Well, well, well...

Well... I guess the well is up and running at the church again. They pulled up the old pump on Monday (see the top picture below). It was a 3 7/8" pump inside a 4" pipe, and it took them over 2 hours to get it out. I think it was about 63' deep. The plumbers then came yesterday and put in the new pump. They put in a smaller one (3"). At first they set it where the other one had been, and when they turned it on it started to pump but then went dry. So they dropped it another 40' down, and that appears to be working ok. They say we only have about half the water pressure we should have, and they were somewhat concerned about that. But it's about the same water pressure we had before, and have always had, so hopefully it will be fine.

They let it run from about 1 o'clock until I turned it off at 6 pm. That was to get the bleach and gunk out of the system. At first they ran it from the valve before the tank, and then switched it to the outside faucet on the northeast side of the church. After I unhooked it I ran all the faucets in the church, and I couldn't tell if I still smelled bleach or not, so hopefully it is ok.

The first pic is the old pipe that was taken out, with the pump on the bottom piece. They had to cut it into pieces to get it out. The second piece in has the hole in it (about the size of a pinky). The bottom pic is of our well pit. The garden hose isn't usually there. That's how we had it hooked up when we were pumping water from the parsonage over to the church. I'm hoping the Building & Grounds crew will insulate the pit so maybe the water won't freeze this winter like it always does.

It was not exactly a fun day, because I was all excited when they showed up - thinking it was going to be fixed; then I was really bummed when it didn't work at first; and now I'm leery of how long it's going to last. A real emotional roller coaster, you know. The joys of owning an old country church building. It cost $2265 to have it fixed. At least we don't have to pay for city water though.