So, for a few months, we lived as we had, enjoying our new well, keeping our 3 and 5 gallon water bottles filled with our own water, cooled to perfection on the water cooler. (I strongly recommend getting one if you don't already. It gave me a much better attitude about drinking water, which we all need to do more. We got ours for less than a hundred bucks)
But it was just a temporary break from inconvenience and we knew it. We knew we were going to move, and we also knew we had to sell our house. That meant transforming it from eye caca to eye candy. More or less prioritizing areas of needed work, we began with the kitchen.
There were several areas of concern. First of all, it was cramped. It seemed two people couldn't work there simultaneously without bumping into each other. Second, the cabinets were old and torn up. Made chiefly of pasteboard, they were designed to endure only gentle hands, not the hands of children so desperate to play on swings, they were willing to use cabinet doors as substitutes. A few of the doors were totally missing, and many others were held together only negligibly, by screws in stripped particle board. Third, the dishwasher was non-functional, filled almost to the brim with lime sludge, caused by years of hard water use. (The water from the new well was no less hard than the old had been) Fourth, the floor was old, scarred linoleum, needing replacement. Fifth, the stove and other appliances were barely hanging on. Sixth, the ceiling had been lowered, increasing the claustrophobia to almost panic level. Finally, the room was too dark.
The only good news was, my son was wiling to come and help us. He is a skilled finish carpenter, and had good experience with some of the other needed tasks as well. His assistance (mentoring would actually be a more accurate term) in the kitchen set a precedence of excellence for the remainder of the house. It also gave me confidence I could do the rest. (In all truth, before I was finished, I came close to cursing the standard he set. Maybe I'll go into a little more detail later)
He started by ripping out the ceiling. On December 15, I came home from work, and there was rubble lying all over the place in a lightless kitchen, (the lights had come out when he took out the lowering suspension) but I could immediately feel a lessening of the claustrophobia. With some enthusiasm, mitigated by the fact that I would have to crawl into the cold, itchy insulation-filled attic to run the wires, we opened the boxes of the three new four foot florescent lights. (It turned out one of them was a different style from the other two and had to be replaced later)
With only minimal grumbling, I donned my warm coveralls and climbed into the attic. I nailed in a switch box where I attached, with red wire nuts, the individual wires of each light to the switch wire, and fed the light wire through holes drilled in the sheetrock. With little difficulty, I came down, we screwed in the light fixtures, attached the wires of each one, (white to white, black to black, wound the ground wire around the green screw, tightened it, installed the bulbs, flipped the switch, and voila! We had a brilliant bank of lights, illuminating the rubble.
I think doing the lighting first was a good idea. Every project seems more cheerful, more possible, if it's well lit. It also allows for more attention to appearance details during the rest of the project.
It was really fun after that. Every day, I'd come home from work to find more work accomplished. The day after the lighting, I found the cabinets gone, leaving only more rubble (if you plan on redoing any part of your house, you will have to count on lots of it) but lots more space. The cabinets had defined the borders of the kitchen, separating it from the family room. Now there was one big room with no cabinets except the one holding the sink, which we took out as soon as I turned off the water. (With all his cleverness, my son never figured out how to do anything having to do with plumbing. He left that entirely to me) For several days, we had to do without a kitchen sink and a stove, but we had a microwave and a hot plate, and we could always get water from the bathtub.
The same night, we took out the linoleum. My son decided it would be easier to do the floor all at once, rather than do it in pieces. Then we cut and placed backer board, a concrete pasteboard designed to make the floor more solid, and screwed it down with electric drills.
For the next two days, I learned how to do tile, mostly by watching my sons. We used a grey ceramic tile speckled with a rust color (to match the dirt outside) which we found at Home Depot, costing about two dollars a square foot, that we could have cut with a scoring blade alone, but my son had borrowed a tiling saw from his brother-in-law, so we used it instead. We had to hook it up to water, which cooled it while we cut, making a glorious mess, but doing a fairly good job. He had my other son measure and cut while he called out measurements. This worked very well. We mixed thin set mortar mix, specifically designed for tile, using a stirring blade attached to our electric drill, spread it out, placed the tile and wiped off excess mortar. It went quickly, which is always gratifying. I found out later it is more efficient to apply the mortar to the back of each tile individually, but either way works fine. We let the floor dry for a day, then mixed the grout and applied it with a trowel, then sponging off the excess. After we let it dry another day, we rolled a liquid sealer over it three or four times to keep it waterproof.
