Looks like i should take up water washing?

[julianf]

Wells.  Ive never been keen on them.  Spooky things.

We just live in a small terraced house.  Sure its old, but, oh joy, we seem to be the proud owners of a new well.


All i wanted to do was lay a new soil pipe.





See the small bit of cast flange sticking out the ground by the bit of grey plastic waste pipe?


This is what it was attached to -




Its not that deep.  14 feet.  The well at my folks' house is (on the plans as being) 50 feet deep!


Here we go -





Its not bricked up or anything, just cut down.  I dont know how stable the sides are.


Its finished at the top with a couple of arches, and some bridging stones.

One arch looks quite good -




Im not as confident with the other one (but its probably ok) -







Ive got no more photos.  Basically, its a couple of arches, and then some larger rocks bridging them, but not overly stable.

We took off some of the larger rocks, put some cut up steel scaffold pole bridging, and set the lot in concrete.  Then build up with a couple of corses of brick for a man hole cover.

Ahh, i do have one more photo, but only near the start -






You see the crow bar lying on the concrete near the top of the photo?  Parallel to that, under the concrete, is a brown, clay section, soil pipe from next door.  Although its not significantly leaking, it will mean that the water is, or could be at any time, contaminated, so not much good for anything other than toilet flushing, or garden use.  And, as our garden is about the size of our front room, there's a limit to how much water i can use.


As i say, ive always found them spooky things.  Im tempted to fill it with hardcore.  Its (unusually) square (ish) and 5 x 5 x 14, so 350 cubic feet.  About 13 dumpy bags should do it!



I know lots of people would love a well.   And, if we had some land, it would be great, but, as i say, i just cant think of a use for unlimited, possibly contaminated (biological) water?




And, no, its not an illusion - part of our house (an ancient extension) is built on top of it.




ps.

The feet are Jules' - i think he likes smashing up our place - i think its probably fun when you have the option of leaving the building site at the end of the day!  ; )

[greasemonkey]

Well, well, well, fancy that.
Sorry, sorry.....

That would thrill me to bits.
I'd be interested in the history of it. Might find out it was blocked up when the ancients used it as a mass grave after some kind of epidemic.........

 

[Tony]

Man, that is sweet.  I would love to find a well in our back garden.  Pumped irrigation without the water bill is but a well away   (No matter if it's contaminated from the soil pipe, the veg will love that!)

[julesandtash]

I am finally clean and warm after today's mining exploits 

Nice bit of bricklaying going on there, wonder who did that? You could have put a picture of the mostly completed cap up at the end, I was quite pleased with it.

Warning to all, if Julian asks you for a quick bit of help to drop in a flue liner and lay a soil pipe, look out.
In the last 48hrs I have been standing on the top of his roof in a january downpour and balancing on a pair of 200 year old drystone arches over a 15 foot deep hole with slightly unknown contents (other than a lot of water).


I vote for keeping it to, complete with the nice neat brick manhole on the top. Submersibly pump down there and limitless free water. Nice feature too.

[Julian]

If there's a "flow" through it, it may be a possible source of heat for a heat pump.

[julianf]

Like i need any more heat?

I did not like to say it on the "heating bills" thread, but our total spend, this winter, on heating, hot water, and cooking, has been... the cost of keeping the CH pump turning.

& when we get the thermal store back from repair, it will thermosyphon to that, so its unlikly even the CH pump will be on much of the time (its only a small house, so the rayburn heats most of it without pumped radiators)

[julianf]

Nice bit of bricklaying going on there, wonder who did that? You could have put a picture of the mostly completed cap up at the end, I was quite pleased with it.

Yep - i had no more photos, and could not be bothered to take them.  Tomorrow, maybe!

I connected up a bit of waste pipe, bridging the 'hole' so our bath is back in operation, albeit with the greywater dumping out onto the terrace!

[julesandtash]

I reckon you should pipe that downpipe from the gutters into it, combined well and underground rainwater harvesting tank.

Dont get a water source heatpump though, I prefer you using the rayburn and burning my glycerol 

[willbuild]

have you tried pumping out the water. then see how long it takes to recoup?

[julesandtash]

Give him a chance, we only found it today