Lighting strike took out our well

[64osby]

I was sitting in our living room Monday morning having coffee and cruising iboats before work. It was about 7:45 and there was a thunderstorm getting close so I shut down my laptop. About 2 minutes later flash, sizzle and BOOM right in the front yard. Lights flashed off and back on.

About a 1/2 hour later I was just about to leave and my wife tells me we have no water. I pull out the tester and check the breaker. We have power through the pressure switch. Our well is dead. We make a few calls and leave messages for a few local companies.

I take off to my office. About 10:30 a really intense storm whips up. I took a video on my phone and I'll try to get it uploaded. We had 70+mph winds and some areas had 3" of rain in one hour. I've only seen hurricanes on TV but it sure looked like one. The 4x8 sign for the building ripped out of the frame, bounced once and hit the business across the street, this was 300 feet away. The storm passed and we and our families were very fortunate, no major damage.

Our power at the house kicked on at 5:00 that afternoon, my office still has no power. At one point over 15,000 people were without power.

Trees were down everywhere. Where they blocked the roads, the road commission was using their large snow plow blades to clear the roads. Helped a few neighbors clean up some trees, free fire wood and there is lots more close by.

As I stated earlier we are fortunate, we have power, but life without running water is interesting. We have been running to the neighbor?s house and filling coolers and jugs with water. We live out in the country so it?s not just walking next door to get water. I am truly amazed how much water a family of 4 can go through in a day.

The well company we are going to use still has no power, his estimate of $5,500.00 to put in a new well has not been submitted to the insurance company yet, he can?t fax it in. After it gets approved we are looking at 4 to 5 days to get the new well. I?ll be glad when this all comes to be. And I?ll be really glad if the insurance company picks up the tab, less deductable, our well is (was) 40 years old, but worked great and we had fantastic water.

I just finished cleaning up from sweating all day, boy it would be nice to have a shower, but a sponge bath in the driveway works.

I know there are others around here that are in worse shape, one of my neighbors had 3 trees fall on his house. Don?t know how bad it is yet for him, I couldn?t see the house.

It reminds me of fishing or hunting camp, a day or two with a shower, I can deal with that. My wife on the other hand??????.

 

[CobiaXL]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

5500.00 is an aweful lot cashish for someone to pull the pump up and drop another one down.Your well must be 3 miles deep
Or your pump is 5000gpm

 

[funk6294]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

WOW crazy weather!!! Glad you guys are all OK. I admittedly do not know much about wells, but are you sure that the pump motor did not just fry? I guess I am a little skeptical or confused on how or why the well itself would have gone bad. Is this a common issue?

 

[64osby]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

40 year old well is shot, black iron pipe is rusted, well guy states it's not worth trying to rescue it. Cost is for a whole new well in a different location.

 

[joed]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

Black iron wells always rust. Unless the casing is cracked or broken I don't see the need for a whole new well.

 

[mscher]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

40 year old well is shot, black iron pipe is rusted, well guy states it's not worth trying to rescue it. Cost is for a whole new well in a different location.

There are many wells that are way over 40 years old, that are not "shot".

Are you sure he's not trying to stroke you, since this is an insurance job?

 

[aspeck]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

Seems a little suspect to me. Drop a new pump down the well and you are good to go ...

 

[Eric 3.7LX Alpha 1]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

In my professional opinion, you don't need to re drill unless a couple of senarios exist:

-your well has issues and runs dry at certain times of the year.

-You have rust in your water from the "rusty" pipe at the well.

-You have an actual hole in the steel pipe and surface water is getting your well, which would be indicated by dirty water after a rain.

The steel pipe isn't all the way to the bottom of the well, only so far into the bedrock, however deep your case may be.

The water line may also be 20, 30', down before even hitting the water level.

If it aint broke don't fix it, in my opinion. and-

if your neighbor's house is in "hose reach" you can extend their hose from their outside faucet and yours as well to each other and attach them. You will have two male ends and need a washing machine hose to connect them which has two female ends, open both faucets and you will have water thru your faucets in your house fed thru the house. It will feed your house from your outside faucet just like it would your well.

Just shut off your main shut off valve to your well.

Even if you have to run 500' of hose to connect them, It would still be worth it to have running water until your well is fixed.

 

[cribber]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

I get my well guy to quote me a replacement every time he has to replace the control box which usually gets blown every year or so from lightning. We live in the lightning capital corridor here in Fla. My last quote was $2800 to pull it and replace it. My pump is 95 feet down inside a 3 inch casing and that goes 150 feet down into the ground. Seems like you're getting insurance gouged by this guy. Unless the casing is blown there is no need to drill a fresh well.

 

[64osby]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

In my professional opinion, you don't need to re drill unless a couple of senarios exist:


-You have rust in your water from the "rusty" pipe at the well.

if your neighbor's house is in "hose reach" you can extend their hose from their outside faucet and yours as well to each other and attach them. You will have two male ends and need a washing machine hose to connect them which has two female ends, open both faucets and you will have water thru your faucets in your house fed thru the house. It will feed your house from your outside faucet just like it would your well.

Just shut off your main shut off valve to your well.

Even if you have to run 500' of hose to connect them, It would still be worth it to have running water until your well is fixed.

We get rust in our cold water, even with a whole house filter. Plugs up the washing machine every week, gets in most of the other faucets.

The well is in the back yard, on a hill. The trees have 40 years of growth and there would have to be a whole lot of trimming just to try and get the truck up the hill to the pump.

We are looking at moving to the side yard no trees, 60 feet of trenching. 4" well most likely about 90' deep.

This is a reasonable cost based on checking with other drillers in the area. If Ins. picks it up I don't really care, I'll pay my deductable and be glad to have water.


The hose idea is great, I have a neighbor that that ran a line out to thier garden, 300 feet from thier house, it's about 300 feet away from my house. I'll have to ask. Thanks for the tip.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

Depends on how old the well is, the last time we had our pump replaced, it was $3K and that was in 2003, they had to pull all of the old and rotted galvanized pipe which had holes in it and they had to put a new pump and new heavy duty PVC in addition to new wiring, our well is 497 feet deep with a static at 60 feet, the well is 6 inches in diameter , but it was expensive, didn't take them long to do it, but I am not surprised that 8 years later it would run over $5K.

If your getting rust, you have an older set up with worn out pipe, that was one of our first problems, the rust in the water, then the deterioration perforated the pipe, causing the pump to run 24/7 which resulted in massive power bills..

Get it replaced and you will be happy for a long time in the future..

I got a new control box with the new pump and pipe, as an aside, I normally have to replace my pressure switch every couple of years..

Now if they are talking about drilling a new well, I would be getting a few quotes and estimations on exactly what is wrong, most wells don't go bad, even after 40 years, the well is simple a storage vessel that the pump draws from, short of a collapse, I would suspect anyone telling me I need a new well drilled because normally the only thing that goes wrong is the equipment and not the well itself..

 

[64osby]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

We have a drill rig on site, he has a huge rig. We would have had to remove a bunch of limbs off a big oak and pull the power lines off the house to get to the original well.

New estimate is $4600.00, 90' deep and trenching 100'. Should be done by Friday, flush over the weekend and inspected on Tuesday.

What a pain 15 days without clean drinking water. Thanks again to Eric for the tip on hooking up the hose to the neighbors, working toilets is a huge plus.

 

[Fishing Dude too]

Re: Lighting strike took out our well

Just saw this thread, have always done well work as far as pumps go. Not a bad price for a well, as far as the rust in the old well did you ever "bleach" it? It removes rust frm the well pit, as well as helps with bacteria. New pump is only about $600.