The floor looked magnificent, but the grout between the joints ended up being a different color than what we planned. It looked almost pinkish, but it ended up matching quite well. I would advise anyone that cares about the color of your grout (I don't because I'm a minimalist like I said in the beginning, and once it's applied I love it, and I don't think about colors ahead of time, but my wife does) to mix a little before you actually apply it, mix it, let it dry and see how you like the color. Experiment with different amounts of water when you mix, because that affects the final color.
Grout comes in all sorts of hues, so you can drive yourself crazy finding the right one. I, of course, choose to stay sane and be happy with whatever I apply. For any women who might be reading this, I strongly recommend you don't let your husband pick out the grout, if he's going to be the one installing the tile. Don't believe him, even if he has a good eye for color and you don't. He'll pick the first color he sees and defend it to the death. If you need to, find a girlfriend with a good eye for color matching, (or even one who claims to have a good eye for color matching and can argue her point assertively) to take your side.
Tile looks great, but it has some disadvantages. It's cold on the feet for one thing. You can fix this by planning way ahead, usually before you build your house, and placing heating coils on the subfloor, then installing the flooring over it. (This is a delightful, if not costly and labor intensive task, but it does make for quite luxurious living). Also, though it seems silly to point it out, tile is very hard and brittle. If you drop something on your floor that's weaker than the tile (glass jars come to mind), it'll break. If you drop something that's stronger than the tile, like a wrench or hammer or something, the tile will break. It's a never ending job replacing tiles and trying to match grout (of course, I don't care about the latter, but of course my better half does) if you're a little bit of a butter fingers, which my wife and I both are, and if I had to do it over again, I would get a high grade linoleum, or find rubber tile.
The cabinets came next. My son installed them, and did a beautiful job. Later on, I did a few, and found out my son had used a level liberally, along with screws, clamps, glue, and shims, because, especially in an older house, you cannot assume the floor is level. We (that means my wife and an insensitive lout that wanted to take the first thing we came to) picked them out at Lowe's because they were the only ones who had unfinished cabinets, which are cheaper, and allow the installers to choose their own finish. We elected not to have hanging cabinets, which cut down on our overall cabinet space, but was worth it, because it kept the kitchen open, and gave the illusion of much more spaciousness.
After the cabinets, my son installed granite tile for the countertops. We got this at Home Depot, who had it in stock, for five dollars a square. The granite tiles are grey, about half an inch thick, and have to be cut with the tile saw rather than the scorer. They are strong and very attractive. We grouted with a dark brown grout, which we sealed five or six times, that brought out the color of the floor tile and grout. (You can tell my wife is coaching me here) When we were finished, even I could tell the overall effect was very good.
I strongly recommend granite counter tile. The only thing that's better, in my opinion, is if you buy a single formed granite countertop all in one piece, which is a lot more expensive (forty-five dollars a square foot is a good buy) but even more attractive. (and that's saying a lot) Granite is strong, it's totally heat resistant so you can put hot things directly out of the oven or off the stove on the counter without a hot pad, and it cleans up beautifully. If you've sealed it well, and made the grout joints flush with the tile, they don't collect dirt. Again, to any woman, if you get it, I promise your friends will be jealous.
My son left holes in the cabinets for the sink, dishwasher and stove, as well as a space for the refrigerator. It didn't take much to push the refrigerator and stove into place (the stove is electric) and plug them in. The sink (we bought it at Lowe's) slipped in place without trouble, and I silicon caulked it like crazy. Some have told me I was somewhat of a spendthrift in my caulk usage (meaning I used way too much of it) but I do not claim to be a professional caulker, and do not aspire very much to that position, so like it or lump it. I bought our faucet at our local Ace Hardware, which is a little more expensive than Home Depot or Lowe's but has every thing under the sun, with much less walking. It is simple to install, but is very elegant. I got the type where the sprayer is built in to the main faucet, and pulls out conveniently.
