Who has 20K to fix my well?

[Deleted]

Holy hell!

We had a substitute milk truck driver yesterday. He came flying in the yard, didn't know how to back up to the barn, so he just decided not to look around or pay attention. Backed right over our hydrant and the box housing the well pump.

Water everywhere. Well guys shows up. Caps hydrant off. Says it'll be okay for today but watch to see if water bubbles out of the ground as there's a chance the milk truck crushed water lines too.

This morning we have no water pressure at all. There's an issue somewhere.

Now this wouldn't be the end of the world other than digging up the yard a bit. Fix it and be done you know.

However, where our well and pump are situated doesn't meet code for milk inspection (Not a big deal, not unsafe at all, just a stupid preventative government regulation). Since the well has been there for a 100 years we got grandfathered in under the law with the stipulation that if we ever have to fix the well, the whole thing will be moved.

Here we are this morning.

The creamery will (hopefully) pay part of it, but not obviously anymore than what the truck backed over...which is less than 1K. The rest is on us.

Sucky. Sucky. Sucky.

The only good thing is our well pump isn't quite strong enough for 3 barns and two houses when it's hot and cows drink a lot, so H asked for a bigger well pump...more than enough for now and any future expansion. After this I should have some kick a$$ water pressure all of the time...lol.

Is it also sad I'm more upset about having to dig up a good share of my beautiful yard than I am about the 20K?

[thewop]

:-o Wow. That sucks Dairy. I'm sorry. What a doucenozzle driver!

[vanillahip]

That blows!! But it warms my heart to see you more pissed about the yard than the money LOL! I hope it ends up cheaper!

[Deleted]

Jul 11, 2012 7:22:14 GMT -5 vanillahip said:

That blows!! But it warms my heart to see you more pissed about the yard than the money LOL! I hope it ends up cheaper!

LOL. I'm sad about the money too, but at the end of the day...what am I going to do about it...you know? I could've found 634643643 other things to blow 20K on in the course of a day.

[Deleted]

Jul 11, 2012 7:17:50 GMT -5 thewop said:

:-o Wow. That sucks Dairy. I'm sorry. What a doucenozzle driver!

Tell me about it! My MIL and I were unloading straw and saw the whole thing happen. We completely freaked out...tried to wave him to stop but he just wasn't paying attention...like at all..my MIL was going to run over there but she was too late and feared getting run over herself.

I called the truck driver's boss and he got an earful. I mean first day on a new farm....wouldn't you look around and figure it out first? I mean our well is nowhere near anywhere he had to be or should've been no matter which way he decided to back up. It's on a grass patch, near two trees and next to a sandbox for the love!

Then I panic attacked. That's where I leave Rubes to play all the time. I can see her while I work and she has tons of fun stuff there. It could've been her he took out. I've even been teaching her to stay off the driveway and she's been good about it. Our regular drives are awesome and cautious and always come in slow because of kids. I watch Rubes like a hawk, but you never know.

[FoxInFiji]

Oh no! That's a whole lot of money for a well. How deep does it need to be? Will your insurance cover part of it at least or is the whole thing a write off?

Eek about Rubes playing there. That's really scary. With all of the vehicles and equipment moving around a farm there is a lot of people you have to rely on to know what they are doing. Could you plant some more trees or move her play stuff somewhere a little farther away?

[mrsemilys]

Oh man, that sucks! I can't imagine the feeling when you realized Ruby could have been there. I hate that feeling! Hope you can get it fixed without too much trouble!

[Deleted]

Jul 11, 2012 8:33:30 GMT -5 FoxInFiji said:

Oh no! That's a whole lot of money for a well. How deep does it need to be? Will your insurance cover part of it at least or is the whole thing a write off?

Eek about Rubes playing there. That's really scary. With all of the vehicles and equipment moving around a farm there is a lot of people you have to rely on to know what they are doing. Could you plant some more trees or move her play stuff somewhere a little farther away?

