Last week, just before we left for a few days of skiing, our well controller cacked. This was the second controller; it was the replacement for one that got fried last summer, about 7 days before the warrantly expired. This one, apparently, was not under warranty, being a replacement (although brand new, I guess Gould’s doesn’t warranty replacements). It’s quite annoying. If we installed an entire system with the same replacement controller, it would have been under warranty.
The last word was, that the problem was with voltage spikes in the North Thompson valley which has led me to wonder if Gould’s simply does not warranty parts sold up and down the valley. It’s left Chris scratching his head, as none of our other equipment anywhere on our site (including some pretty heavy duty motors, and pretty light duty baseboard heaters) have fizzled due to supposed voltage spikes.
The system has had problems prior to this. There were some installation issues that were fixed by the person who sold and installed our well equipment in 2007. About a year after a relay fried and we waited five days for a new one. Six months after that, another relay fried, but Chris had the foresight to have one on hand from the previous failure.
A pressure valve has been replaced twice. The second one is still in the system because I could not find anybody today in Barriere who had one.
I think that’s it…but I have a feeling I’ve missed a few other problems.
All of this led to Chris and I spending a fair bit of our get-away time with the kids on the phone and on the internet, looking for options. We’ve discussed long-term plans for our water, which had always included rainwater catchment and cisterns. We have also looked at irrigation issues as our system was also used on our pasture to keep our lambs grass fed throughout the summer. We weiged the cost of a new controller ($1500) with the cost of a simpler system and buying hay this summer. We talked at great length about the opportunity to have a simple, easy to fix system for the long term.
Before we moved from our last place in 2007 Chris had reclaimed a Webtrol submersible pump and controller that we had in our first, surface well. This well had gone dry the summer of the 2003 wildfires and Chris had squirrelled away the equipment once we put new equipment into an existing, underperforming 475 foot well on the property. In desperation at that time, we also installed a 1300 gallon cistern but the well wasn’t up to more than 1/8 gallon per minute. When we drilled a new, 3 gallon a minute well, just before we sold the property, we moved the pump equipment from the deeper well to the new one.
When we returned from our ski getaway, Chris tested the Webtrol pump and was relieved that it all worked. We decided to put this older system in to conserve cash for the earthship construction and make the commitment to searching for a few large cisterns. All of this will be with an eye to eventually installing a low flow DC pump (powered by solar or other method) in the well later, and joining it to a rainwater catchment system from the earthship roof, a design hallmark of this kind of house. We have discussed having a float valve down low in the cistern that would trigger the DC pump from our drilled well, should the cisterns deplete of rainwater.
With that decision, Chris and the kids pulled the pump using a heft log tripod and chain hoist that we already owned. Chris fabricated a pipe puller from threaded pipe so he was able to pull the water pipe up from the pitless.
When I returned from working in Kamloops last night, I had $6 worth of electrical tape and a shrink kit for the electrical connections. ($3.77).
This morning, we tested the Webtrol pump in a garbage can filled with water while Stephen took a video (to be posted at a later date!) It all seemed to work fine and sound great.
Then Chris and Stephen and I attached the pump to the water hose, connected the wires, melted the shrink tubes, attached the torque arrester and began lowering the whole contraption 120 feet into the well. We put Stephen on the safety line and he would give us 8 feet of slack at a time as Chris and I forgoed the chain hoist and lowered the pump hand over hand.
We slipped the fitting into the pitless, Chris hooked up the controller and pressure cut off onto the wall and we gave it a test run. It worked!
There were a few issues…the pitless fitting leaked water, and there were a few other issues with the wiring and fittings in the pumphouse. We pulled the pump up 8 feet to free it from the pitless to discover that the O ring was damaged. We found one a size larger, but I made a trip to Barriere to look for one, and for a new pressure guage and valve and a pressure shut-off. I came back with only a pressure guage and shut-off. Our old shut off worked, so we haven’t installed the new one. We placed the slightly too big O ring in and refitted the pitless. It still leaked! We decided that either the pitless O ring was damaged, or the overlarge corresponding O ring was just too big. We thought it wasn’t seated properly, either and have been debating if the O ring at the pitless is damaged badly enough to hinder proper seating.
For now we are running the water during the day, but will turn it off at night so that the pump doesn’t work as hard maintaining the pressure with a slightly leaky system. I will pick up the remaining parts on Tuesday when I am in Kamloops at work.
So far, total cost to repair system: $9.77 plus lots and lots of expensive engineering time. 🙂