Our dishwasher was the last thing I put in. We bought a Whirlpool in the mid price range, moderately quiet with some nice features. It also went in very easily, needing only two connections (water supply and drain) to make it functional.
I knew when I put in all our plumbing things, that they would last a year or so regardless of the softness of our water. But I also knew it wouldn't be honest of me to doom all of our plumbing to early failure by not putting in a water softener. So, when I put the dishwasher in, though my lazy part wanted to tell me that was all I was going to do, deep down I recognized I would have to put in a softener, which was going to require major plumbing changes. I'll tell about it next time. See ya.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
The Well
When we first moved in to the house, the realtor poured Clorox down the well. I didn’t know how he did it, because the well was sealed off on the top, in a snug little well house, loaded with straw and fiberglass insulation. Later I found there was a well in the barn, between ten and fifteen feet deep, with an open hole, covered only by a empty plastic milk jug. In the thirteen years we’d lived there, naturally, the jug had gotten jostled off, and since we’d used the barn for hay and firewood, the shallow well was liberally sprinkled with hay, wood chips and whatever was on our feet. Considering that we kept dogs, cows, horses, cats and goats at one time or another, what might have fallen down the hole can only be imagined, but it is not surprising that within six months after moving in to our home, our water smelled like rotten eggs.
When the pump finally gave out, it had been giving us trouble off and on for about six weeks. Thankfully, it limped along, working about half of the time until we had successfully hosted the wedding reception of our daughter. It had been the hottest day of the year, and even at seven o’clock, when the reception started, it was still 103 degrees. We sweltered through three hours of smiling and posing and inventing conversation, the whole while having a working bathroom for the visitors. At ten o’clock, when the final lingering guests were driving away, as if on cue, the pump shut off for good.
For two or three days, we fetched water from the irrigation ditch to flush the toilets, and found alternate places to take showers. We had been drinking bottled water for years, so that wasn’t a problem. We had about thirty gallons on hand that we’d filled up at Walmart for 33 cents a gallon. Just for fun, we brought a delightful little fellow who had a very good reputation as a douser (water witcher, but I don’t like the term) to our home to tell us where we could dig to find sweet, potable water. He designated a place where we could dig 45 feet to find thirty gallons a minute, which is quite spectacular. At the time, we were just planning on pulling out the old pump and either fixing it or putting in a new one, but when I tried to pull the pump, I found it was far deeper in the ground (175 feet) than I thought. (15 feet)
At that point we decided to spend five to six thousand dollars to dig a new well, as opposed to 1500 to have the pump pulled and replaced. I called everyone I could think of, and they were all booked for weeks. Finally I told one of them I was going to try to get it done myself. He laughed and said, "good luck."
His laugh was infuriating. He had all the power, and I had none, and meanwhile, I was drinking bottled water, showering at work, and flushing the toilet with ditch water. My wife and children, who didn’t have access to my workplace shower, had it a little rougher, and when friends started offering their bathrooms and hot water, we didn’t know whether they were hinting that there was a problem or just being kind.
I didn’t decide to dig a well immediately. I brought it up to one of my friends the next day.
"What do you know about digging a well?" I asked.
"I’m around the rigs (oil field, rife in our area) all the time. I know quite a bit," he answered, an eager (and dangerous, though I didn’t recognize it) light in his eye. "When do you want to start?"
"Today," I said, feeling the same excitement that showed in his face.
"Okay," he answered. "See if you can find some three and a half inch drilling pipe."
And so we began. I got the pipe from a friend who delivers stuff like that and had a few pieces of it lying around. We attached the three 30 foot pieces together with a chain, and with great effort, and the combined strengths of me, my friend and my three sons, we were able to lift the pipes up (each section weighs about 250 lbs) and make a tripod, designed to hold our drill or hammer or whatever we were able to rig up. It also made a large eyesore for cars passing by and neighbors to see.
But that was not all bad. My neighbor, once he learned what we were doing said, "Why didn’t you tell me?" An hour later, he and his son came with a section of ABS pipe which they had run up from his place. They connected it into our pump system, and voila! we had water again.
