The well had already been drilled and was 355 foot deep. The trench was dug from the building site to the well head. I contacted Jim's Pump Service for his bid to install the pump, what type pump and also the pipe size for the water. The contractor came out the following day and inspected the site. He questioned me about the refresh rate of the well.
Thats the amount of water flowing into it which was very low at less than 1 gallon a minute. He estimated the lift from the well head to the building site. His recommendation was a 3/4 horsepower submersible pump. The pump amperage requirements and the distance the electricity has to travel determines the wire size. Now I had all the information needed to start the process.
I needed 620 foot of #6 wire and an equal amount of conduit. I would also need 620 foot of 1 1/2 inch schedule 40 pvc pipe.
Conduit comes in 10 foot lengths meaning we had to glue 62 pieces of it together. I started the process but as the pieces were glued together it was obvious that the wire could not be pushed thru it. I took some builders twine and fastened a weight on the end. I shook the conduit and worked the twine through a length about 60 foot long. Then connecting the wire to the twine pulled it through and added another 60 foot section. The conduit grew in length and as it did the friction of the wires made it increaseingly difficult to pull. I sprayed dish detergent on the wires to lubricate them and allow them to slip through the conduit but even with this I ended up pulling through one 10 foot section at a time.
This completed I placed it into the trench and began glueing the water pipe. This wasn't as time consuming because the water pipe comes in 20 foot lengths and needed no wire pulled through it. Again I placed it in the ditch. Now off to the local truck stop to phone the contractor and schedule installing the pump. Jim was there within a week and he bagan his work. First we needed to dig back from the well head to allow the wire and conduit to reach the well caseing.
I used my wee tractor to do the hard part. Then Jim started the real work. He readied the electric wires next to the well caseing. He also used a torch and cut a hole though the caseing for the pitless adaptor. This is so the water pipe is kept below ground and won't freeze. He wired the pump and placed a length of PVC pipe onto it then useing a crane he started lowering it down into the well 20 foot at a time. I still wonder how much weight that was hanging from the crane. He set the pump 15 foot off the bottom of the well so it 17 sections of pipe. He also was feeding the wires thru spacers to keep then from becoming tangled around the pipe. next he finished off the pipeing to my water line and connected the pump wires to mine. Cross your fingers. We trudged to the top of the hill and made the final temporary connections. We did not have a pressure tank or the final plumbing.
We would just have a switch to turn off and onn the pump. The switch was thrown and with mounting anticipation.. gurgle..spit.. sputter.. gurgle.. WOOSH! I felt the spray of the water. We sat around with that look on our faces. Yeh! Like the cat that just ate the bird. We decided to let the well pump dry let it sit for an hour then repump it dry measureing the water we got.
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Moved into FortuneCity
December 4th, 1997
Updated July 9th, 2002