It's back! Woot woot!!!
Pardon the lame reference to "We're bringing sexy back"...couldn't resist.
The water is fixed.
I'm pretty thrilled.
Friends who know what they are doing taught me what to do. I need one more pipe wrench and a sump pump and I'd be able to do this myself.
The old frost free hydrant probably still would have worked, but I was done messing around. There is a new hydrant on the nipple (heh heh) at the polypipe that feeds water downhill from the cistern.
Thankfully the pump is fine AND thankfully I had one pipe run UP to the cistern and another DOWN the hill to the spigot. The well driller dude said I could save a few hundred on the pipe if I used just one pipe for the whole bit. I said NO. I wanted to be able to cut into the water pipe down from the cistern and move things around, add bits, etc. I think that's easier if the in and out pipes are separate. This time it worked fine.
I do wish I had a shut off in the pipe. Had to drain the cistern. Hence the sump pump because the hydrant is the only outlet right now so it drained into the hole I dug to the bottom of said hydrant.
Pretty amazed with how much I don't know about pumps and hydrants. I know more now and could, with a 2nd pair of hands, replace the hydrant myself next time. Good lord I hope there is NOT a next time.
As I was digging the hole, it kept filling with water. I bailed and let it soak into the concrete like clay that is my soil. When it's wet, it's heavy but I can slice it. When it's dry you have to use a breaker bar to chop it up and then shovel it out. I traded off between the two methods.
When I got to the bottom of the hydrant, there was sticky grey clay. The friend who knows water systems said that IS my red/yellow clay once it is wet and reacting with things like the gravel that bedded the hydrant. Anyway, I'm 4 feet down in a hole, using my trusty Marshalltown 6" pointy trowel to clear out some gravel and that strange clay from the base of the hydrant. I start hearing AIR rushing out the top of the hydrant (see previous post) and water starts shooting out the top and spigot bit. On to my head and the rest of me. Refreshing and surprising. My hair had dirt/clay in it which became mud. But, what are you going to do?
Must have just been water in the pipe because it stopped.
Once the friends got here Saturday, I finished digging because apparently I needed a bigger hole.
Having the sump to keep the water (which continued to flow in...must have bene in the ground from the years of draining from the frost free hydrant or something) down to a reasonable level really helped.
The nipple was a good surprise (unlike nip-slips which are generally NOT a good surprise for me). It meant the new hydrant could just screw right on.
Before we did that, we removed the old hydrant and ran the pump enough to make sure there was no clog and the water flowed well. It did and it did.
Then more pumping to clear room for me in the hole. At one point, I was within an inch of wet undies...and COVERED in clay from tip to tail to boot.
We start screwing on the new hydrant. And keep trying and trying and trying and trying. It just will not thread.
The water-guy friend tests the screwy end of the hydrant with a plastic thingy. It won't thread either. DAMMIT!!!
I call the hardware store where I got the 6' hydrant. They don't have another but they have a 7' hydrant, same brand. FINE. Sold.
I change my pants and shoes (too much clay/mud on me to get in their truck for the hardware run). So, half muddy, we march into the store. The store guy tries to tell us it's fine. He's using a threaded nipple (heh heh) to test it and it goes on about 1/2 a turn. We test the 7' version and it goes on a good quarter INCH, several turns, before it jams up. I say I want that. The 6' should not bind that fast. It does taper so it gets tight, but that's nuts.
We get back to the ranch with the new hydrant, which is too long for the pick up bed and hangs over the tailgate corner a bit, and with new pipe dope to seal it up. Back in the hole we get it threaded on and aimed fine with me on the base and the friend on the pipe. Then I start the pump to fill the cistern enough to test it....no dice. WIERD. The friend reads the instructions and we should not have cranked on the pipe, instead I should have had both wrenches on the bottom on fittings. Damn.
Off it comes, more wrenching. I have both wrenches in a hole filling with water (nearly to the undies). More pumping. We get the hydrant back off and all is well, AND the pipe seriously BURPS and gets pressure. So, now we have a hold full of water and we're screwing the hydrant back on with me running both wrenches, sometimes with my feet halfway up the walls and my butt on a little ledge I didn't dig out and the water rising. We get it and open it up...I make them wait until I am out of the hole.
It works. We have water with pressure! It's been a month since I've had that. YAY.
The water dude has us cut up a plastic bottle to make a void around the outlet at the bottom of the frost free hydrant. I tape that one and we test it. Still working. Can see the water and hear it shooting into the void. The hope is that keeps the clay from filling in the little hole again...as least I know how to fix it in a few years when it does happen. We bed it in gravel (I kept that aside in buckets as I dug). They take off. I put a cut up shopping bag, the woven plasticy type, around the top of the plastic bottle cludge to try to filter any clay flowing down from the top trying to infiltrate the void.
Throw in the rest of the gravel and start with the clay. I would say dirt or soil but who am I kidding? It's clay. I get it 1/3 to 1/2 full. The hydrant is pretty stable and I'm beat so I give it up. I will put more in today.
The clay I dug out is on tarps so once enough is off a tarp I can roll the rest off by pulling the tarp across the hole. I will tamp it down as I go to try to keep it from sinking too much. We'll see.
Here's an action shot of some hole work:
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