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Got off work late yesterday, stopped by the feed store and then met the wife in town for dinner as she had worked late. after dinner I went by the farm to put out some feed. while walking from the back pasture after feeding the chickens and turkey I noticed that 'hot' electrical smell.. and maybee the smell of burning plastic. It was faint, so i figured one of the neighbors had a burn pile or burn BBL going.. then about half way back to the barn I saw it. Orange flames licking around the the small corall around the well pump! I broke into a run.. shure enough there was a fire, leaned in and used the plastic scoop to knock at part of the electrical box as i could see it was energized and feedign the fire... not making headway i jumped the fence and pulled the service disconnect , jumped back over and scooped up a bucket of sand and started smothering the flames. Thick black smoke from plastic and rubber and pipe insulatin.. and that nasty electrical smell. By then it was 8pm. I had just enough time to head back into town and hit a lowes for some supplies. I knew I'd need some more flex conduit, connectors, misc electrical hardware.. new patch box.. a small roll of 10-2 wire to work with.. new pressure switch, gauge, etc. Already had conduit and plumbing stuff at the barn. I figured that would be enough to get me going, baring the capacitor box being bad, or the submersable having died causing this.
was dark and in the low 40's when i got back.. good wind going.
pulled the powerstroke up as close as i could for lights. had a coleman flourescent lantern in the barn. set my work bucket down as a stoll and went to it. dyked back all the burnt stuff.
PITA was that it burned the survice wire back into the conduit, so i had to break the conduit and put up a new box for wires. HAd to put in a new flex conduit and wires to the cap box.
gauge melted, and some pipe insulation burned. luckilly everything light at that area was metal lines from the pressure tank and the first stub out lines and such...
got the new pres switch in place and gauge. all they had was a 40-60 and I run 30-50 so I setit down a bit.
luckilly I have an air tank inthe barn for airing tractor tires.. and i keep a GOOD tool kit in my truck.
for the next 3 hours i got her rewired but open for checking.. popped the disconnect back in.. and nothing.... heart sank thinking the pump may have died and been the cause of the meltdown.
rechecked and checked all the wires and found an !OOPS!, one of the hot wires was just laid in the screw connector.. bumping it witht he screwdriver made the pump kick. tightened that and we had water.
did a few cycles using a hose to bleed off so i could adjust and check tank to cutin pressure.
wife had called me a few times and was threating to call a 24hr well service
if I didn't come home.Finally walked in the house at midnight..
glad the fire didn't spread. al the grass is now dry and the containment around the well is of course wood. Another 5 minutes maybee and there might have been a good fire going with the wind... who knows. might have petered out.. dunno.
sure wasn't planning my evening like that..