That was an exceedingly kind thing for him to do. I took very quick showers while it was in place, and the habit has stuck since then. (If you ever meet me, and you notice an unpleasant odor hanging faintly about me, you’ll know why)
My friend found a power drill used for drilling post holes. We placed a carbide tipped bit on the end, suspended it from our tripod, hung about 150 lbs of weight from it to give us a little extra advantage, put some guide poles up (all these things were fastened together by means of an arc welder which my friend had brought over. I didn’t know how to weld, but I’ve learned a lot since then. If you ever want something welded, and call me, I’ll get it done, but I won’t guarantee anything to be pretty)
The post hole drill worked great– down to five and a half feet, when two things happened. First of all, we hit ground water, and we hit cobble rock. The water we expected, and the cobble rock– well, we actually knew about that too, but I applied some of my magical thinking, and wished it away. (It didn’t go very far. In fact, I don’t think my wishing moved it more than an inch or so deeper)
For three days, we ran the drill. I tried climbing up and standing on the assembly, hoping my added weight would help it bite through the cobble. No luck. At that point, my friend said, "well, we’ll have to rig a hammer and pound that rock to bits."
It wasn’t a bad idea, and eventually we might have been successful in breaking through the first, or second or third or maybe even the fourth rock, as we wended our way downward, but at that point, his work got really busy, and he became unavailable. I was about ready to throw in the towel and have the professional come out, but I brought the subject up to another friend the next day. His eyes lit up the same as the first friend. "I know just the thing," he said. "We’ll attach the drill to the PTO of my tractor, (the PTO is a shaft that protrudes out the back end of the tractor. It spins when the engine is running, and turns the brush hog, haybaler or whatever attachment the farmer wants to use) and then lift the back wheels of the tractor. That’ll put 1300 lbs of pressure on the drill."
I got excited again. "Can you come over today?" I asked.
We had to do some more welding, but after a week or so, (it took a little while to line up our schedules) we were ready. I had caved in some of the hole, because I had tried to make it big enough for me to hand dig, so it was about four feet deep. The new device dug down like crazy– about one and a half feet. Then it stopped and spun just like the other drill.
This friend also had a few ideas to solve the problem, but I had had enough. I sensed that my neighbor was tired of shipping half his water to us, and it was late summer. We could have our first frost any time, and the ABS pipe, above ground as it was, would freeze.
Just to make certain, we called the douser again. He came over, basically said there was water in the same spot, but this time it was 65 feet down. That didn’t worry me too much, because he said he was weakest about determining depth.
A week later, the drill truck was there. It was a giant, jutting up like a skyscraper in our rural area, making our tripod setup look like tinker toys in comparison. They were willing to drill right where where the douser told us. I watched them start, and then I went in to the house to get a drink of water, confident I would come out and find them stuck at five and a half. To my surprise, however, when I came out, no more than ten minutes later, there was water spurting out of the drilling rig.
"Is that the ground water?" I shouted. (The rig makes a lot of noise)
The driller shook his head. "We hit ten gallon a minute at fifteen feet," he said. "Is this good enough?"
I pondered a moment. While I was thinking it over, I noticed water coming out the top of the old well head. I pointed to it. "What’s that?" I said.
"This is the same water you were pulling from your first well," the driller said.
I held out my hand in front of the stream. Then I smelled it. Sulphur.
"We gotta go deeper," I said.
"This might be all you get," the driller countered.
"No, we’ll find water further down," I said. "I’m sure of it."
Well, I was right, but not for another 260 feet. It only took them two days to do it, after the days and days of us sweating at five and a half. After Rick installed the well casing, the pump, the wiring and the pipe which brought the water from the bottom of the hole to the surface, I attached the pipe from the well to the house myself, and got it going inside.
What came out was cold, sweet, lovely water, and worth every penny of the $12,000 we ended up paying for it. I learned a lot, and now consider myself a semi expert on well drilling. You can just ask me.
