This is the giant roll of plastic water pipe that will not only go into the well to bring water up but also to take water from the well to the temporary lawn hydrant and eventually into the carriage house.
The first thing we did was to mark off 180' of our safety rope, which is the depth where the pump will sit. Then Jim unrolled the water pipe to cut off 180' of it. As you can see, it was a bit unwieldy to roll out!
We put stakes along the way to tie the pipe to to hold it in place. At the end, Jim carefully taped it up so avoid little creatures getting in and making a home in our pipes.
It's hard to tell from this picture, but 180' is a long way! Especially when you think that all of that rope and pipe are going to be that far underground. And then have to pump water all that way up.
Next, was to cut off a 20' piece of pipe. This is the piece that will connect to the lawn hydrant.
Jim marked the area where the piping will go. It has to be 4' underground - below the frost level so nothing freezes.
Then it was time for some excavating. A 4' deep, semi-circle trench is a bit harder than what we had to do for the electric line - although much, much shorter thankfully! Plus care is required because Jim had to dig right next to the well casing. That has to be exposed all the way down to where we will cut into the casing to connect everything up - again, has to be below the frost line.
As I was watching Jim dig, I had to chuckle...the 1-800-No Sweat marking reads 1-800-No Swear on this side. Which could be much more appropriate sometimes!
It wasn't long before Jim had it done.
Of course, it required a little hand crumbing, especially near the well casing. Again, worried about Jim's knee during this process...he was in and out of this trench dozens of times before it was all said and done.
Next, hooking up the lawn hydrant - connecting the water pipe to this end.
And then the really scary part - drilling a hole into the well casing. Once we started this, there was no turning back - everything had to be sealed back up so that the well wasn't contaminated. By this time, it was after 3:30 or so. Rain was forecast for late evening. But we pressed on. The casing is obviously heavy steel - so it took what felt like a long time to drill through - and that was just me watching!
But finally....success! We now have a hole in our casing!
Now we had to seal everything up. Jim bought all stainless steel fittings and connections since this is all going to be underground for a very long time. He got a "pitless" adaptor to connect the water pipe to the pump - so once it's all in, the pump can be attached and everything connected from the top. So the first step was to attach the adapter to this long iron pipe - and fit it through the hole he just drilled.
And there it is!
Then it was attaching all the connecting hardware on the outside to seal everything up permanently.
Things had to be straightened up and insure that everything was in the proper place for all the connections to come.
Hooking up the water pipe to the well end.
Then it was filling it in! First some sand just for protection of the pipe and fittings.
At the lawn hydrant end, it sat in the trench on that concrete block seen in earlier pictures. There is a weep hole at the end of the hydrant so that it can be used in the winter...excess water will weep out that little hole underneath the frost line so that nothing freezes up. But we had to cover that weep hole with rocks to give the water a good place to flow. Luckily, finding rocks around the property is certainly not hard! Jim brought the Bobcat over to the edge of the driveway where we trenched and I gathered a bucket of rocks that we used to fill up this area.
Then a light load of dirt that Jim shoveled in by hand over the top of the water pipe.
And then finished up backfilling and grading everything off. Ta da! All done! Until the next step of installing the pump. A great day's work!
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