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Survival and Preparations Long and short term survival and 'prepping'.

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  #1  
Old 01-07-2019, 7:54 AM
KevinB KevinB is offline
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Default No power, no water, and its snowing

That was my yesterday morning at the ranch. Woke up to grid power being out, not unusual it goes out all the time.

Well pump took a dump sometime during the night, I guess all the use with the clan being home for the holidays was too much for it. Having a extra pump keeps me from getting killed by my wife.

We tilt the pump house over on its side, its on hinges and set up the tripod to pull the piping and pump. Too slick to use a quad as the muscle to pull the pipe so we fire up the tractor. Up comes the pipe in 20 foot sections and we replace the pump. First time in 20 years it has failed. Snowing like crazy and the wind was howling. New pump installed and the water is back on. I'm sure glad 3 of my sons were still visiting.

Solar is just about nil in this weather and will have to run the Generator to charge the batteries and peak power needs today.


Such is living out in the sticks. At work today in town and the power has gone out twice since 7 am.


The last of the clan headed home today as school starts. I'm blessed with having most of my family so close. Found out last night that I'm going to be a grandpa again.

Living in the sticks is not for everyone, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

On a personal note, when your wife tells you their is no water for a shower, the correct response is not, the pond is full, but a little chilly. Having a couple of my grand kids laughing didn't help either.

God Bless.
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  #2  
Old 01-07-2019, 8:08 AM
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Is it normal to have a tripod and gear ready to pull the piping and pump for a well that has not had a pump failure in 20 years? Curious if that was 1. preps for a specific type of identified failure point, 2. common when you have a well, or 3. acquired and used for a previous issue or effort.

I can just imagine the look on my wife's face if I told her to go bathe in the pond while it is snowing!
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  #3  
Old 01-07-2019, 8:17 AM
KevinB KevinB is offline
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Originally Posted by TheChief View Post
Is it normal to have a tripod and gear ready to pull the piping and pump for a well that has not had a pump failure in 20 years? Curious if that was 1. preps for a specific type of identified failure point, 2. common when you have a well, or 3. acquired and used for a previous issue or effort.

I can just imagine the look on my wife's face if I told her to go bathe in the pond while it is snowing!
That tripod setup gets used all the time. Loading trailers, hanging beef, picking up tanks. I bought it at a farm auction about 20 years ago for 100 bucks and it has been a bargain. Its 600 dollars just for a pump guy just to drive out here and back. I added chain to all the feet to keep them from spreading under a load. I also added hooks at the top for using a block and tackle. We also have 2 other wells on the property.
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Old 01-07-2019, 9:17 AM
twinfin twinfin is offline
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Having your kids there for extra muscle was a blessing in dealing with the pump. It's got to be a good feeling knowing you have all the parts and proper tools on hand to make repairs on critical infrastructure without having to run to town especially since one day, running to town might not be a safe or wise option.

The way I set up my property is that I have 6,000 gallons of water storage in two tanks. If my well pump goes out, I have thousands of gallons available in the tanks to give me time to come up with a repair plan. If my pressure tank or booster pump go out, I have sufficient gravity feed to still get about 16psi pressure in the house. That's not a lot of pressure for a shower but the toilets will flush and water will still come out the tap.

I don't have a spare well pump but it might be wise for me to have a spare on hand. It's a Grundfos pump so it's an expensive pump to have just sitting on the shelf. I might have to give more thought to this. I appreciate your stories form the ranch. You've given some good lessons on what self sufficiency looks like.

Congratulations on the new grandchild inbound.
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  #5  
Old 01-07-2019, 9:47 AM
KevinB KevinB is offline
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Its a learning curve. What to have and what not to is the question. Now I can shop around and get a good deal on a good pump. We are really pretty self sufficient out there because a trip to town is 3 hours minimum round trip. The pump for the vineyard was 5 grand, and we have a spare and a backup pump.

Being we are a working vineyard everything is paid for thru that venue.

We repair or build just about everything we need within reason.
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  #6  
Old 01-07-2019, 9:49 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinB View Post
That was my yesterday morning at the ranch. Woke up to grid power being out, not unusual it goes out all the time.

Well pump took a dump sometime during the night, I guess all the use with the clan being home for the holidays was too much for it. Having a extra pump keeps me from getting killed by my wife.

We tilt the pump house over on its side, its on hinges and set up the tripod to pull the piping and pump. Too slick to use a quad as the muscle to pull the pipe so we fire up the tractor. Up comes the pipe in 20 foot sections and we replace the pump. First time in 20 years it has failed. Snowing like crazy and the wind was howling. New pump installed and the water is back on. I'm sure glad 3 of my sons were still visiting.

Solar is just about nil in this weather and will have to run the Generator to charge the batteries and peak power needs today.


Such is living out in the sticks. At work today in town and the power has gone out twice since 7 am.