I had two questions that came up while we were doing (or rather having done) the project. First of all, why was the original well 175 feet deep, when the aquifer it was using was only 15 feet down? The answer, I believe is that the original drillers found the first water, but wanted to go deeper because deeper water is more stable in drought years and less subject to contamination. When they got to 175 feet, (it costs 18 dollars a foot to dig) they ran out of money, so they put the pump down in the hole, pumping out water that was draining down from 15 feet. The barn well was in the same aquifer, so all the stuff we kicked in as we walked in and out of there, contaminated what went to our house. (I shudder now as I think about drinking that stuff when it smelled bad. For all I know, I was drinking the neighbor dog’s business in our barn)
My second question is, was the douser, or any douser for that matter, right? Certainly he was wrong about the depth, but we did find wonderful water right where he told us to dig. So I don’t know the answer to that. You’ll have to make that decision yourself, if you ever decide to dig a well.
When the pump finally gave out, it had been giving us trouble off and on for about six weeks. Thankfully, it limped along, working about half of the time until we had successfully hosted the wedding reception of our daughter. It had been the hottest day of the year, and even at seven o’clock, when the reception started, it was still 103 degrees. We sweltered through three hours of smiling and posing and inventing conversation, the whole while having a working bathroom for the visitors. At ten o’clock, when the final lingering guests were driving away, as if on cue, the pump shut off for good.
For two or three days, we fetched water from the irrigation ditch to flush the toilets, and found alternate places to take showers. We had been drinking bottled water for years, so that wasn’t a problem. We had about thirty gallons on hand that we’d filled up at Walmart for 33 cents a gallon. Just for fun, we brought a delightful little fellow who had a very good reputation as a douser (water witcher, but I don’t like the term) to our home to tell us where we could dig to find sweet, potable water. He designated a place where we could dig 45 feet to find thirty gallons a minute, which is quite spectacular. At the time, we were just planning on pulling out the old pump and either fixing it or putting in a new one, but when I tried to pull the pump, I found it was far deeper in the ground (175 feet) than I thought. (15 feet)
At that point we decided to spend five to six thousand dollars to dig a new well, as opposed to 1500 to have the pump pulled and replaced. I called everyone I could think of, and they were all booked for weeks. Finally I told one of them I was going to try to get it done myself. He laughed and said, "good luck."
His laugh was infuriating. He had all the power, and I had none, and meanwhile, I was drinking bottled water, showering at work, and flushing the toilet with ditch water. My wife and children, who didn’t have access to my workplace shower, had it a little rougher, and when friends started offering their bathrooms and hot water, we didn’t know whether they were hinting that there was a problem or just being kind.
I didn’t decide to dig a well immediately. I brought it up to one of my friends the next day.
"What do you know about digging a well?" I asked.
"I’m around the rigs (oil field, rife in our area) all the time. I know quite a bit," he answered, an eager (and dangerous, though I didn’t recognize it) light in his eye. "When do you want to start?"
"Today," I said, feeling the same excitement that showed in his face.
"Okay," he answered. "See if you can find some three and a half inch drilling pipe."
And so we began. I got the pipe from a friend who delivers stuff like that and had a few pieces of it lying around. We attached the three 30 foot pieces together with a chain, and with great effort, and the combined strengths of me, my friend and my three sons, we were able to lift the pipes up (each section weighs about 250 lbs) and make a tripod, designed to hold our drill or hammer or whatever we were able to rig up. It also made a large eyesore for cars passing by and neighbors to see.
But that was not all bad. My neighbor, once he learned what we were doing said, "Why didn’t you tell me?" An hour later, he and his son came with a section of ABS pipe which they had run up from his place. They connected it into our pump system, and voila! we had water again.
That was an exceedingly kind thing for him to do. I took very quick showers while it was in place, and the habit has stuck since then. (If you ever meet me, and you notice an unpleasant odor hanging faintly about me, you’ll know why)
My friend found a power drill used for drilling post holes. We placed a carbide tipped bit on the end, suspended it from our tripod, hung about 150 lbs of weight from it to give us a little extra advantage, put some guide poles up (all these things were fastened together by means of an arc welder which my friend had brought over. I didn’t know how to weld, but I’ve learned a lot since then. If you ever want something welded, and call me, I’ll get it done, but I won’t guarantee anything to be pretty)
The post hole drill worked great– down to five and a half feet, when two things happened. First of all, we hit ground water, and we hit cobble rock. The water we expected, and the cobble rock– well, we actually knew about that too, but I applied some of my magical thinking, and wished it away. (It didn’t go very far. In fact, I don’t think my wishing moved it more than an inch or so deeper)
For three days, we ran the drill. I tried climbing up and standing on the assembly, hoping my added weight would help it bite through the cobble. No luck. At that point, my friend said, "well, we’ll have to rig a hammer and pound that rock to bits."
