I’m not upset enough to rant in the Pit, but I thought I’d vent.
I was taking a shower this morning, and the water pressure was very low. “Uh-oh,” quote the Squeegee, and I hike out to the well on the other side of the garage.
The pressure in the tank was 12psi, it should be 40+, and the well pump wasn’t running. I opened up the control box, and found the problem: the wires running from the start capacitor were charred and melted.
I left my number on the well company’s service beeper, and nobody has called back. Not that I blame 'em, who wants to go fix a well pump on a rainy Christmas day?
We’re having family over for the Christmas meal this afternoon, it’s going to be interesting not having any water for dishes and such.
Well, son of a gun. Right as I hit Submit on the OP, my phone rings and it’s the guy from the well company. He was in pretty good humor for having been interrupted on Christmas, and I apologized for bothering him on his holiday.
I told him about the problem, between frequent interruptions from his kids in the background, and we agreed it was an easy fix if he has the right part, which he thinks he does. I told him to just come out when he gets a chance, any time today would be fine. I didn’t want to take him away from his family on Christmas morning.
I’m crossing my fingers, but we just may be able to wash the dinner dishes and give the kid a bath today after all.
I sympathize, squeegee. This has happened to me before. Hopefully you won’t have to pay a small fortune for repairs.
I had to replace my pump about five years ago.
The only problem I have now is it loses it’s prime every few months. It always happens when I’m in the shower, hair lathered up with shampoo and body covered in soap. Never fails. Luckily this pump primes easily. The old one took a couple of hours and battles to the death to prime.
OK, the well repair guy showed up. He had to replace the control box, but it took only 10 minutes. Aqua is flowing again.
The bad news: he says the pump is grounding, which means the electricals have sprung a leak inside the well. This means probably a pump failure and replacement in my sorta-imminent future.
Alls well that ends well.
Merry Christmas!
I speak from experience when I recommend that you replace your pump soon. If you wait for it to fail, fail it will. Murphy’s law will come into play and it will fail at the worst possible time.
Like when you:
1)Are all packed for a three day weekend and have to cancel your trip in order to arrange repairs so that you’ll have water for the work week.
2)Have gone on vacation and your kid calls and says there’s no water, and you’re then at the mercy of a repairman who is 300 miles away, you’re talking to him on the phone, and he can do anything he wants to your well because you’re not there and the kid has to have water.
- Have generations of family over, numbering towards 20 individuals, and the water goes out and of course the toilets don’t flush…
Been there, done that in all of the above circumstances.
Hope it doesn’t cost too much to replace. Merry Christmas right back atcha’.
Been there too. I assume you have a submersible pump. My experience has been that the pump and pipes will hammer the wires against the well casing, maybe you just gotta pull it and replace the wires.
Well (there’s that word again), the odd thing is that the pump was pulled out of the well last spring, and was firing on all cylinders at the time. Now the well guy (the same one who pulled the pump 8 or so months ago) claims the grounding is screwed up, and the pump is probably shot.
I’ve dealt with this well-repairer for several years and he seems very trustworthy, so I believe him when he says something is screwy. Maybe his diagnosis is off and it’s really the wiring and not the pump itself. I guess I’ll have him pull everything out and diagnose the setup in the next couple of weeks.
I can sympathize with you indirectly, having had my own Christmas emergency today. After getting up and doing some early-morning chores I was getting myself some breakfast when I realized that the house seemed awfully cold. After double-checking the thermostat setting I went down in the basement to find that the furnace wasn’t working. I fiddling with it for a while thinking before giving up and calling a furnace repair place. Fortunately, they had someone available who could be at my place in half an hour. He was able to diagnose the problem, and even had the part he needed on hand. It cost me $480.00, but at least we have heat.
Hmm, as long as we’re talking holiday infrastructure horrors…
I recall an incident at my father’s house one Thanksgiving a while, when one of the assembled cooks put many, many potato and carrot peels down the disposal. Pounds of peels. Which promptly solidified into an impenetrable mush-plug in drain.
Several days of roto-rooting followed before the kitchen sink drain (and dishwasher and adjoining bath) worked again.
Since then, I discreetly tell visiting root-peelers to please not use the garbage disposal, thanks very much.
Not an Xmas horror story, but a winter horror story.
I lived in an old brick farmhouse for about 5 years.
One of these years, it’s the middle of winter. Over a foot of snow, temps near the Big 0.
Heat goes out.
For 3 days.
Luckily, the house was brick, so it never got TOO cold. And we had and old cast-iron space heater strange thing.
Ahem.
And as for the OP, that sucks. But at least you had electricity and heat, right?