Water well and furnace maintenance rant

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I'm pretty sure it is equipment troubles above ground. However, the thought crossed my mind as I am unlaxing from a day spent get the well working. Rassen frassen 3/4 HP shallow well pump and its connections. There's no plan B to my water situation. I need one. It is iffy at best, but way better than what was there when I bought the place in '77. Lotta strange foot traffic in my utility basement recently. The 3 yr old oil fired warm air furnace didn't play well with me after I replaced the nozzle, a routine maintenance task I've been doing for ages. It wouldn't start. I put it back together and called the oil company. 3 trips down into my 8x8 dirt floored dungeon to fix. With the well head smack dab in the middle. The run to the pump is mostly a piece of 1 1/4 black swimming pool tubing. There is a check valve. The water is loaded with iron that collects in the galvy pipes. Every time, I take the galvy apart, I replace it with new stuff The foot traffic must have jarred some scale loose and held the check valve open, thus losing prime. Off to Lowes for fittings. They didn't have what I wanted in 1", so I ran to the check valve in 1 1/4. Now I'm having pressure switch troubles. I have a the pump,s original switch in front of me. It has never been used. When the last pump went, I left the original,rather than mess with adjusting a new one it to my system. I'm gonna install that if I can't get the switch to play better than it is. I'm working harder in retirement than I was when working.
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Someone that I use to work with many years ago wanted to build a house on a large section of land that he owned. He had several holes drilled but they did not supply any significant amount of water. The person who was drilling the wells for him said let me try dowsing, he agreed and two holes that supplied water were found. He had to connect the two together to get the minimum number of gallons per minute that were necessary before he could get the building of the house started.
 
The wells on my property were drilled over 100 years ago and were located with dowsing I'm told.

I don't know if there was any other way back then. Of the dozens of wells in the area, there are only 2 dry holes that I know of and these are all old wells.

There are problems drilling new wells with permits and water rights. In fact, there are problems with ownership when collecting rainwater.

Don't tell anyone but tonight I'm going to cut my fingernails and I'm not going to even apply for a permit or a hazmat sticker for the trash can. Us old guys are stuck in the past when you were responsible for your actions and most of your problems were your own fault.
 
There are tons of anecdotes of "success" because lots of people have tried it and water is pretty common. You'd fully expect there to be enough coincidences to make it look like a real thing, just on chance alone. But in the aggregate, it's never been demonstrated to work better than blind chance.
 
My father dowsed our well. I have felt the power of a dowsing rod being pulled down by a magnetic force or whatever it is that causes dowsing to work. My dad held one side of the dowsing stick in his hand (forked dowsing rod). I held the other, and he held my hand. The force of the dowsing rod pulling down scraped hid from the palm of my father's hand. I can't explain why it works, but it does.
 
When I worked for a well driller, I've seen dowsing work, and not work. I have personally used it to find objects (like wire or pipe) and was amazed it worked.

I think it may possibly work for shallow well sources, (under 100') but for deeper wells, all bets are off.
I find dowsing very odd, I try to come at things from a science source and have no explanations for it.
 
My family has been in semi arid California for over 200 years, "witching" water is a normal thing around here. Most wells are locating this way and I've never heard of a failure. My dad had one done about 10 years ago. The witcher pin pointed the depth, volume and direction of flow under ground. Everything he said was spot on including the depth to the foot! This was in rugged mountain terrain, not flat predictable land.
 
I would have never believed that worked had I not witnessed it with my own eyes. A utility guy for the city, a subcontractor, came to mark my water line for replacement. This guy had a can of spray paint and 2 metal rods bent at 90 degree angles. He started walking toward where the line should reasonably be with the rods pointing away from his body and as he passed over the pipe the dang rods would rotate inward until they were aligned, once aligned he sprayed the pavement and repeated the process until he had marked it all the way across the road. [censored] if he wasn't spot on when they dug it up to. I thought the dude was a crack head at first.
 
Originally Posted By: thastinger
I would have never believed that worked had I not witnessed it with my own eyes. A utility guy for the city, a subcontractor, came to mark my water line for replacement. This guy had a can of spray paint and 2 metal rods bent at 90 degree angles. He started walking toward where the line should reasonably be with the rods pointing away from his body and as he passed over the pipe the dang rods would rotate inward until they were aligned, once aligned he sprayed the pavement and repeated the process until he had marked it all the way across the road. [censored] if he wasn't spot on when they dug it up to. I thought the dude was a crack head at first.

Exactly what one would expect if he already had an idea of where the line was. The ideomotor reflex is pretty well characterized at this point.
 
My dad wanted a separate well put in for his shop at the back of his rural property and it was too far of a run to run a water pipe from the main well at the front of the property also had a house in the way. He had someone come and they had something that looked like a stick in their hand and apparently it dropped down and they marked that spot to drill.

I'm not sure if this is what you are talking about, but there was water under that area.

He went this route when conventional well drilling couldn't find water and they went down 95ft. The area that was marked after this stick thing was was done was at 62ft.

Some sort of Black Magic stuff I think but it seemed to work. I'm still not sure I believe it, I think it was just a fluke but hey. There is lots of stuff unexplainable out there.
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As an old well driller and water systems guy, I won't get into dowsing. Not giving more info on your well, advise is mute, but is sounds like you have water. It also sounds like you need a new, better pump system. You don't sound knowledgeable so maybe should hire a pro. I'd drop a submersible in on poly pipe and a new tank & piping.
 
Shallow well pumps can work as well as submersibles. Both can have issues with a failed check valve, the shallow well unit will lose prime, the sub will empty the pressure tank back into the well (unless you have one at the tank and one just above the pump).
 
Its a driven well about 20' deep It is only 1 1/4 pipe to the point. Are there submersible pumps that can fit 1 1/4? Right now, after a visit from a well driller and service man.. He said my plumbing looked good. That he wouldn't recommend the 1 hp I bought from TSC for 300$. I can't keep it primed presently. It is shut off for the night because it was cavitating when we got back from a family function. When it cavitates,the pump gets warm. So does the line back to the check valve. Then it goes cold to the well head. My problem is from the check Valve back toward the pump.
 
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