The last of the clan headed home today as school starts. I'm blessed with having most of my family so close. Found out last night that I'm going to be a grandpa again.

Living in the sticks is not for everyone, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

On a personal note, when your wife tells you their is no water for a shower, the correct response is not, the pond is full, but a little chilly. Having a couple of my grand kids laughing didn't help either.

God Bless.
Sounds like good challenges to have. It must be better than living on a small urban lot or in an apartment.
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  #7  
Old 01-07-2019, 11:39 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by twinfin View Post
It's a Grundfos pump so it's an expensive pump to have just sitting on the shelf. I might have to give more thought to this.
Can you get a smaller pump that meets 50% of your needs that you can afford to keep on the shelf?
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Old 01-07-2019, 12:57 PM
KevinB KevinB is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheChief View Post
Can you get a smaller pump that meets 50% of your needs that you can afford to keep on the shelf?
Grundfos or a Franklin pump is the way to go. Costs about 1100 dollars for a 3 hp Franklin 3 phase pump. That's what I will have as a spare. You can buy 3 cheap pumps for that money. My water is really good without a lot of minerals and they last a long time. I only run a pressure system for the water to the house, shop, and the bunk house. We have on demand hot water heaters in all the buildings. I couldn't and wouldn't be without them.

I can switch water and pressure from another well if need be. Open 2 valves and close 2. They are not on the on demand generator when the grid power is down. The household well has it own 6 KV propane gen set when we are on solar. The pump just uses too much battery storage. When grid power goes down, I have to throw the main to the batteries and the solar. When the batteries reach about 50% the main gen set kicks in and runs- charges the batteries. We never cycle the batteries below 50%.
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  #9  
Old 01-11-2019, 9:58 AM
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Nice recovery Kevin...

Living off the beaten path does require having critical back up parts on hand. Just when I think I have all of my bases covered the weather or fate itself rears it's ugly head and shows me where I guessed wrong.
We hinterland dwellers learn as we go and there's always something to learn. You have to become the IT guy, plumber, gardener, arborist, mechanic, electrician, roofer, painter, medic/vet, gun smith, cook, maid, etc....
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  #10  
Old 01-11-2019, 11:02 AM
1ridgeover 1ridgeover is offline
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That's what my 24' Nash trailer is for when power goes out.Full of water, propane,2 batterys with solar. Also have 100 gallon tank with water positioned on higher ground behind trailer.
or,another excuse to buy a camp trailer!!
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  #11  
Old 01-11-2019, 1:25 PM
KevinB KevinB is offline
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Whomever said necessity was the mother of all inventions was raised on a ranch.

People have no business living in the sticks unless they do lots of things well. Both my wife and I were raised on a ranch. Not much scares us.

When the kids we younger it was painful to watch the girls torture those city boys. They were good at it. I almost felt sorry for those boys. Almost.

My sons were a little nicer, but not that much. My wife was pretty tough on those girls. She would toss them right into the mix when it came to cooking and such just to watch them struggle. My girls were brutal if they thought they wern't good enough for their brothers.

If you wanted to take one of my daughters on a date, you had to come to dinner first. They hated it then and now they think its great and its their family rule.

God Bless
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  #12  
Old 01-12-2019, 7:20 PM
Bakersfield_Grizzly Bakersfield_Grizzly is offline
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Sounds like some great family lessons there Kevin!! Glad you had help, at first I was thinking you pulled the pump using manpower but then saw the tractor come into play. Good work!!
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  #13  
Old 01-15-2019, 6:20 AM
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I had to pull my pump back in November due to a pipe leak down in the hole. I was thankful my youngest daughter was here on leave, as it is getting tougher to pull that sucker up on my own.

Next time, I'll build a tripod or a gantry. When you live in the sticks, you learn to fix. That's just how it is.
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Old 01-15-2019, 6:56 AM
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Smile Well worth a re-read

Tagged, just because. Well worth a re-read

Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinB View Post
Whomever said necessity was the mother of all inventions was raised on a ranch.

People have no business living in the sticks unless they do lots of things well. Both my wife and I were raised on a ranch. Not much scares us.

When the kids we younger it was painful to watch the girls torture those city boys. They were good at it. I almost felt sorry for those boys. Almost.

My sons were a little nicer, but not that much. My wife was pretty tough on those girls. She would toss them right into the mix when it came to cooking and such just to watch them struggle. My girls were brutal if they thought they wern't good enough for their brothers.

If you wanted to take one of my daughters on a date, you had to come to dinner first. They hated it then and now they think its great and its their family rule.

God Bless
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Old 01-20-2019, 8:49 AM
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Epaphroditus Epaphroditus is offline
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Wife and kids think I'm crazy when they ask what I want for BDay, Christmas, etc and I want spare parts, filters, etc for tractor and things like that,
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