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It's been crazy busy the last couple months with both businesses, sick family members on both sides of the family needing attention, etc.
Projects started that it was assumed would be able to be finished in a short amount of time have drug on. Such is life around the homestead some times. Gotta make hay while the sun is shining though. However when the balance tips towards work and family, the homestead suffers.
We were right in the middle of our water system upgrade a few months back when all this transpired. I took pics and just found them again on my phone so hence the reason for the thread so much later.....
Ironically enough we had ripped out an old plastic water storage tank. It was elevated, 210 gallons and the placement of it on a side of a hill near the house gave us some slight water pressure.
This thread talks about it a bit and living with low or lower water pressure, etc.
So the new tanks that were promised in a few days, didn't arrive for about a month. If I had been a purist, I would have waited for the new tanks to arrive before ripping out the old, but it wasn't likely TS was going to HTF the next day (and thankfully it didn't...)
So with the old tank out, which was fed primarily from our main well, we waited for the new tanks to come in and ran straight off the main well. Now that well can be run off of our generator set and it's wired for that, but for simplicity sake it's usually ran off commercial AC. It was part of the property when I purchased the property, I did not put it in.
We come home one night from traveling training and noticed water pressure was a tad bit lower, but nothing significant.
The next morning it was apparent "houston we have a problem."
Went over with my handy dandy ammo can with tools, extra caps, fuses, pressure switch, snifter, pressure gauges, etc.
Over 14 years here, I've gotten like the Dad on "Christmas Story" when he's changing the tire- "5 minutes, TIME ME!" When it comes to well repairs. I can usually get the pump up and running again pretty quickly like that.
This is what I see when I take the front cover off the controller box.
Not good. Look closely at how it looks like something exploded in there- it did. Not sure how good you can see it in the pic but the black capacitor is blown, the silver one also, although less noticeable. There is a connection with a white tube that was blown out also.
OK,
So I go into parts replacement mode, "I got this" I think..... LOL
Replace both of the capacitors, obviously the black one is toast but can't be sure about the silver one. Good assumption it's probably trashed also.
Check power in at the top of the knife switch
Yes, old as the hills knife switch, again this was already on the property when I purchased, it's since been changed out to something a little newer.
So I switch the fuses out in the knife ("not a duck! A knife!" Anyone??) switch. Power shows good in to the top of the switch now. Here goes everything.... Throws the switch.
Notice a small electrical arc across one of the fuses. Hmmm. That's never happened before. Turn switch off. Caps still look good, don't think anything blew there... Replace fuse, throw switch again. Same deal- arc and slight flash.
Pressure switch? Thinking no as you can usually hear the pump running when the pressure switch isn't working. Well, it's my last try.
Here is a pressure switch, it's designed to shut the pump off when the pressure in the tank reaches a certain amount-
Now in proper condition this switch will cycle potentially hundreds of times every day. This is one of the parts I've had to switch out more than any others. You'll want about 3-5 of these in your well repair box- better yet AMMO CAN.
If you can zoom in on the pic it will show slightly blackened on the contacts, I'm trying to hold the camera and point to that in the pic.
Now this particular switch can be used in a 110 setup or in a 220 setup and they told me years ago that if your using it for 110 you can just flip flop the wires to the other side if the one goes out or you think it's gone out. Since I was pretty sure the pressure switch was working properly but just wanted to rule it out, I switched the wiring to the opposite side.
Alright, now I've switched out every ABOVE GROUND electrical component. This should work right?
Fuse pops again. OK, I know when to tap out.... I don't have the apparatus to pull a deep well pump and drop pipe.
The pump itself was the problem. I was told that a "power surge" hit the well. We happened to be gone the night before, I said "you think lightning?" Well guy lives not far and he said "we didn't get any lightning last night. I think this came in from the power line."
So a "power surge" from the power line came in that was strong enough to trash our well but caused NO OTHER damage to anything remotely connected to the grid.
Now I said above that "the pump itself was the problem", well actually the pump AND the wire both got toasted... So attempting to re-use the wire failed. The wire had to be replaced also.
Meanwhile, back on the other side of the "ranch" (joking about the "ranch" part)
My solar well never skipped a beat, some commercial irrigation pumps on that power pole that the main well that did take the hit never skipped a beat also.
