Dava’s Amazing Corvallis House Story: Chapter II–Well, It’s a Deep Subject…
Chapter II — Well, It’s a Deep Subject…
Venturi to Submersible: Better Efficiency
The “old” well system at our “new” house in Corvallis, was based on something we were told is called a Venturi System (it may also be called a “Double Drop Jet-Pump System). It involves physics and back pressure. The pump actually had to pump water back into the well, to create pressure to bring water to the house. We learned that this was not the most efficient process to use and in fact the water pressure was much less (about 3-4 time less) than with a submersible pump. So, the first official house project after moving was… (drum roll please) to change the well over from the old pump system to a new one.
One challenge we had is that the well (in the ground) was located in the driveway. Part of putting in a submersible pump meant that we had to raise the wellhead to 18″ above the ground (this is a good practice for keeping your well un-contaminated and is actually code in Oregon now). We want to be able to use the driveway without obstacles so putting a structure over the well was not acceptable.
The solution: put the well in a vault. We (Adam, see blisters) had to dig up the well to see how deep the well head really was so that the vault could be spec’ed out. We waited a while for a specific vault to be built. Meanwhile, we (Adam) dug a hole big enough for the vault and a trench to expose the rest of the pipes and electrical and such so that the well team could deal with it. Huge blisters from that work…
The slide show pretty much shows how the workday went. We were without water for a few hours, but nothing excessive. Hat’s off to Mainline Pump and Irrigation, in Philomath, Oregon for the great job!
We have GREAT water pressure now and a quiet pump.
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