Discussion Forum - Northstar Chevelle Club

For the last couple of years Tami has been running either a garden hose or carrying 5 gallon buckets of water out to the barn to fill up her horse tank. After talking with our neighbors who had installed a sandpoint well, we decided to give one a shot ourselves. When we built the pole barn, we had water coming in the footings holes, so we knew water was prevalent in our area. We rented a jackhammer, and started to hammer a 2" pipe down in to the ground. (I've always wanted to run a jackhammer, but after this experience I'm good. A lot of jarring, and noise. Maybe if it was used for destruction that would be different) We hit water at 7' down and went another 5' down after that. This allows for any fluctuations in the water table. Then a lot of pumping with a pitcher pump to get the sand cleared out of the line. After that it was building the insulated pump house. I discovered that getting water out of the ground was the easy part in this process, it took a lot longer to build the house. I poured a concrete pad to try and keep the critters out. 1.5” pink insulation went on the outer walls to help with condensation and then R30 insulation went inside of that and on top. Inside to heat the house I have 2 bulbs each on a different circuit. Theory being, should one circuit ever pop, I still have a second bulb. On top of that, each bulb is thermostatically controlled to come on at different temperatures. The first bulb, a 250W bulb comes on at 39 degrees and turns offs at 44. The second a 125W bulb, comes on at 35 and off at 45. My thought was, should the 250W bulb burn out, there is always a second bulb to come on as backup to keep it from freezing. My other theory was, on a cold day, if the first bulb can’t keep up, there will be that backup bulb to help bring the temperature back up. So far, the one 250W bulb is coming on once a day, takes about an hour to bring it up to temp and is good for close to 24hrs. Now granted it hasn’t been a real cold fall, but so far, I’m pleased with the insulation factor. The sandpoint well itself came from Harbor Freight and has been running well too. Fills up the water tank in no time. Overall, I’m happy with how this project turns out. No more having to hook up a hose, and then use the air compressor to blow it out when it’s 0 outside. I’ve always been told, happy wife, happy life, and this is holding true.