07.28.08
Water and air.
Having your own well comes with many advantages. There’s the taste of fresh cold water, colder than many public water systems because it originates 100 feet below the ground, and it has an almost sweet flavor. The connection water lines that come from the public water company in my area run 3 feet below ground, and during the summer months it can take quite a long time of running the water before it becomes cold. There are areas in the country where I’m told the lines run only 12 inches deep. Another benefit is NO CHLORINE! It ruin’s the taste of coffee, dulls the color of your clothes, and smells. As a customer, you have no control over the amount of chlorine that is added. Having a pond, and having to perform frequent large volume water changes makes non-chlorinated water a blessing. Otherwise I’d be adding chemicals to the water with each water change which would become very costly.
There are several disadvantages also. If the power goes out, so does the well. Because we have private water, and public sewer, we pay a flat rate every three months as opposed to having the sewer bill tied to the water meter. The greatest disadvantage for us is that our water tank is the original 100 gallon tank that came with the house when it was built nearly 80 years ago. It’s galvanized steel and there is no air baffle bladder per se. The way it works is this. Every 6 months to a year, you are supposed to turn off the pump, drain the tank to empty, fill it with 20 pounds of air using an air compressor, close all the valves, and then turn on the pump which fills it to 40 pounds. The problem is that we don’t have an air compressor. So each time we had a plumber here to fix a pipe, or the last time we had to replace the pump, we’d have them fill the tank. The last time this was done was about a year and a half ago. Trouble is, over time air slowly leaks out. The baffle serves as a buffer so that the pump doesn’t have to run every time you turn on a faucet or flush the toilet. The on and off is what kills a well pump.
We talked about this and today, Daniel picked one up. After trial and error, I realized the force with which I had to press the nozzle from the pump to the Schrader valve we had installed the last time the pump was replaced was tremendous and awkward to boot, because the valve is on the back of the water tank. The nozzle on the air compressor is like one you would use to inflate the tires on your car. The compressor Daniel purchased is small with a reservoir tank about the size of a football. It is rated a 100 pounds, and it takes about 2 minutes to fill the tank from 0 to 100 pounds. After one hour of repeatedly adding air to the water tank every few minutes, remember it’s 100 gallons, and that’s a lot of space, I was getting tired. To boot, I’d reached 6 pounds of pressure. I figured there’s gotta be a better way, so I went digging in the attachments. Low and behold I found what I was looking for, an adapter that screws onto the Schrader valve. From that point it was smooth sailing. I was finished in another 30 minutes. So from now on, every 6 months of so, reconditioning the water tank air baffle will become another chore, but one far less taxing or expensive. At $250.00 an hour for a plumber, $70.00 for the compressor was a steal.
O.P.W.