It wasn’t a bad idea, and eventually we might have been successful in breaking through the first, or second or third or maybe even the fourth rock, as we wended our way downward, but at that point, his work got really busy, and he became unavailable. I was about ready to throw in the towel and have the professional come out, but I brought the subject up to another friend the next day. His eyes lit up the same as the first friend. "I know just the thing," he said. "We’ll attach the drill to the PTO of my tractor, (the PTO is a shaft that protrudes out the back end of the tractor. It spins when the engine is running, and turns the brush hog, haybaler or whatever attachment the farmer wants to use) and then lift the back wheels of the tractor. That’ll put 1300 lbs of pressure on the drill."
I got excited again. "Can you come over today?" I asked.
We had to do some more welding, but after a week or so, (it took a little while to line up our schedules) we were ready. I had caved in some of the hole, because I had tried to make it big enough for me to hand dig, so it was about four feet deep. The new device dug down like crazy– about one and a half feet. Then it stopped and spun just like the other drill.
This friend also had a few ideas to solve the problem, but I had had enough. I sensed that my neighbor was tired of shipping half his water to us, and it was late summer. We could have our first frost any time, and the ABS pipe, above ground as it was, would freeze.
Just to make certain, we called the douser again. He came over, basically said there was water in the same spot, but this time it was 65 feet down. That didn’t worry me too much, because he said he was weakest about determining depth.
A week later, the drill truck was there. It was a giant, jutting up like a skyscraper in our rural area, making our tripod setup look like tinker toys in comparison. They were willing to drill right where where the douser told us. I watched them start, and then I went in to the house to get a drink of water, confident I would come out and find them stuck at five and a half. To my surprise, however, when I came out, no more than ten minutes later, there was water spurting out of the drilling rig.
"Is that the ground water?" I shouted. (The rig makes a lot of noise)
The driller shook his head. "We hit ten gallon a minute at fifteen feet," he said. "Is this good enough?"
I pondered a moment. While I was thinking it over, I noticed water coming out the top of the old well head. I pointed to it. "What’s that?" I said.
"This is the same water you were pulling from your first well," the driller said.
I held out my hand in front of the stream. Then I smelled it. Sulphur.
"We gotta go deeper," I said.
"This might be all you get," the driller countered.
"No, we’ll find water further down," I said. "I’m sure of it."
Well, I was right, but not for another 260 feet. It only took them two days to do it, after the days and days of us sweating at five and a half. After Rick installed the well casing, the pump, the wiring and the pipe which brought the water from the bottom of the hole to the surface, I attached the pipe from the well to the house myself, and got it going inside.
What came out was cold, sweet, lovely water, and worth every penny of the $12,000 we ended up paying for it. I learned a lot, and now consider myself a semi expert on well drilling. You can just ask me.
I had two questions that came up while we were doing (or rather having done) the project. First of all, why was the original well 175 feet deep, when the aquifer it was using was only 15 feet down? The answer, I believe is that the original drillers found the first water, but wanted to go deeper because deeper water is more stable in drought years and less subject to contamination. When they got to 175 feet, (it costs 18 dollars a foot to dig) they ran out of money, so they put the pump down in the hole, pumping out water that was draining down from 15 feet. The barn well was in the same aquifer, so all the stuff we kicked in as we walked in and out of there, contaminated what went to our house. (I shudder now as I think about drinking that stuff when it smelled bad. For all I know, I was drinking the neighbor dog’s business in our barn)
My second question is, was the douser, or any douser for that matter, right? Certainly he was wrong about the depth, but we did find wonderful water right where he told us to dig. So I don’t know the answer to that. You’ll have to make that decision yourself, if you ever decide to dig a well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
