Well Whinge
by wjw on September 10, 2011
We’ve had two days of clouds and rain, and that’s lowered the temperature enough so that this was the first day since May, maybe, when we haven’t had to turn on the AC.
I hope that the rain is raising the water table. We live in the country, and that means our water comes from a well. Even at the best of times the water is hard, and we use a water softener to make it something we actually want to wash our stuff in. Except that this year’s been so dry that the water table’s gone down, and our desperate little well pump is reduced to sucking up all this muck from the bottom of the well pipe and shooting it into the house.
I can live with water that isn’t exactly crystal-clear, I guess, but the crap in the water is jamming or blocking all the appliances that use H2O. The water softener has been out of service more weeks than it’s been working. The filters on the washing machine are so dirty that only a trickle of water is getting through. (Yes, I can clean them. I know. It’s just another annoyance.) I don’t know why the dishwasher continues to work— but then of course the dishes look a little dingy even after they’ve been cleaned.
So rain, you bastard sky! Rain! I need a higher water table.
Today the Weather Service informed us that it looks as if next year is going to be a replay of this year— I guess in 2012 the East will drown again, while the Southwest burns— except that, with the water table low and the reservoirs drained by two years of drought, we may not have the water to put the fires out.
So . . . something else to look forward to.
Not to bring you down or anything.
Walter, you need to move to Manchester!
Yesterday I went for a walk, and the sun shone, and I didn’t get wet! Amazing!
It was raining when I woke up this morning though …
Jason says “If it’s any consolation, it’s not looking like a particularly STRONG la nina year.” Somehow I doubt that’s much consolation. As another well-user, I feel for you. My well is not particularly deep and when it rained and rained this week, I tried to be happy for my well as I eyed the grass growing. The especially heavy rains were to our east. We had half an inch when locations 30 miles east had 8-10 inches. I’ll take my half inch.
The well on my three-acre fiefdom remains a source of concern, though after a 3 am wake-up call this week — where I was informed a 12″ water main had ruptured in the street and was flooding my rental house in town — the well’s starting to look a bit better.
Last winter’s La Nina dumped so much snow on us in March that I seriously considered firing a few shotgun blasts into sky as a warning to the weather that I’d had enough.
The well’s in great shape, but my back still hasn’t recovered. Be happy to send a few truckloads of the white stuff your way this winter if you still need it (maybe I’ll send it via mail…).
I also recently had problems with clogging of the appliances pipes and it was a not too nice experience.
Hopefully in 2012 things might go a little better…………
You might consider installing a large sediment filter upstream of everything that doesn’t like crud in the water (softener, washer, water heater, etc). I put one of these in when I replaced my softener a couple years ago and it collects the sand from my well that would otherwise end up gumming up the works.
http://www.amazon.com/Pentek-HFPP-1-WPR10-Whole-Filter-Housing/dp/B004H33B5W
There are a bunch of different types of filter elements you can put in this type of housing depending on what you want to get rid of …
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