Well!

23 July 2012
7:06 PM

Sunrise at	4:22 AM	in direction	34°	North-northeast
Sunset at	11:30 PM	in direction	326°	Northwest

Civil Twilight all day

As an aside from today's topic, our shared well, I expect we will lose the designation of "Civil Twilight all day" in a day or two.  Today, twilight lasts between 11:30 PM tonight and 4:25 AM tomorrow morning.  That is nearly five hours, which is the reaching the outer range of full twilight.  I was up at 2:00 AM this morning.  Although objects were still clearly discernible, it was hard to make out things in the distance through the trees.

Now, regarding our well, it is shared between our house and the neighbors to our east.  The well is on their property and the controls for electricity are on our property.  The Vanesse's, who built this house, had lived in that house for many years and still owned that property at the time they finished this house.  For whatever reason, the wires to that house were cut and the well was powered entirely by this property.   Maybe they did not consider it an undue cost, paying for the electricity, in order to ensure the well was usable by them.  We have a well agreement that goes with the properties stating the agreement as I've described above, with one exception, which is that the cost of electricity was supposedly going to be shared. 

As you might guess, there is no easy to determine how much, out of our entire electrical bill, was the cost for operating the well.  But lately, the pump has been running a great deal more and it is also starting to grind for very long stretches before humming along.  Gary and I decided we wanted to split the electrical feeds so whomever asked for water paid for it themselves.  We would not be paying for both houses.  We had a couple of well drillers come out and look it over and both said one issue was that we did not have a stop valve on our tank.  Since that house was slightly downhill from house, once they used the water in their tank, they would drain our tank as well, causing double duty to fill them up.

The second professional was more thorough.  He went into the house next door and told us that their holding tank was water logged.  All water they used had to be pumped directly from the well.  We don't know how long this has been going on, and I wonder if it has something to do with why, after 25 years, the pump is not doing its job quietly.  Who knows, but the cost of splitting the controls for the electricity is one thing.  The cost of replacing a pump is quite another.

The owners of the house next door have accepted an offer to purchase the property, which means we need to firm up any aspect of the agreement that we want to change.  Our well drilling expert told us we should share the cost of the installion of new controls and new wiring, but they need to pay for the cost of replacing the water logged holding tank as it is in their home and clearly within their purvey.  He also said that the only time one of us would pay for the other's electrical draw of water is if we happened to use it at the same time.  Whomever triggered the control first would pay for both.  Statistically, it should even out since that is a rare occurrence.  I would agree, there are very few times I am using the water at the time I hear the pump go on and I imagine it is the same or them. 

Amazing how close our lives can be, how similar we are, and yet the rhythm of water use is unique.  I guess electricity, in general, is not like that.  We all tend to turn on lights and heat around the same time in the evening, but demand for water is based on cleaning habits and needs instead of external factors, like daylight and outside temperature.

He has not given me any clue as to the cost for separating the controls so we each pay for our own water use.  But he did tell me how much the pump installation is likely to cost.  He says on average, it will cost $3000 which we will need to split, of course. 

YIKES!