Sixbears in the Woods: Quick and easy water

StatCounter

Sunday, May 12, 2024

Quick and easy water



Even if everything electrical fails I still have access to good water. It’s just a matter of walking down to the well and getting a bucket of water. That’s great in an emergency. The thing is, water is about eight and a third pounds per gallon. It’s a lot of work to haul water by hand.


That’s why pumps were invented. Unfortunately they don’t last forever. Mine was definitely on its way out. Pressure was dropping, which is a bad sign. Like most of my household infrastructure my water supply system is custom. It’s a shallow well but I use a deep well submersible pump. 


It used to have a nice little shallow well pump that sat next to the well. That was fine when it was a summer cottage. When we moved in full time my quick and dirty winter fix was to build a little heated pump house. That worked until the heater failed and everything froze. By switching to a submersible pump I didn’t have to worry about the pump freezing ever again. 


When I pulled the old submersible pump from the well it was rusty in places and that’s not supposed to happen. It was a sure sign something was failing. 


It took a little trial and error to get everything dialed in but now we have decent water pressure and volume again. 


The water supply is in pretty good shape now. However, I think I’m going to buy a replacement pressure switch in case the old one fails. My guess is that it would be the next part to wear out. It’s best to have that on standby.


-Sixbears


5 comments:

  1. As you've pointed out water is heavy and critical.

    Neither of us are well suited for hauling pails of water from the creek and running it through filters for safety. Snow and ice just add to that problem.

    As the old prepper saw goes, one is one, two is one. Get two "Prepper" style pumps please.

    Speaking of filters do you have 2 "prepper" filters set aside?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm set for water filtration.

      I thought I already had a spare pressure switch but apparently I stored an empty box. Duh.

      Delete
  2. "one is NONE", no edit function.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I keep a pressure switch on hand. They have a tendency to fail after midnight on a weekend.

    ReplyDelete