No Water!

 When I woke up this morning, I just washed my hair. No full shower, just a hang your head over the tub, wash and rinse. Got dressed and put on a load of laundry and sat down to have my breakfast.

Husband came in and said, "I am having a shower." Oh I said, "Let me turn off the washing machine." The machine hadn't started properly and since I have a new washing machine, I wasn't panic stricken. I turned it off and kept doing laundry. 

So I trundle upstairs with the laundry and my husband comes in less than two minutes later. "Wow! That was a fast shower!"

Chris stomps out of the room and says, "I haven't had one. We have no water." But, but, I just washed my hair?! This is why the washing machine wasn't working. No water. 

Now this is a newly done well. In October. We paid almost  $10000 to have it refurbished and have a new pump, new UV system- the works! 

The electrical panel says everything is fine- nothing has tripped. All of the equipment is working. 

I call our well man and he agrees to be out by 1100.

Chris figures out the well is frozen, so grabs my hair dryer and extension cord. We've left a tap open so if the well thaws we'll know.

Our well. Notice the tubes carrying our water at the base of the pipe.


In ten minutes the water is running out of the tap. 

So what happened? 

Out well man thought we had a inline heat trace in the existing well pipes. We do not. And with the confusion over whether we will need to do a new well with our septic, he hadn't been out to finish the well. 

With -7C weather last night, no wonder it froze!

So our well man will be back with an inline heat trace soonest and in the meantime, Chris and Peter have insulated the well and the cable carrying the water into the house. We are good as long as it doesn't get super cold.


Field expedient solution... Plywood box over the well head, packed with R40 insulation. Wrapped as best we could in heavy gauge plastic (former moving bag for king bed)

And the pipe into the house is wrapped as well!


And I thought I was going to do kitchen planning today. 

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