{"id":9539,"date":"2020-09-28T02:17:58","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T02:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ben.akrin.com\/?p=9539"},"modified":"2020-09-28T02:17:58","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T02:17:58","slug":"making-it-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ben.akrin.com\/?p=9539","title":{"rendered":"Making it run"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we drilled our well 4 years ago<\/a>, we didn’t install an electric pump, only a manual one<\/a>. We didn’t have power we could spare, we didn’t know how to run power to the well, we didn’t know how to bring water inside the house, the house didn’t even have its final footprint. All these reasons kept us pumping water by hand and carrying it in the house for years. It’s honestly not a bad chore but it does add up with 4 of us taking showers, on top of the drinking and various other uses. If I had to guess, I would say we use about 20 to 30 gallons every day. Now with the Summer stream shower<\/a> this goes down significantly.<\/p>\n

In any case, I made it my mission this Summer to run water inside the house. I tried very hard to have a professional do the work on the well casing, but not a single contractor was interested in the work. As with roofers, they have a ton of work, they get to pick the easy nice paying jobs. I couldn’t even convince them to give me a high quote. I called everyone in the region, and they were honest in saying in a very typically Vermont way that it was just too much trouble to install a pitless adapter. I was very scared to mess up the well and would have been happy to pay someone with expertise to do it, but no one wanted to, so I didn’t have a choice.<\/p>\n

I spent months researching it, talking to everyone, watching videos, and replaying in my head the motions for what would need to happen the day of. Until finally I felt like I had turned every stone and just had nothing left to inquire. It was time for action.<\/p>\n

One of the complicating factors in this endeavor is the design. Most wells are installed with a pitless adapter under ground and a 110V AC deep well pump in the well itself. That’s what we would have gotten from a contractor and the easy, known to be reliable, choice. However, there are a few things about our situation which don’t necessarily make this the best fit. And so adding to my initial uncertainty about anything touching the well, was the fact that I evaluated designs which aren’t conventional. It’s a bit nerve wracking to question established wisdom having no practical experience on the matter. This is why it took me so long to get to a point where I thought I had it.<\/p>\n

Here are the points which held me back from a conventional in-well setup:<\/p>\n