Last Monday morning around 4:00 am, the well pump shared between my neighbor's property and mine died after a 27 year life. From Monday to Wednesday after work, I spent my evenings comparing estimates from local pump companies in hopes of finding a repair cost less than was presented to the neighbor and myself by the neighbor's property manager (nearly $4,000).

I took Thursday and Friday off of work after clearing it with my manager. I spent Thursday presenting my findings from the contractor search to the other interested party, the owner of the neighboring land, which shares the well and pump with us.

I spent Friday locating and excavating the well head.

Before I was living on the property, the neighbors brought in a pump company to locate the well in hopes of maintaining it, but after four days of searching, they were unable to find where it was.

I was going to use a metal detector to find it, but I was told by my step-dad, Jack that the only metal associated with the pipe is the 12 gauge wire that carries power to the pump. I was told by United Rentals that a metal detector would not help me find the pump. They suggested instead that I should call the local utility companies to ask them to help me locate their lines.

I called the location company, and found what was likely the well's power supply. It was more than 20 feet from where my best guess was. I asked the locator to stick around until we determined whether we had accurately located the well. He started digging in order to speed the process up. I told him that he was not expected to help excavate and then left the dig site to get one or more of my brothers to help me dig.

Back at the dig site, the utility locator, in his haste to complete the project and move on, continued to dig. He was not careful when he got over three feet into the ground and nicked the pipe with his shovel. In this case, by "nicked," I mean "put a large enough hole in the pipe that it became useless".

vaughncollier had left for work, so qaein and I headed back to the dig site to find a 12 inch wide hole 3 1/2 feet deep. I told the locator that I would need a receipt for the work, and he made haste to leave without accepting money for his services. I told him that I would not need to get in contact with him if the cost of repairing the pipe was less than the cost of locating the well. We said our goodbyes and he left.

I got a shovel for my brother. We went to work on breaking through the hard packed driveway that was covering what we though might be the well. My brother had to go to work, so after helping me remove the top 6 inches of soil, he left at around 2:30 for work. And I dug.

Eventually after digging for what seemed an eternity, but was likely no more than 2 1/2 hours, I found white power in the light brown soil. I dug carefully and unearthed what appeared to be a corroding rock. I exposed the area around it carefully with my hands in order to avoid damaging further any pipes or wire.

It became clear after a while that this was the wellhead. I took pictures of it and called Aquarius Pump

Aquarius came out to the place and took a look at the hole. The representative told me that I needed to widen the hole around the wellhead and unearth the pipe where the locating company had broken it. I received that evening an estimate for the work they would be doing Saturday .

On Saturday morning, I met Mike from Aquarius back at the dig site. I introduced my brothers to him and let him know that they were at his disposal (Thank you so much, guys!) in case he needed some more hands.

I got a check for Aquarius and went with hannahadams and scarletwilde to La Conner to meet with our friend Alexa at the "white trash food competition" and look for houses to move into. Within two hours, Vaughn called me to let me know that the water was back on.

We still need to replace the pressure tank and bring the head of the well above grade. Still a lot of work left, but we're almost there now.

Tags: aquarius pump, house, united rental, vacation, well