First topic message reminder :

We need to buy a water pump in the next few weeks and it is decided that a surface pump will best for us. However, after looking at the selection in Praktiker we have got more confused than ever. Our well water is seven metres from the top, Bernard informs us that it needs to be two metres below the surface of the water, so that means nine metres (following me so far?). So into Praktiker we go and surprise, surprise and the difference between the 7 mtr and the 9 mtr or more is a wacking great pump. Nine metres or more and the bore for the pipe is huge and I guess will have to be reduced for the bigger than usual hose pipe to put in it. The size of the pump is more than double as well with all odd bits stuck all over over it. So has any Forum member got more info about them please, it would really help, a good usuable and economical viable pump would do us just fine.

bgbazz wrote:

Not today mate..all my plowing and seeding has been done. Sundays I try and reserve for stuff around the house..just finished four hours of workshop tidy and clean out. What are you up to?

Annette is having a tidy up around the house and cleaning, I am dodging from one paint job to another and waiting for it to dry so I can get some of it finished. We took on a house that had not been lived in for a minimum of 6 years, we have created an upstairs bathroom, a room for a downstairs sink and toilet, an adjoining barn has been changed into a huge kitchen, central heating from a massive woodburner has been installed, the house has been rewired and replumbed. Of course there was not an inch of usuable putty in the windows and they have all been done on all nine rooms and then the business of painting it all. I have also developed a skill for putting paving slabs on the lower part of the outside walls to make them warmer and watertight and have sunk two soakaways for the kitchen water waste and the utility room water waste as these had been running many metres and above the ground and would have frozen in the winter, I have also re-run the soil pipe so it is lower and not in the way of us moving about in the garden. That's all I can think of at the moment, but of course there is much more, including the work done in our field. It's a good job that I am retired because there is no way I could have done everything and gone to work every day as well, although I would have been younger and fitter!! Living here in BG? Bliss for both of us, we enjoy every minute!!

Sounds a lot like us..our big old house stood empty for the best part of 20 years and EVERYTHING needed attention. Started with the roof and worked down..curious thing was, the house is on three levels with only the central level accessible from the ground..you had to outside to go upstairs or downstairs..I built two internal staircases, so no going outside any more. Also replaced the outside loo with two internal 'proper' ones.
We replaced all the old wooden framed windows with PVC double glazed jobbies and had a sturdy main door fitted. All rewired and plumbing updated, so now very comfy. Hardest part was lowering the floor on the bottom level..I had to excavate (by hand) 30"
of old concrete and dirt and shovel it all out of a window before I could start again. Looks and functions very nicely now, so the effort has paid off. I lifted about 100 sq m of rough old concrete paving blocks from around the back door and garden, created a correct fall for drainage and then repaved with granite slabs to give it some character.

Most of the hard graft is done now..just a bit of maintenance from time to time.

bgbazz wrote:

..I built two internal staircases, so no going outside any more. Most of the hard graft is done now..just a bit of maintenance from time to time.

I had forgotten that we also built two walls to make the staircase an internal one. Us Brits like to go upstairs to bed, even in the winter and going out in the freezing cold and climbing those freezing stairs just to sleep is not something we would contemplate. I believe we have done the hard graft now and look forward to just having to do maintenance, but I have to work on some walls on the new kitchen with polystyrene on the outside and cement over top first. We also have one ceiling that only has a flat roof with no insulation and that is going to have a pitch roof put on with insulation this summer. So we haven't got your more finished stage yet, but this year we should have the more labouring work all done.

Nest year, will we have time to sit in our loungers in the garden and enjoy the sun and relax, I doubt it!!!

Just keep the thought of sitting in the garden foremost in your mind...you'll be there before you know it.

