Well Building Slab

This past weekend I moved on from the well itself and started to concentrate on the protective building that will enclose the well and keep it from freezing once the cold weather of frosty winter rolls in. The first part of this process is forming and poring the slab that a small well house building will sit on.  I purchased several bags for quickcrete from the local building supply store.  I framed and leveled the from from some scrap 2x4's I had laying around and then with the help of my wife controlling the hose, I mixed up the crete in the wheel barrow and shoveled it into the frame.  I did not get real fancy with troweling the slab since its purpose is more a footing than a slab.  As it was setting I placed two anchor bolts on each side where later I can attached some treated 2x4's onto which the walls of the building will sit.

The following morning I pulled off the forms and then shoveled and shaped the embankment around the slab so water will run away from the finished building.  Throughout the day I spayed it down with water to help cure the slab and now wait for the time to start building the walls.

Well Update

The well is coming along.  After dealing with a well pit that kept flooding with ground water this spring I changed from a shallow jet pump to a deep well jet system.  A deep well jet involves placing a packer assembly down the 2 inch well pipe.  This assembly has a tail pipe and that hangs below it and is connected to the top of the well by a one inch pipe.  Since the lifting capabilities of a shallow well pump are no more than say 26 feet at where I live, the pump needed to be down several feet in the pit to meet this requirement.  The deep well jet pump can lift up to a hundred feet I have been told.  Since this is the case, I decided to add on pipe to extend it above ground level to get the pump out of the pit and standing ground water.  Since it is no longer in the bottom of the hole, I filled up the majority of the pit with fill well above the standing water level and placed washed rock on the bottom of the pit.  It is now only about four feet deep.  Into this pit I have placed one of the 30gallon pressure tanks and hooked it into the water system.  Several fittings later and some hose clamps I now have running water going to the trailer.

In the near future I will be placing another 30 gallon pressure tank into the pit next to the existing one for a greater on-demand reserve that will be available in the house.  At little over two gallons a minute, I do not have great flow, but some water is better than no water and the pressure tanks allow for regular house operation, even if it takes fifteen minutes to fill them up.

The wood form around the hole is the start of a frame for a small slab that will surround the round metal top of the pit.  Onto this slab I will be building a very well insulated well house that can be heated throughout the winter to keep my well from freezing.