I've given up hope that standard wells like this will be able to survive an EMP....
I believe whatever caused the "power surge" was obviously something in the power line, hence why my AE system at my house 50 yards away was not damaged, nor any other electrical component in the area. Whatever "power surge" this was probably sought to go to ground, and what better ground than almost 200 feet of metal pipe in the ground? The power lines were the "antenna" and that well was the "ground" taking the blunt of the damage.
That's just my theory but the well guy seemed to agree.
So question number 1 would be: What can we do to harden this more?
Question number 2: Backups. We have a dedicated deep well hand pump. It's kinda of our "EMP backup to backups" well. That being said, it's a last resort. Now the 1st solar well was chugging away fine, the 550 gallon tank was full. However being in the middle of this water system upgrade, the pipe supplying one end of the house from that well was literally about 20 feet from the house when this happened.... LMAO (now, not then..) Why was that not completed then? TIME. Also in a "do it once and do it right" mode of thought, I was waiting to trench in a line from the other side wherein another solar well is, tying together my "grid" of water. I got into geeky analytical mode and I paid the price for it. I should of- and did after that- just run the water into the house and left a stub to tie in from the other side WHEN that part is accomplished and looked at it as several "parts" to be pieced together. As they say, the enemy of "the best" is "good enough" only this time it was "good enough for now, when their is more time I'll....." yep, I'm willing to admit my mistakes, hopefully you'll learn from them without having to bail water into your house in 5 gallon buckets.
I was sitting taking an "elephant bath" in cold water in a nice big tub thinking of the irony of the whole situation. Yes we had water, but a little more of a "push" would have made it much more palatable at the time.
So, think about hardening your well AND creating good backups.
Long term, I'm thinking I will put up another Sunpump AND the wiring, charge controller and another panel. We can easily lower another Sun Pump into the ground by hand. Pulling metal drop pipe I guess could maybe be done off a really tall ladder from someone with a lot of.... gumption? On the SunPump the drop pipe is some heavy duty black poly pipe- it was fed into the well casing by hand.
What else can be done?
Projects started that it was assumed would be able to be finished in a short amount of time have drug on. Such is life around the homestead some times. Gotta make hay while the sun is shining though. However when the balance tips towards work and family, the homestead suffers.
We were right in the middle of our water system upgrade a few months back when all this transpired. I took pics and just found them again on my phone so hence the reason for the thread so much later.....
Ironically enough we had ripped out an old plastic water storage tank. It was elevated, 210 gallons and the placement of it on a side of a hill near the house gave us some slight water pressure.
This thread talks about it a bit and living with low or lower water pressure, etc.
So the new tanks that were promised in a few days, didn't arrive for about a month. If I had been a purist, I would have waited for the new tanks to arrive before ripping out the old, but it wasn't likely TS was going to HTF the next day (and thankfully it didn't...)
So with the old tank out, which was fed primarily from our main well, we waited for the new tanks to come in and ran straight off the main well. Now that well can be run off of our generator set and it's wired for that, but for simplicity sake it's usually ran off commercial AC. It was part of the property when I purchased the property, I did not put it in.
We come home one night from traveling training and noticed water pressure was a tad bit lower, but nothing significant.
The next morning it was apparent "houston we have a problem."
Went over with my handy dandy ammo can with tools, extra caps, fuses, pressure switch, snifter, pressure gauges, etc.
Over 14 years here, I've gotten like the Dad on "Christmas Story" when he's changing the tire- "5 minutes, TIME ME!" When it comes to well repairs. I can usually get the pump up and running again pretty quickly like that.
This is what I see when I take the front cover off the controller box.
Not good. Look closely at how it looks like something exploded in there- it did. Not sure how good you can see it in the pic but the black capacitor is blown, the silver one also, although less noticeable. There is a connection with a white tube that was blown out also.
OK,
So I go into parts replacement mode, "I got this" I think..... LOL
Replace both of the capacitors, obviously the black one is toast but can't be sure about the silver one. Good assumption it's probably trashed also.
Check power in at the top of the knife switch
Yes, old as the hills knife switch, again this was already on the property when I purchased, it's since been changed out to something a little newer.