Many thanks to Bazz and Phil for all your advice on the Forum. Annette and I went into VT today to put your advice into action and failed miserably. Praktiker don't sell a submersible that was of any use to us much below 300 Leva. We then went up to the biggest DIY store in VT (name escapes me, sorry!) and looked at loads and again the only pump that was perfect for our garden was 287 Leva. Being on pensions and considering the pump was only to water vegetables we considered that anywhere near 300 Leva for the pump was extortionate and bought a surface pump, gulp!!

Of course the story doesn't finish there because the pump did not come with the connection pieces that attach to the pipe and they had to be traced and bought at the same shop. Next came the pipe of one inch diameter, these are only sold in 50 metres lengths at 68 Leva when I only want 25 metres, groan, groan. So onto Praktis who didn't sell the correct pipe and then back to Praktiker to discover that the same pipe in there is only sold in 50 metre lengths and at 100 Leva minus one stinky!!

So off to Pavlikeni and into my DIY store and bought what pipe I wanted at whatever length I required, by then our tongues were hanging out and onto "
Bravo"
for two drinks and a packet of ciggi's. Into the garage for some diesel and then home.

At the end of the day we had visited seven establishments for one thing or another and were slightly "
cream crackered."
This retirement thing is hard work and when you want to buy anything here in BG it becomes elongated beyond words when the whole thing could be so easy, moan, moan, grind, grind!!

Itchy, old mate, why didn't you just get me to get it all for you, bring it up and install it for you? Could have saved you a lot of grief..and would have cost you a sandwich and a cuppa!

itchy, is there any way you can take it back, just tell them it's the wrong one/type, then take up bazz's offer, the pipe might come in handy at a later date so wont go to waste.

Either that or just return it and hold back a while until the finances have multiplied a bit, I'm sure you will not regret it in the long run.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Phil..I meant every word. Are you sure you don't come from Dunham on Trent?

Itchy,
OK, maybe what's done is done, but make sure you install a 'Non Return Valve' on the end of the pipe down in the well to stop the water from flowing back down the pipe when the pump is turned off because that's the main failing when people do not install a non return valve and constantly have to prime the pump every-time they go to use, not to mention just trying to fill the well down the pump pipe.

Once again, many thanks to you both. I did read the so called instructions which are in English but they still don't make a lot of sense when the author just puts them through a translation programme from Bulgaski. Just the same I did remember a "
non return valve"
being mentioned, but assumed incorrectly as it so happens that it was already installed in the pump, groan, groan (when will it all end!), something else I have to buy I suppose!! It just goes to show how easy things are when the supplier pre-emps the general public when installing these wretched things and thinks of everything they may need to get their well working to it's true purpose. Without being too premature, what did you have in mind Bazz? I am quite willing to have a go at taking the pump back and seeing if I can get a refund, do they do refunds here for wrong purchases?

There may be a non return valve already fitted into the pump to stop it from any syphoning from the pump and the tap, but the weight of water going back down a open ended pipe from the pump into the bottom of the well will soon drain back.

Itchy, I will bring you up an older, smaller capacity pump to try out on your well.it served me well for a couple of years, but with the bigger garden, I needed a bit more 'grunt'..keep all the plumbing stuff as it will be useful and we can go from there. take your other pump back and tell them it doesn't work. My offer still stands.

bgbazz wrote:

Itchy, I will bring you up an older, smaller capacity pump to try out on your well.it served me well for a couple of years, but with the bigger garden, I needed a bit more 'grunt'..keep all the plumbing stuff as it will be useful and we can go from there. take your other pump back and tell them it doesn't work. My offer still stands.

Hi Bazz, your offer of help is very generous and I would be really pleased to see you here and have the pump working and water to put on the veg plot. When would be a good time for you. We are here all the time, I usually have a paint brush welded to my hand and Annette mostly has a spade stuck to hers, so no problem for us, whenever you can get over to Paskalevets

::

It would have to be early next week mate..Mon or Tues, if thats ok.

Thanks Bazz, that is fine, I will PM you in the next day or so and give you details of our address.