We're very excited and privileged to be finally getting our own land... but there's one important issue that just refuses to be solved: The water. We knew the main well had failed for total coliform (a huge family of bacteria, ranging from totally harmless to the infamous e. coli) in the fall and would need to be shocked. It isn't that unusual for a rural well to have coliform, and it isn't likely to make anyone sick, but for washing veggies commercially the well has to test clean. The shocking process basically involved filling the well with bleach water to kill bacteria, then flushing the well until it's full of new, fresh water. If you've done it correctly and the well is uncompromised, you've rid yourself of the coliform.
Our house is plumbed into a deep drilled well, a shallow suflury well, and a spring. A complex spaghetti of pipes in the basement allows you to select which of these sources feeds which fixtures. This creative plumbing would allow you to put the sulfury water in the toilet and shower, for instance, but run clean water to the drinking taps. It also makes it nearly impossible to isolate one water source from another.
Our house is plumbed into a deep drilled well, a shallow suflury well, and a spring. A complex spaghetti of pipes in the basement allows you to select which of these sources feeds which fixtures. This creative plumbing would allow you to put the sulfury water in the toilet and shower, for instance, but run clean water to the drinking taps. It also makes it nearly impossible to isolate one water source from another.
It's an ingenious bit of Rube Goldberg engineering, but a tricky thing to step into.
To work around this, we just shut down the water to the house and shocked the well directly, using several hundred feet of garden house to circulate the bleach water from the pressure tank in the house directly back to the well head.
Garden house stretching from the house to the 'ice house' where the well head is to mix and recirculate the bleach water. We purchased a used irrigation pump last summer, and the seller gave us hundreds feet of cheap garden hose. We didn't imagine ever needing it, but nothing's trash on a farm. Here, it saved our butts.
Unfortunately, with the water turned off to the house, our aging hot water boiler and radiators dripped out enough water to develop an air bubble and shut down. We returned to the house one day to find ice crusted inside the windows, with water still in the pipes. Several hours with a 165k BTU heater thawed the house out, and a week and a few hundred dollars later the house was warm again... after we paid to replace one of the brand new circulators that had been installed one week prior.
Who said it's hard to install forced air heat in old homes?
With the house up and running, we flushed the bleach out and did a flow-test on the well... only to find it yielding a miserable 2gpm. For reference, 5gpm is the bottom of what you usually want in New York for a residence... nevermind for washing vegetables. Then on Monday we found out that the well had failed for coliform, AGAIN. The well guy, Jay, believes the house is contaminating the water, not the well. He brought us out super-concentrated bleach tablets for round 2... but first we have to fix the remaining burst pipes so we can fill the whole system with bleach water.
In the meantime, he extracted the antiquated jet pump from the sulfur well, lowered in a temporary test pump, and did a flow test on that well. The sulfur well, while virtually undrinkable due to the smell, yielded a solid 10gpm. To permanently install a new pump with related piping, though, will run us several thousand dollars... and that's BEFORE we'll be able to test it for potability, or shock it if it fails.
In the meantime, we have a structural engineer coming out to give input on the housing inspector's declaration that the living room needs a new support joist installed. As a silver lining, our friends at Snell Septic gave our septic system an A+.
Taking over an old house, especially one that's been sitting, is bound to have some hiccups. Demanding that it not just support a family, but also leap into the 21st century and support a farm is a tall order. Though it's occasionally hard to remain upbeat and energetic as the inspections, remedies, delays, and expenses pile up one after another, we're still excited and positive about the farm. We'd rather have a difficult time of this than an easy time doing anything else... I suppose agriculture is always a bit like that.
In the meantime, he extracted the antiquated jet pump from the sulfur well, lowered in a temporary test pump, and did a flow test on that well. The sulfur well, while virtually undrinkable due to the smell, yielded a solid 10gpm. To permanently install a new pump with related piping, though, will run us several thousand dollars... and that's BEFORE we'll be able to test it for potability, or shock it if it fails.
In the meantime, we have a structural engineer coming out to give input on the housing inspector's declaration that the living room needs a new support joist installed. As a silver lining, our friends at Snell Septic gave our septic system an A+.
Taking over an old house, especially one that's been sitting, is bound to have some hiccups. Demanding that it not just support a family, but also leap into the 21st century and support a farm is a tall order. Though it's occasionally hard to remain upbeat and energetic as the inspections, remedies, delays, and expenses pile up one after another, we're still excited and positive about the farm. We'd rather have a difficult time of this than an easy time doing anything else... I suppose agriculture is always a bit like that.
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