We have learned so many lessons these past few years and gained a wealth of knowledge, but as we were reminded of this week --we have sooooo much to learn!
On Monday morning I went out to do morning chores and when I turned on the well pump NOTHING happened!! Called my hubby who said the handle must be frozen due to our amazing Iowa winter that has seemed to go on forever. He would take care of it when he got home --NOT!
After 4 days of carrying 5 gallon buckets of water (my poor husband's back was at the brink of breaking!) from the house to the cows, goats, etc I finally called a repairman. Keep in mind that we have never had our well pipe freeze and it has been lots colder here than it is now. I was sure it was the pump gone bad or something horribly expensive to fix. The repair man was here Thursday for 5 minutes in the pit and knew it was frozen. Apparently the southeastern winds freeze them faster than anything. We informed him that we haven't ever had this problem. He replied "I've heard that a thousand times this last week".
He also informed us that we should have a pressure tank in the pit so that when the pump does it's job and pumps tons of water that the spicket cannot possibly pour out fast enough it doesn't burn up the pump eventually! Had no idea that this could happen to a pump that he says should go forever! That would have been a cool $1500 fix! Yikes! While we had him here we decided the $350 investment for such a pressure tank was a good investment and had him install it as well as put in an outlet for a heat lamp. Took about an hour and voila running water again! Yay!!
This morning the darn thing was frozen again due to the heat lamp he put on it was shattered, so again we thawed the pipes which was a 30 minute fix and replaced the heat lamp bulb. Hopefully the new tarp, hay and wood we put over it all will fix the heat lamp problem and we are good to go for the remainder of winter --which I hope is not much longer!!
This summer will be a revamp of the whole coverage we have on it to hopefully prevent all this in future years!
HAVE A GREAT DAY AND STAY WARM!!
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