This is my post for #freewriters 2151 Tuesday prompt harmony hosted by and
We are still having sand in our water. The drop pipe that we put down our well did not fix the problem. My husband called a well driller and he said the only reason the drop pipe did not work is there has to be a hole somewhere in the galvanized pipe, he said probably where two pipes were put together had rusted. He said when they used a tool to screw the two together could have messed up the galvanized coating on the pipe. This is just his theory but it does not matter how it happened just that there is a hole somewhere in the pipe and this is filling our well with sand.
The picture is of a K-packer, this little invention has restored harmony in our house.
K-Packers are designed to provide a sand-tight seal between the well screen and casing.
The well driller wanted to add another 20-foot piece of pipe to the 40-foot that we put down, so they cut the well pipe and pulled out the drop pipe that we put down, and glued the 20-foot piece to it. He first glued the K-packer to the piece of pipe that he was adding, he also rubbed Vaseline around the black part of the K-packer.
He then lowered the entire thing down until it would not go any further. He said it was sitting on the screen so he pulled it up 4 feet and cut the pipe at the top so it would match where he cut the pipe to pull the drop pipe back out.
Before he did this he told us that if it did not work, there was no way to get the K-packer back out of the well. My husband told him if this did not work we would need to have a new well drilled anyway so let's try it.
He charged us 40 dollars, for the K-packer. my husband tried to give him 200 for coming out and the work he did, he had two other people with him. He would not take the money and my husband said split it with the other two, but he said no. I took it and tried to give it to one of them and the guy took it and stuck it back in my pocket so I tried the other guy, he said he wanted no part of it.
To get the sand out of our pressure tank he said to turn the power off to the pump and turn the faucet next to it on until it runs out of water, turn the power back on, and when the pump quits running turn the power back off and the faucet back on. Keep doing this until I see no more sand.
It took several tries but we got all of the sand out of it. Then we had to do this with all of the faucets in the yard to clear the sand from the pipes.
My husband had to drain the hot water heater to get the sand out of it and run all of the faucets in the house. I was tired of working on things today so tomorrow I have to unhook the hose from the back of the washing machine and stick it down the washer drain pipe and turn it on to get the sand out of the pipe going to it.
Luckily I have not been using the dishwasher because of the high light bill, but our filters for the reverse osmosis must be full of sand. They are not cheap to replace but for now, they are still working.
All of the irrigation lines and indexing valves are going to be another day and a pain to fix but we will conquer them.
All photos are mine