Oh, Well.

We didn’t think much of the super-close thunderstorm that took place on Friday night, but apparently the lightning was hard at work while we slept.  I woke up early on Saturday to get ready for a work event and was very unpleasantly surprised to find that we had no water.  I trudged down to the basement and saw that our water tank had zero pressure.  A flip of the breaker switch for the water pump didn’t improve anything, so I woke up Chris who had been looking forward to sleeping in.

Some thinking and Googling led us to believe that our well and well pump had been struck by lightning, which apparently happens quite often since the pipe and electricity extends more than 300 feet down into the ground.  That is the distance of one football field!

While I was schmoozing away at my work event, Chris was hard at work assisting the emergency plumber who was kind enough to take the call.  It took three of them, but they pulled up all 300 feet of pipe, which more than stretched down our driveway…

(Chris actually thought to take pictures for the blog.  He is my hero!)

Of course, before they did all that labor, the plumber tested the electricity.  The fact that there was electricity coming from the house and flowing freely at the top of the well indicated it was a pump issue 300 feet below.  Bummer.

Thankfully the plumber was able to locate a new pump that morning and it was in within a matter of hours.  You can see our shiny new pump awaiting its descent…

The plumber added some bleach to our well to counteract any bacteria that might have been drudged up or stuck to the piping that went across the lawn (you know, where Frankie goes to the bathroom).  To help clear the bleach, the plumber recommended running a faucet for 24 hours and to wait a while before drinking the water or washing clothes.  But, we are very thankful to have water again!

The budget-conscious homeowners out there might be adding up the costs (emergency weekend plumber visit, new well pump…) and yes, we are expecting a hefty bill.  But, we are hopeful that our home insurance will cover this.  We’d really prefer to use our savings for other things.  Fingers crossed for us!

So, have you any of you homeowners had any well adventures?