I think I already mentioned by 'moat' around the house that leads to that 300 foot hole in the ground that I paid about $2,400 to have put in place.

To add to this story, I was told by the company that dug the well that I needed to pay them another $1,500 to have the pump and tank put in place. Nothing doing but me to try and save a few dollars.

So off I went to the plumbing supply, building supply and other generalized locations to try and become a well pump installer.

The parts on the first run were $640, the second run was about $59 and the third cost me about $35. That's when I realized I was eating into my $1,500 savings pretty quickly. So much for the great Harry the Homeowner, I suppose.

I had replaced damaged pumps in the past, so this didn't seem like rocket science. I suppose I wasn't entirely correct. I went to a friend for advice and he told me that I needed a pitless adapter. "I guess those are right next to the board stretchers?" I asked.

Actually, a pitless adapter is a little device that allows you to pull out your well pump without digging up your lines and all that mess. It is a little confusing, but the best I can tell you is that the device has to be installed in the side of the well casing and then the line hooks to the bottom of that. Then I was told I needed three male adapters, which sounds like something I didn't even want to ask for at the store. After several assurances that it would be alright, I went ahead.

Thank goodness I had a good friend and his nephew come up from Dobson to help me out with the work, but we got rained out. We finally finished on Saturday after putting in several hours of 'education time.'

Usually I end up doing more work than learning, this time I did more learning than work.

After digging about a two-foot hole beside the well pipe and knocking off all the grout stuff with a hammer and chisel, we set at trying to drill a hole without the aid of a hole saw. It was an exercise in patience. After we had a general hole-like opening, we took a file and tried to round out the opening. Flat files don't make round holes. Since I didn't have a half-round file, I got a chainsaw file and made the hole with determination and arm speed. Then we set about getting the two mated together. Since it was a part that is designed to come apart, we decided to put a little black tape on it to keep it from falling down the well. Having said that, once we had ported the adapter into the hole, the nut and flange tight on the other side, I removed the pipe. However, the black tape we used stayed behind and covered part of the opening.

The great minds committee immediately started working on the problem.

The tape was about three feet down a hole that measures about eight inches across. Needless to say, this wasn't included in the manual. We got a piece of stainless steel wire and tried to use it to get the tape, which evidently was made by the super glue company. After several near misses, I got the wire caught under the lip of the opening and, thinking I had the tape instead, started to pull very quickly upwards.

My hand slipped off the wire and I nearly elbowed my friend in the mouth as I listened as the wire banged off the sides of the pipe on its way to unseen waters deep below the Earth's crust.

"I'd say that will be there for awhile," I told my friend. Maybe it can keep my radon company.

Necessity is the mother of invention, or so I have heard. I decided to invent a well-pipe tape remover. Actually, I bent a coat hanger and heated the tip to burn the tape in half.

We started wiring up my pump and the rain started falling, putting a fitting end to a wonderful day of work.

I returned Saturday and we finished up the well pump installation, dropping 300 feet of water pipe down the well, along with the pump wire, yellow nylon rope, torque arrestor (that sounds technical, don't it?) and cable and rope guards.

After a few more glitches, mainly from doing the work in the wrong order, everything went down pretty smoothly. I hope it all doesn't fall apart when I hook the electricity up to it. But I won't have to worry about that, I don't have that installed either.

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