We do know where Rubes is at all times. And I do watch her like a hawk. It's not like she's unattended. I make it sound like I leave her alone, but I really don't. I just overreacted in a crazy thought process moment yesterday. If I know someone is going to move machinery we grab her ASAP. I can't get it any farther away actually. It already is! Like the washlines, sidewalk to our house and garden are right there...the driver was just that far out of bounds. We actually stick her stuff there for because it's the safest.

Yeah our well is expensive for a lot of reasons. We have I don't know how many thousands of feet of waterline scattered through the farm, our motor pump is 1hp and the usual is 1/2hp in order to pump all that water, our hydrant has to be some heavy duty special thing for inspection purposes. It takes 4 pressure tanks. One for the wash hose in the barn, 1 for each house and another for a different barn. It's not your typical "dig a well" situation. And when you have that much going on it's not like you can just fix one part and be done. It always seems to lead to something else. And our well is deep...like twice as deep as average now becuase it's the original to the farm from 100 years ago.

The creamery insurance will pay for part of it...we just don't know how much yet...I'm assuming just to fix the part they ran over. The rest of it was partially our decision. I mean they're just going to come back and say, it's not their problem the well is the "wrong place." It is a tax write off for sure, but there are other things we wanted to buy first that qualify as a tax write off too with that money.

[duckduck]

Oh. My. Gosh. "That sucks" doesn't even begin to cover it. What an idiot driver! Who doesn't look around before backing huge trucks around people's homes, barns, and equipment?! I hope they kick in for more than they strictly need to.

[tarheels]

That sucks so bad! I'd be sure to really lay on the creamery - you might get more out of them. Play hardball and see what you get. Wow that just really really sucks.

[emoflamingo]

And a nice line about "I mean, there's a sand box for my child there, I don't know why he would back into that area without paying attention" might be good too.

And I totally get what you were saying re: Rubes. My ILs have a lot of land and we kind of let the kids play wherever. We can see them, they can see us, but we aren't anywhere close to them if someone were to come roaring into the drive (which never happens because my ILs live in the sticks like you do and the only visitors they get are us and SIL and we both know to come in slowly because of the barn cats and kids, if they are already there. Then, once something like this happens, your brain takes over and imagines all the bad "what if's" that could happen and it goes downhill. (I have anxiety, so this is like... daily life for me haha.)

[FoxInFiji]

Oh I'm sure you do watch her like a hawk! I didn't say you didn't and I wasn't trying to make it come off that way either. Sounds like it was a well defined area and the driver was just way off path.

That cost makes a lot more sense since it's serving two homes and two barns. Around here an 8" well 300' deep costs about $1100 to drill. You probably need something deeper than that and when you throw in all of the trenching and other equipment it adds up. Plus your well probably has to be cased instead of simply grouted since it's for a farm. That costs significantly more.

[Deleted]

Jul 11, 2012 9:20:04 GMT -5 FoxInFiji said:

Oh I'm sure you do watch her like a hawk! I didn't say you didn't and I wasn't trying to make it come off that way either. Sounds like it was a well defined area and the driver was just way off path.

That cost makes a lot more sense since it's serving two homes and two barns. Around here an 8" well 300' deep costs about $1100 to drill. You probably need something deeper than that and when you throw in all of the trenching and other equipment it adds up. Plus your well probably has to be cased instead of simply grouted since it's for a farm. That costs significantly more.

Oh I wasn't offended. I was just explaining where I stick Rubes. Because I'm sure someone was going to come on here and "yell" at me about "OMG you let your child play without holding her hand!"

My description in the OP wasn't very good either. I made it sound like she's on the driveway...and she's nowhere near it in actuality. I just teach her to stay off it for future reference.

The well guy said if I had to dig just a well for a house and not have to fix 800 other things in the process it'd be less than 2K. But bigger pump means bigger water lines, measn stronger pressure tanks and on and on. You know how it is. Old stuff on top of new stuff is always a process. And now that I have my yard all tore up H and I just decided to fix it all while we're at it.

