failing at keeping them out.

Eddie

 

[ampsucker]

some more lessons learned:

1. top HAS to be removable so they can pull the pump out of the ground every 10 years or so to replace bad pipe sections or the pump itself. some nice I-bolts or hooks bolted into the framing will really make your well guy appreciate you and cut down on the number of hours he is onsite when trouble comes.

2. a dehumidifier goes a long way in the summer keeping things dry. dry equals less rot and less interest by insects. the cold water pipes will condense ANY moisture out of the air in our july summers. even the smallest dehumdifier will run only occasionally once the air inside the pumphouse is dry. a ventilation fan or extra vent holes on the other hand will only make things worse causing more humid air to enter and be condensed by the cold water surfaces. if you do add ventilation, you will need a way to close it off in the winter anyway. the only place i would use ventilation is above the insulation in the roof to keep air moving in the rafter space.

3. a drain in the floor will also be a nice feature. you can run your dehumidifier output into the drain.

4. make the building tall enough so you can put the bladder tank out there by the pump. not only is that a better design, it frees up space in the house. a large bladder tank in an insulated pump house will keep things from freezing from normal use. here in zone 6 (SE kansas/SW missouri) all we need is a 100 watt light bulb on the very coldest nights to keep things from freezing.

5. if you are out in the boonies, add a transfer switch and plug to your wiring inside your well house so you can plug your generator in and power the well when the power goes off during ice storms. keeping the electronics inside keeps your cost down as you don't have to buy weather rated nema enclosures.

6. as for tapping off one leg of the 240, it might be ok for a very small load. you don't want to do it for larger amp draws as this will lower the total amount you can pull from your breaker (ie if one leg pulls 20 amps and the other is only pulling 5, you'll still pop a 15 amp dipole breaker) and might cause low voltage to one leg of your pump motor which will burn it up quickly. not a cheap motor to replace. if you want to minimize wiring, run larger cable from a bigger service breaker (say 50 amps?) into the well house, then put in a load center box and take a 20 amp dipole to the well motor and use the other breakers to run outlets and lights.

done correctly, the well house can become the center of your yard electrical service and can even be the only place you plug your genny in to get water plus some power to the house. you can run sprinkler controls, light controls, pond pumps, outside circuits for power, etc. all from the well house.

amp

 

[jinman]

My well driller made a point to tell me that I should leave the wellhead out of the wellhouse if possible for future well servicing. He related that it was often not fun to have to tear down a wellhouse to pull the pump. My well is 386' deep, and that's a lot of pipe.

So, for my wellhouse, I built it so the tank and controller are in the main wellhouse, but there is a little removable "dog house" on the side. That way the service truck can back up over the well to pull the pipe and leave the main wellhouse in place. Here's a picture from 8 years ago when it was first built. Luckily, I have not had to use the "dog house" yet. Actually I put anchor bolts into the foundation so if the whole thing has to be removed, all I have to do is unbolt it and lift it off.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Things did not work out...rain...so completion date is set for Jan 1, '09.

RadarTech,

I am a little over an hour east of Ashville in want is considered the foothills of NC. Where are you close to?

Don,

Your house looks good. I hope we don't have the same weather you do.
I just have a dirt floor, I really did not see the need to finish the floor.

Eddie,

Wasp and me don't get alone very well!! I know they will get in so believe me I will be very careful when opening. And yes wives and frozen pipes are no good.

westbrooklawn,

don't worry about the trashcan. I had a cooler, plywood and block on mine all summer.

I don't know about the electrical question. When thet laid the wire for my pump to the house I had then put a 110 outlet at the well. that way I can plug in a 100 watt bulb when the temp get low to keep it warm inside. This alos keeps me from running long extension cords frpm the house when I start work on the pole barn/workshop.

amp,

My bladder tank is in the basement. I only have a small section of exposed pipe. I wraped insulation around it and dug down about a foot in the ground and wraped that. It has been 22 degrees a few nights and it has not froze. The well house is needed for peace of mind since we do get some nights in the low teens and single digets.

Jim,

Thats afine looking well house but in my area people would think I put in an outhouse.

The tallest point on my well house is 3 + foot. The top will be hinged in the back so I can fold it over with the top on the ground. Since my bladder tank is in the basement I made the house as small as possible with enough room to get inside and work.

If we ever need to pull the pump the truck should be able to back over the house without removing the sides. The design took this into account. At my old house we had to replace the pump after 20 years. That well was bored and was a little taller than my current well house.

386' deep try 625' THATS a lot of pipe!

David

 

[Sackett2]

I rebuild my in-laws "pump-house" (that's what they are called around here) from a tin garden shead about a year and a half ago. Some of the features I put in were:
Light and power outlet, borrowed the 110 from the well pump
The second outlet is switched, so the heat lamp or heater doesn't have to be played with.
Redid the piping, new pressure tank in addition to the original. The pump is above ground and provides for two houses; one (mine) is quite a distance away. Have shutoff valves on both pressure tanks, so we can isolate the system without bleeding off the tanks when work needs to be done.
I'll get a picture soon

and for the safety aspect- i learned that a skillsaw can cut you! (really didn't need that lesson)