Search results

I have a submersible pump in my well. The pipe (1" copper) comes into the house, goes through a check valve, then into the pressure tank and the rest of the plumbing. That check valve is failing. I noticed a couple of days ago that the pump was running when it shouldn't have been and found the...

I'm considering building an addition to my house, but have run into something that might or might not be an issue. Two questions: 1. Building what I have in mind puts the corner of the addition close to my well, only about 4 feet from the corner. I'm not really comfortable with that, but I'm...

I live in the country, not far out of town, surrounded by fields. When I moved into my house almost a dozen years ago, I was informed that the 50 acre lot behind and to the side of me was for sale (and had been for a few years) for commercial development. We knew at the time that at some point...

My well has been having some issues lately. It started a month or two ago when I suddenly had a lot of sediment in my water. I ran some sprinklers outside for a day or so and it cleared out, but the sprinklers were full of sand by the time it was clear. Since that time, it has happened a...

My water softener has stopped drawing brine. For the last several months, the capacity has been significantly reduced. It was still using salt, but it seemed to use less salt than usual with each regeneration. Now, however, it seems to have stopped drawing brine altogether. The softener is...

I'm adding another outbuilding to my yard and need to run some wire out to it. I would like to run a 40 amp circuit to it, which would require three #8 wires. To run this out to the building requires a ~100 foot buried conduit. I already have a buried 1/2" PVC conduit with #12 wires in it...

I have a Ducane MPGA100B4B furnace that quit working yesterday. When the thermostat calls for heat the inducer motor starts and runs for ~15 seconds and then quits. It does nothing else. Here's what I've checked so far: Ignitor: I pulled out the ignitor and it looks fine. My multimeter...

I have a culinary well, rather than municipal water. As a backup water source, I would like to plumb a hand pump into the system inside the house so I can still get water in case of a power outage or other problem. The plan would be to plumb it in where the line comes in the house. Naturally...

I want to add a little onto my house next spring after it warms up, but I have a siding problem to figure out first. I don't know what the siding material is called or where I can find more of it. The house was built in 1977 and I'm sure the siding is original. The material is some kind of...