PaulT
Gold Member
So now we have the hole dug. What next? put the tank in, of course! We filled the hole with about 6-8 inches of pea gravel, leveled it and tamped it down. (Armstrong tamper, of course - best make of tool around/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif). First we slid it in place by pushing it with the FEL.
While it wasn't that heavy, it was still too heavy to lift by hand (250#), and too big to lift by chaining it to the FEL. We finally drove 2 stakes into the ground on the opposite side of the hole, tied some tie-down straps to the stakes, ran them across the hole, and under the ribs of the tank, and finally up to the crossbar of the FEL in a part-raised position. As I lifted the tank by raising the FEL further, my other buddy Kevin steadied the tank.
I thought it would slide right in and keep level, too/w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif. Unfortunately, there was enough friction on the strap that we needed to push it with our legs. Using this method, we jockeyed it back and forth between the walls of the "canyon" we had dug. As it finally came to rest, the level was dead nuts on/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif, woohoo!
The instructions for backfilling the hole said to fill the tank as you backfill with gravel in order to avoid collapse. Well, the whole reason I was doing this was because I didn't have an adequate water supply. I chose a 1200 gallon tank so I would have an excess capacity. The current problem was, where do I get the excess capacity of water to back fill? I guess I would have to fill it over a few days.
First I installed the bulkhead fittings (the holesaw cut out some nice disks - the walls are 1/2 inch thick - one tough tank/w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif)
Then I cut into the water line and plumbed the PVC pipes into the tank.
Inside the tank I rigged up two 90 elbows, some short straight sections, and a compression union fitting, effectively bypassing the tank. Now I can continue to feed the house with water AND fill the tank with the garden hose (although slowly). Each night I came home and ran the well dry filling the tank about 70 gallons at a time, then waited a few hours and did it again. After 4 days, I had enough water in the tank to cover the foot valve (the pickup point for the jet pump).
I had to install the jet pump and remove the bypass on the same night, or we wouldn't have water working. I cut the existing copper line and plumbed in the jet pump with galvanized threaded pipe. The pump has compression fittings on each end, so if (or should I say when) the pump fails, I can just slide the fittings back and remove it - no extra plumbing or pipefitting work.
Next I climbed into the half full tank (of course I was scrubbed clean - we were going to drink that water/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif) and removed the bypass pipes and installed the check valve and foot valve. I went back inside, crossed my fingers and turned on the power to the jet pump. The contacts in the pressure switch supplied with the pump wouldn't stay closed! By this time it was very late, so I just jumpered the power to the old pressure switch that had been controlling the well pump. (By now the well pump was wired directly to the circuit, and the pumptec (see Part 1) was controlling it, as I wanted it to run whenever there was water in order to continue filling the tank.) Viola, it worked/w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif
The only things left to do were connect and calibrate the float valve, install the air vent, seal the covers and neaten everything up.
I set the float valve to turn on when the tank was about 55% full, and turn off when the tank was about 95% full. I used UV resistant PVC conduit for both the wiring and the air vent, underground at the level of the tank lid where they entered. I trenched this over to the well head and attached a 4x4 waterproof electrical junction box to it. I put an inverted "j" end on the air vent conduit and tucked it behind the junction box. Then I used some aluminum screening folded over a few times and stuffed that into the end to keep wasps etc. out. That finished off the outdoor work/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
(insert photo of well head here)
Inside, the finishing touches included a new pressure switch and gauge and rigid foam insulation to keep the pump noise down.
Everything is working fine, and I figured I saved about $2500 to $3000 over having someone do the job for me, or having someone dig the well deeper. The guy that originally dug it in 1979 thought that he might have to go down as far as 500 feet, based on his experience with new wells going in around me. With a new 1.5 hp pump for a real deep well, plus labor etc, that would have easily topped the $5k mark, with no guarantees /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif
Sorry for the long narrative. Although it probably doesn't seem that way, there are many little details I left out/w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif. If anyone (like MarkV) wants to know more, ask away!
PaulT
While it wasn't that heavy, it was still too heavy to lift by hand (250#), and too big to lift by chaining it to the FEL. We finally drove 2 stakes into the ground on the opposite side of the hole, tied some tie-down straps to the stakes, ran them across the hole, and under the ribs of the tank, and finally up to the crossbar of the FEL in a part-raised position. As I lifted the tank by raising the FEL further, my other buddy Kevin steadied the tank.
I thought it would slide right in and keep level, too/w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif. Unfortunately, there was enough friction on the strap that we needed to push it with our legs. Using this method, we jockeyed it back and forth between the walls of the "canyon" we had dug. As it finally came to rest, the level was dead nuts on/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif, woohoo!
The instructions for backfilling the hole said to fill the tank as you backfill with gravel in order to avoid collapse. Well, the whole reason I was doing this was because I didn't have an adequate water supply. I chose a 1200 gallon tank so I would have an excess capacity. The current problem was, where do I get the excess capacity of water to back fill? I guess I would have to fill it over a few days.
First I installed the bulkhead fittings (the holesaw cut out some nice disks - the walls are 1/2 inch thick - one tough tank/w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif)
Then I cut into the water line and plumbed the PVC pipes into the tank.
Inside the tank I rigged up two 90 elbows, some short straight sections, and a compression union fitting, effectively bypassing the tank. Now I can continue to feed the house with water AND fill the tank with the garden hose (although slowly). Each night I came home and ran the well dry filling the tank about 70 gallons at a time, then waited a few hours and did it again. After 4 days, I had enough water in the tank to cover the foot valve (the pickup point for the jet pump).
I had to install the jet pump and remove the bypass on the same night, or we wouldn't have water working. I cut the existing copper line and plumbed in the jet pump with galvanized threaded pipe. The pump has compression fittings on each end, so if (or should I say when) the pump fails, I can just slide the fittings back and remove it - no extra plumbing or pipefitting work.
Next I climbed into the half full tank (of course I was scrubbed clean - we were going to drink that water/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif) and removed the bypass pipes and installed the check valve and foot valve. I went back inside, crossed my fingers and turned on the power to the jet pump. The contacts in the pressure switch supplied with the pump wouldn't stay closed! By this time it was very late, so I just jumpered the power to the old pressure switch that had been controlling the well pump. (By now the well pump was wired directly to the circuit, and the pumptec (see Part 1) was controlling it, as I wanted it to run whenever there was water in order to continue filling the tank.) Viola, it worked/w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif
The only things left to do were connect and calibrate the float valve, install the air vent, seal the covers and neaten everything up.
I set the float valve to turn on when the tank was about 55% full, and turn off when the tank was about 95% full. I used UV resistant PVC conduit for both the wiring and the air vent, underground at the level of the tank lid where they entered. I trenched this over to the well head and attached a 4x4 waterproof electrical junction box to it. I put an inverted "j" end on the air vent conduit and tucked it behind the junction box. Then I used some aluminum screening folded over a few times and stuffed that into the end to keep wasps etc. out. That finished off the outdoor work/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
(insert photo of well head here)
Inside, the finishing touches included a new pressure switch and gauge and rigid foam insulation to keep the pump noise down.
Everything is working fine, and I figured I saved about $2500 to $3000 over having someone do the job for me, or having someone dig the well deeper. The guy that originally dug it in 1979 thought that he might have to go down as far as 500 feet, based on his experience with new wells going in around me. With a new 1.5 hp pump for a real deep well, plus labor etc, that would have easily topped the $5k mark, with no guarantees /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif
Sorry for the long narrative. Although it probably doesn't seem that way, there are many little details I left out/w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif. If anyone (like MarkV) wants to know more, ask away!
PaulT