[FoxInFiji]

Jul 11, 2012 9:28:08 GMT -5 @justdairy said:

Oh I wasn't offended. I was just explaining where I stick Rubes. Because I'm sure someone was going to come on here and "yell" at me about "OMG you let your child play without holding her hand!"


The well guy said if I had to dig just a well for a house and not have to fix 800 other things in the process it'd be less than 2K. But bigger pump means bigger water lines, measn stronger pressure tanks and on and on. You know how it is. Old stuff on top of new stuff is always a process. And now that I have my yard all tore up H and I just decided to fix it all while we're at it.

LOL!

Yeah that's why I was surprised that it's literally x10 the cost of a regular home well. Just a side note you might want to consider adding whole house filters to the lines coming into your home. New wells bring up a surprising amount of sediment that builds up in your lines, water heaters, and water softeners (making them less efficient). They are like a $20-50 part and can save you a lot of headache. We have a self cleaning blow down style where you don't have to turn off the water every time you need to clean the filter. I can look up the name of it if your interested.

On a side note for some reason your siggy is always changing sizes in your posts. Sometimes is a regular size and other times it's super sized (like Rube's head is taking up my whole window LOL) and makes the whole post wide so I have to scroll way over to read. Can you add some image sizing code to your siggy so it stays one size? I'm not sure what your siggy code looks like but this is what I've been using to resize PIP:
[*img width=200 height=200] url here [/img]

[housegeek]

I'm actually excited to move for the sole reason I can let my kids play without holding their hand hah. I have always wanted to be like, sipping ice tea and reading on the deck or in the kitchen while they play in the backyard

I can't believe they would only have to pay for the top part of what that a hole did affected the whole pump. That's like, mind boggling to me. I hope you get that cleared up easy

Oh I've seen the siggy thing too! It's always when I come in a thread a second time.

[emjacobs]

I hate substitute drivers. I remember when I was little we had a sub driver once and he backed into the parlor on accident and destroyed one of our tanks. It was a really small tank but it left us without one tank and with a giant hole in the side of the parlor until their insurance company would fix it.

Boo for destroyed yard but hooray for awesome water pressure!!

[sierramist03]

Yucky! We don't have wells around here anymore luckily rural water came through when I was a kid.

[mrs.jacinthe]

FWIW, I like you MORE because you let your kid play without holding her hand.

For what it's worth, which is obviously very little, I'd go after them for the entire cost of replacing/moving the well, minus the upgrades your H has decided on. If the guy had not caused the $1k in damage to your wellhead and hydrant, the well would not have needed to be moved. Since moving the well was not necessary until he caused damage, they should have to pay out for the entire cost.

[Deleted]

Fox: We do have the filter.

We'll see what we can get out of the creamery but it's an accidents no matter how stupid happen sort of thing. Yes, I want more out of it but at the end of the day, what are they going to do about it? They fixed what they broke, it's not their issue it caused 800 other things to happen as well.

I've tried to fix my sig..many times. I'm even using that same code! I'll look at it again when I get more time!

[housegeek]

They should be insured for that though right? Their insurance eshould pay out.

[TBM]

DH has some experience at work with code issues, liability, etc., and he says that because the accident caused problems that will require moving the well to meet code, the creamery (or their insurance) is liable for all of the costs associated with moving it......just not for the upgrades to the system.
He says not to let them get off easy.

[ktzmoh]

Wow that sucks big time!Can you fight the creamery for a bigger share of the costs associated with the well?

[emoflamingo]

Jul 11, 2012 22:05:31 GMT -5 TBM said:

DH has some experience at work with code issues, liability, etc., and he says that because the accident caused problems that will require moving the well to meet code, the creamery (or their insurance) is liable for all of the costs associated with moving it......just not for the upgrades to the system.
He says not to let them get off easy.

See! Go for it. Good luck!