Pumping Iron, or What Not To Do, Again

So... Someone, for a few years now, has thought it'd be slick to have a hand-pump as a secondary water source in case of power outages and similar events. Someone knew just how much water is used in this house, for flushing the toilet and watering dogs and washing up. This was highlighted awhile ago when we had to replace the well pump and bucketed home water for a week, gallons and gallons of it.

So someone thought it'd be a good idea to get on with this project...

Par for the course, I've never done this before. It didn't seem too complicated, you hammer in a pipe and add more pipe until you hit water; then you attach a hand pump. If you don't hit water, you try again elsewhere or give up for another year or so or talk to the 'well guys' about putting a second pipe inside your deep-well housing. (I hear the latter can be done, if you use check valves and such for the shallow pump to pull up from, but I'm not sure if it works - and I didn't want to mess with the wires in the well.)

Living on faith and intuition... Universe nudged me that way, and I had the opportunity to pursue it. Not sure if it was logic or divine guidance, but it seemed the place to set this up was outside 'where the back door used to be'. I can say, when they show the dudes on "Dual Survival" digging an eighteen-inch hole in the desert and finding water is not exactly how it worked here - and we're surrounded by water. (Go figure.)

I dug out an area for a foundation of sorts, since the shed itself will be freestanding (just next to the house with a doorway between) and then post-holed down a couple of feet. We have been terribly dry here and the clay was hard as stone, thought I'd mention this. Then I banged in the sandpoint for the first time.

I had about a 6-foot section of pipe, but the method of whacking that is not recommended stripped out the threads. Mendards thought I could whack a spare coupling as a drive cap in order to use a fence post pounder, since a regular drive cap wouldn't fit in it. Mendards was wrong. The bottom threads broke in the coupling to the sandpoint. I took the pipe to Ace Hardware so they could re-thread both ends, then I had to blast out the sandpoint (most of it was whacked in the bottom of the post hole) to pry the bad coupling off it. Spent a day undoing things; the hose in section of fence pipe blasted the soil loose around the sandpoint, then the shop vac sucked up and clogged on the dirt - repeated that about 100 times until I retrieved the sandpoint.

Friend Marvin then loaned me a 'real pipe pounder', about a 60-pound one, and I bought a drive cap. FYI, Mendards doesn't sell 'real pipe pounders' or I'd have bought one the first day. If you're counting, that is now two ruined couplings - the one I was using as a drive cap stripped threads and the other one had 'snapped pipe' jammed in it. I was beginning to wonder if the Universe really wanted me to do this, or if I should just go bake a cake or something. However, I persisted.

Then I actually got a couple of sections of pipe in! I didn't get any water, but I was feeling pretty confident that I was on the right track. Bought another 5-foot pipe to finish 'er up with, and...

Bent the durn thing trying to hoist off the pounder to make sure the drive cap was still tight and snapped off the 'pounded' pipe at the coupling - yee-ha! It was about a foot out of the hole yet. So I learned about re-threading pipe via renting a pipe threader from General Rental. Pete stopped to assist, but it was more than he had oomph for; he offered to try and find some Muscle to send over. Since I am a patient kind of person, I waited until he left (I think he was trying to run to his truck to get out of here, but he was still winded) and then I applied 'my muscle' - i.e. foot.

Sitting in the dirt, bottom wrench in both hands holding the pipe, foot forcing the pipe threader 'one more click'... and I managed to re-thread the pipe! (Another First in my life, yay.) Got the coupling on straight and the last section of pipe on, banged it down...

And the string with the washers on it came back up wet.

Shocking moment, almost surreal - maybe I'd actually done it?! Then I realized I had just filled in the hole around the pipe to add support, using the hose to wash the dirt down - could just be hose water in the sandpoint. Tricky, tricky... Universe could be spoofing me. I did have to get the pipe threader back to the shop, so called it another day.

If you're counting, that is three mangled couplings. I didn't know I could 'break pipe'.

It does seem we now have a secondary water source. The hand pump isn't installed yet, needs a shelf (and a floor and a few walls and a roof), but it's ready to be attached.

Hell of an exercise program.

Around Day #2 or #3, I started questioning this 'acting on faith and intuition' - I wanted the Universe to give me a reassuring sign that water would be forthcoming. Hmm. I realized if a person (me) wants the results guaranteed before acting, then it's hard to say it's 'faith and intuition'. I realized all I could do was proceed to the best of my ability, and if it failed, then at least I tried - and I'd have to suck it up. It did challenge me several times, wondering if I should just give up or holler for help; cussing and cross-eyed frustration - when you don't know if things are going to work out or if it's beyond your abilities no matter what you do. But you keep on tackling it 'one more time' until you prove it.

I got lucky - it worked. For all the people in the world everywhere digging and banging with the hope of finding water, I'm not that exceptional - and I wish them all the best. If we ever need this back-up here, it will make it all worthwhile. Somehow, I feel like I followed 'gut instinct' on this one, and that's what I was supposed to do.

My back-up plan, should water not be forthcoming and we had a power outage, was to hand everyone their own 'bathroom bucket' and let them manage on their own. Life just gets tougher when water isn't easily accessible - lived it a few times. That's why I did this.