Almost Easy

I believe we have topped out. We ran out of concrete before we filled absolutely every cell in the blocks but we are real close and will only take a few more bags. I am very pleased with the state of the spring and water system now. I think it all went well and turned out great; despite being extremely hard, physically, to do. I feel, and I think Jack would agree, that I have been beaten with a 2 x 4.

I was not pleased with how that shelf came out over the rock ledge so we bought 2 more bags of the quick setting concrete and I went back down to shore it up. Basically, I just mixed it up down in the hole and jammed it in the cavities while Jack kept the water pumped down. You can see one of the main inlets right in front of my right hand.

This set up very quickly and I was pleased with the result. By doing this I also confirmed that the hole is also big enough to actually do some work down there. I mean, it's not terribly comfortable, but it is workable.

I am still astounded at how fast the water cleared up and how clear it is now. The only murkiness is from the concrete residue and when this clears I suspect the water will be almost crystal clear.

This is standing at the spring looking up towards the pump house. Of course you know, all could not go well. As sure as Murphy's Law exists, no good deed goes unpunished and if everything is coming your way you must be in the wrong lane, we did have some problems. After the spring was done and we were trying to clean up, we hooked everything back up in order to use the water to clean up. In my exhaustion I forgot to reopen the valve above the spring. I have a very good pump and it tried very hard to do it's job and in doing so cracked the connections both going in and coming out of it's housing. It didn't take long for me to realize what I had done but by then water was running everywhere out of the pump. So, Jack spent most of the day finding parts to fix those connections. Finally, about 5 p.m. today he finished the connections and we had water again. Hopefully,it will go a looooong time now with no problems. Anybody that has been following this blog for sometime knows I have had problems with those connections before, so Jack used some different type this time and redid the whole setup. It certainly looks better.

This is my cute little pump house during the renovation. I still need to put siding on this thing.


An inside shot of the pressure tank and pump. This is a Gould pump and I would highly recommend these things. This one has been through pump hell and still going strong. Hopefully, it's life will be much easier now.


This is looking from the pump house, up through the woods to the house. The spring is about 200 feet from the house and at a lower elevation than the house. The pump pulls the water up a hill to the pressure tank and then the water is pushed further up the hill and over the crest, where it beings to fall back down at about 70 feet towards the house.

So, while Jack was finding parts I was getting my own stuff together. My company worked out their crap and now I am back on again for the out of town job. I told them I was not leaving until I got this put back together though. They threw the wrench in the works so they can wait on me now. Everything seems to be going well though and if the pump does not blow up overnight it looks like I'll be heading out sometime tomorrow. I am exhausted and grumpy but maybe I can make it through the rest of the week. It should be an interesting time anyway. I'll catch up with ya'll when I can!