We live on a dead-end street. Every house on our street has city water. Except us. Our house is the last one to remain on well water.
Actually, that's rather nice.
See, at the previous house, we had city water. Now, the water in Oregon is actually quite good. The only thing I did was add a particulate filter to slow mineral build-up and eliminate the occasional 'chunk' from blocking a water aerator in the bathrooms. However, the water from the well in our new house has sulfur and iron -- not a lot but enough to cause trouble. The sulfur gave the water a very slight 'rotten egg' odor, typical of sulfur. That, along with the iron, tinted the water a little orangish which was noticeable when we gave the kids a bath. The real down side was that it would tint the whites when my Sweetie did laundry, thus she had to use a laundromat once a week. Not fun. Our water was definitely 'hard' but it didn't bother me as much as it did the girls.
Okay, that's not so nice. But wait, there's more!
Here's the mess the previous owners had, minus the awful insulation, with a little house-hold filter that was definitely earning its keep by filtering out the sand/particles (the person shown is Jerry from Hillsboro Pump & Supply):
Our installer did a great job and now we have a pre-filter, water softener, and charcoal filter all feeding the house. The landscaping supply lines will get a spin-down filter to remove the particles so the sprinklers don't get plugged up, otherwise the plants get pure well water.
Okay, now the nice part...
Okay, now the nice part...
Maintenance for the whole system is simple and our 'water bill' will COST LESS THAN CITY WATER! (in the long run, of course). Oh, and he also bumped up the water pressure from 50psi to 70psi...much nicer! Here it is:
Now, the spaghetti wiring job will be a new task...grrr! I need to fish a neutral wire from the main breaker box, some 80' or more away, underground, if even possible, so I can put in a proper subpanel to feed the pump, lights, and outlets. For the time being I replaced the old metal outlet with a fiberglass unit with a wet location GFCI and sealed cover, just as a preventive measure to help keep the outlet dry (it's dry but I'm being paranoid until I can get that electrical mess fixed). I also need to re-insulate the interior before winter hits us and replace the subroof so I can insulate it as the pump house takes up a corner inside the garden shed.
Anyway, the nice thing is we now have good water and we can use as much of it as we want without being 'penalized' by the city. We also had it flow-tested as part of the pre-purchase inspection and it was flowing great for over an hour and a half...in late July...during the heat waves that hit our region. Awesome!