So I switch the fuses out in the knife ("not a duck! A knife!" Anyone??) switch. Power shows good in to the top of the switch now. Here goes everything.... Throws the switch.
Notice a small electrical arc across one of the fuses. Hmmm. That's never happened before. Turn switch off. Caps still look good, don't think anything blew there... Replace fuse, throw switch again. Same deal- arc and slight flash.
Pressure switch? Thinking no as you can usually hear the pump running when the pressure switch isn't working. Well, it's my last try.
Here is a pressure switch, it's designed to shut the pump off when the pressure in the tank reaches a certain amount-
Now in proper condition this switch will cycle potentially hundreds of times every day. This is one of the parts I've had to switch out more than any others. You'll want about 3-5 of these in your well repair box- better yet AMMO CAN.
If you can zoom in on the pic it will show slightly blackened on the contacts, I'm trying to hold the camera and point to that in the pic.
Now this particular switch can be used in a 110 setup or in a 220 setup and they told me years ago that if your using it for 110 you can just flip flop the wires to the other side if the one goes out or you think it's gone out. Since I was pretty sure the pressure switch was working properly but just wanted to rule it out, I switched the wiring to the opposite side.
Alright, now I've switched out every ABOVE GROUND electrical component. This should work right?
Fuse pops again. OK, I know when to tap out.... I don't have the apparatus to pull a deep well pump and drop pipe.
The pump itself was the problem. I was told that a "power surge" hit the well. We happened to be gone the night before, I said "you think lightning?" Well guy lives not far and he said "we didn't get any lightning last night. I think this came in from the power line."
So a "power surge" from the power line came in that was strong enough to trash our well but caused NO OTHER damage to anything remotely connected to the grid.
Now I said above that "the pump itself was the problem", well actually the pump AND the wire both got toasted... So attempting to re-use the wire failed. The wire had to be replaced also.
Meanwhile, back on the other side of the "ranch" (joking about the "ranch" part)
My solar well never skipped a beat, some commercial irrigation pumps on that power pole that the main well that did take the hit never skipped a beat also.
I've given up hope that standard wells like this will be able to survive an EMP....
I believe whatever caused the "power surge" was obviously something in the power line, hence why my AE system at my house 50 yards away was not damaged, nor any other electrical component in the area. Whatever "power surge" this was probably sought to go to ground, and what better ground than almost 200 feet of metal pipe in the ground? The power lines were the "antenna" and that well was the "ground" taking the blunt of the damage.
That's just my theory but the well guy seemed to agree.
So question number 1 would be: What can we do to harden this more?
Question number 2: Backups. We have a dedicated deep well hand pump. It's kinda of our "EMP backup to backups" well. That being said, it's a last resort. Now the 1st solar well was chugging away fine, the 550 gallon tank was full. However being in the middle of this water system upgrade, the pipe supplying one end of the house from that well was literally about 20 feet from the house when this happened.... LMAO (now, not then..) Why was that not completed then? TIME. Also in a "do it once and do it right" mode of thought, I was waiting to trench in a line from the other side wherein another solar well is, tying together my "grid" of water. I got into geeky analytical mode and I paid the price for it. I should of- and did after that- just run the water into the house and left a stub to tie in from the other side WHEN that part is accomplished and looked at it as several "parts" to be pieced together. As they say, the enemy of "the best" is "good enough" only this time it was "good enough for now, when their is more time I'll....." yep, I'm willing to admit my mistakes, hopefully you'll learn from them without having to bail water into your house in 5 gallon buckets.
I was sitting taking an "elephant bath" in cold water in a nice big tub thinking of the irony of the whole situation. Yes we had water, but a little more of a "push" would have made it much more palatable at the time.
So, think about hardening your well AND creating good backups.
Long term, I'm thinking I will put up another Sunpump AND the wiring, charge controller and another panel. We can easily lower another Sun Pump into the ground by hand. Pulling metal drop pipe I guess could maybe be done off a really tall ladder from someone with a lot of.... gumption? On the SunPump the drop pipe is some heavy duty black poly pipe- it was fed into the well casing by hand.
What else can be done?
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