short notes:
will brady's ruminations
will brady's ruminations
2008-06-15
water
Progress is being made in our transition from a shallow dug well and a new 670 foot [204 m] deep artesian well.
The well we have been using [that's it on the right] has, for probably over a century, served the household adequately. The walls are blocks of Portland sandstone and it's only 12 foot [3.65 m] in depth; we know it has gone dry in the past, but we can track only a half dozen times since the 1960s. Until last autumn, when it
was dry for four months, it had been dry no longer than a few days. Four of those six dry times have been in the last ten years. We figure a drilled well was due.
Basically we had no competition for the water in our near-surface aquifer. All our immediate neighbors have had drilled wells for years. But we've also known that we live very close to the bedrock surface. Even one corner of the house, on the cellar level, has a "floor" of ledge. It is that ledge the drillers augured down through to eventually find about four separate veins bearing potable water that can supply us with about 4 gallons per minute.
So now the ground water we rely upon is much deeper underground and not just the surface water table.
Progress is being made in our transition from a shallow dug well and a new 670 foot [204 m] deep artesian well. The well we have been using [that's it on the right] has, for probably over a century, served the household adequately. The walls are blocks of Portland sandstone and it's only 12 foot [3.65 m] in depth; we know it has gone dry in the past, but we can track only a half dozen times since the 1960s. Until last autumn, when it
was dry for four months, it had been dry no longer than a few days. Four of those six dry times have been in the last ten years. We figure a drilled well was due. Basically we had no competition for the water in our near-surface aquifer. All our immediate neighbors have had drilled wells for years. But we've also known that we live very close to the bedrock surface. Even one corner of the house, on the cellar level, has a "floor" of ledge. It is that ledge the drillers augured down through to eventually find about four separate veins bearing potable water that can supply us with about 4 gallons per minute.
So now the ground water we rely upon is much deeper underground and not just the surface water table.
Labels: ground water, home life, water supply, water tanks, well drilling, wells
¶ 13:12 0 comments
2007-11-23
water
"We haven't bathed at our house since August" said I, with a grin, to a suitably shocked guest at a gathering yesterday. She wrinkled up her nose, then, tentatively said, "...but you don't smell all that bad..."
Actually, it would have been more precise to have said that our water well, which is only 8 meters in depth, has gone all but dry and we have not had water running through the house pipes since that time.
As far as the bathing part, well, plenty of people have offered use of tubs and showers. We can both shower at our workplaces and at the gym. The real problem comes when flushing the toilet. So we have developed a storage system that includes six 32 gallon rubber cans [there are four of them pictured on the left]. We refill them with a couple of lengths of hose from a neighbor's much deeper drilled well. From the filled drums we extract water by the gallons in jugs. This endeavor means that the new Gould's water pump purchased last spring [see the pix to the right] is not much more than an expensive sculptural piece.
Come the winder rains and snowfall, I'm hoping the groundwater shall adequately recharge itself. If not, then we are going to have to bite the fiscal bullet and have a well drilled for ourselves.
I remain perhaps more philosophical about this than Bruce, having lived in places where running water just was not available. I do get tired, however, of all those igonrant types who ask with a troubling innocent incredulity, "Why aren't you getting water from the city?"
Sub-Urbans! the bane of my existence.
"We haven't bathed at our house since August" said I, with a grin, to a suitably shocked guest at a gathering yesterday. She wrinkled up her nose, then, tentatively said, "...but you don't smell all that bad..."Actually, it would have been more precise to have said that our water well, which is only 8 meters in depth, has gone all but dry and we have not had water running through the house pipes since that time.
As far as the bathing part, well, plenty of people have offered use of tubs and showers. We can both shower at our workplaces and at the gym. The real problem comes when flushing the toilet. So we have developed a storage system that includes six 32 gallon rubber cans [there are four of them pictured on the left]. We refill them with a couple of lengths of hose from a neighbor's much deeper drilled well. From the filled drums we extract water by the gallons in jugs. This endeavor means that the new Gould's water pump purchased last spring [see the pix to the right] is not much more than an expensive sculptural piece.
Come the winder rains and snowfall, I'm hoping the groundwater shall adequately recharge itself. If not, then we are going to have to bite the fiscal bullet and have a well drilled for ourselves.
I remain perhaps more philosophical about this than Bruce, having lived in places where running water just was not available. I do get tired, however, of all those igonrant types who ask with a troubling innocent incredulity, "Why aren't you getting water from the city?"
Sub-Urbans! the bane of my existence.
Labels: drought, water, water tanks, wells
¶ 08:32 0 comments
