The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #22197   Message #239933
Posted By: richardw
08-Jun-00 - 12:42 PM
Thread Name: Bad Neighbors
Subject: RE: Bad Neighbors
Kendall;

Re moving a well: SeanM had the sense of it. Ours is a shallow well, ie dug not drilled. We got a driller out who said go way way the other direction, never mind the cost. Huh? Turned out he was also working for said neighbour.

So we got a dowser. She said dig below the old well and you'll find water at 20 feet.

So, we got an excavator at $110 an hour (this is the short version) who dug around and in the second big pit found water at 18 feet. We dumped in gravel then set the concrete well sections in so they were 6' above the ground. He backfilled, then we dumped in 10 loads of drain rock -3-4"- at $120 a load. Now we had to dig a ditch to connect to the old line. That ended up being 600 feet long, but, we replaced the old pipe with new larger diameter.

Of course because of the new route the pump would no longer draw. There is certain rules of hydraulics I had to learn. One is that a surface pump will only draw up 25 feet. In theory. We are at 3500 feet, so deduct a few feet of drawn. Anyway aftern mcuh labour and a new pump we found we were at the theoretical maximum. Wouldn't work. So we moved all the equipment to the well site and constructed a new pump house ....

As I said $10,000 later we have a good water system, plus time off in the middle of haying, plus aggravation ... But, hell, I now know lots about well construction.

The neighbour is still a dink, but the big balance wheel in the sky hit him in the back of the head when he went to check a propane leak on his boat with a lit match. No more boat. He wasn't too badly hurt fortuantely. We gave him the Darwin award.

My wife had a fence experience. Neighbour wanted to expanmd his driveway. Asked her and her husband to move the fence. No. I don't think so, they said. So he got nasty. Called in a surveyor. Found his driveway was already 6 inches over the line. Never mentioned it again. Must be a song there. Where's Paxton

Cheers

Richard