Well Almost-fail, Layman's edition
Apparently there are those (yes, you know who you are) who found my rather long and in-depth explanation of what happened to our well to be... undecipherable? impenetrable?
So here's the short, layman's version of what happened:
Preface
Our well is in a square pit, about five feet wide in both directions and five feet deep, with masonry walls that leak like a sieve. This pit contains the well itself, which is a pipe that goes into the ground with wires sticking out of it to run the pump, the pressure tank that stores the water that's been pumped, and a sump pump that sucks out the water that leaks in from the walls.
Last year I installed a drain that should work without electricity, too.
The story
We got a whole lot of rain. When this happens, I walk around outside and make sure nothing's failing because of all the water. I discovered that the well house was flooded in a way that used to cause the whole water system to fail for the previous owner. The pressure tank should have been on the ground and was floating and there were over four feet of water in the well house.
I used lots of extension cords to reconnect the sump pump and drain the well house. While it was emptying it looked like the pipes in the well had cracked and were pumping water into the well house. When it was done emptying I discovered they hadn't, and everything had miraculously not broken. I also discovered that the breaker box had completely fallen off the wall which is what knocked the sump pump's plug out of the wall.
Summary
What did break was the breaker box in the well house, which fell off the wall, and the daylight drain, which must have clogged.
What didn't break was all the steel pipes that link everything together, the wiring itself, the well pump switch, and the sump pump.
What I need to do now is re-mount the breaker box after it fully dries out, determine and label properly which breaker runs the well, and figure out what the hell happened to the new drain.
So here's the short, layman's version of what happened:
Preface
Our well is in a square pit, about five feet wide in both directions and five feet deep, with masonry walls that leak like a sieve. This pit contains the well itself, which is a pipe that goes into the ground with wires sticking out of it to run the pump, the pressure tank that stores the water that's been pumped, and a sump pump that sucks out the water that leaks in from the walls.
Last year I installed a drain that should work without electricity, too.
The story
We got a whole lot of rain. When this happens, I walk around outside and make sure nothing's failing because of all the water. I discovered that the well house was flooded in a way that used to cause the whole water system to fail for the previous owner. The pressure tank should have been on the ground and was floating and there were over four feet of water in the well house.
I used lots of extension cords to reconnect the sump pump and drain the well house. While it was emptying it looked like the pipes in the well had cracked and were pumping water into the well house. When it was done emptying I discovered they hadn't, and everything had miraculously not broken. I also discovered that the breaker box had completely fallen off the wall which is what knocked the sump pump's plug out of the wall.
Summary
What did break was the breaker box in the well house, which fell off the wall, and the daylight drain, which must have clogged.
What didn't break was all the steel pipes that link everything together, the wiring itself, the well pump switch, and the sump pump.
What I need to do now is re-mount the breaker box after it fully dries out, determine and label properly which breaker runs the well, and figure out what the hell happened to the new drain.