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  • From: <eureka AT hctc.net>
  • To: bobford79 AT yahoo.com, homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Does this idea stink?
  • Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:14:09 -0500

Our place used to be the town's blacksmith shop in 1860's. That structure was presumably torn down and the post office was built on the same location in the 40's which is now our house now. The well is chiseled through solid limestone, karst, and limestone conglomerate and is a neat rectangular shaft about 3' x 4' or 4' x 5' wide. The six feet or so of the shaft nearer to the top has concrete sides, I suppose to keep dirt out. The rock shaft sort of ends about 40 feet down and there's some kind of hollow pocket or cave beneath it where the water flows horizontally, like a river or spring. One nearby pioneer well like mine still has the wooden beams to pull the water up with a bucket and rope. My guess is the blacksmith dug it.

Town wells in the 1900's around here are two-story above ground concrete boxes, a door to the spring house and the water in a tank above. Some of the old timers told me this is how they kept their produce cool in the old days. It's possible we could build something over ours attached to the well house. Maybe the cool from down in the well would would suffice. Or we could try to do a spring house with the water above. Does this help to visualize?

--Sage

On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:12:13 -0700 (PDT)
bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com> wrote:
This sounds like a fantsastic place; but I am confused. Did the man with the pick axe dig a forty foot deep hole? what are the other approx. dimensions? And, what is holding up the sides of the hole? I can't quite visualize what you are describing . ...bobford


--- On Tue, 6/24/08, eureka AT hctc.net <eureka AT hctc.net> wrote:

From: eureka AT hctc.net <eureka AT hctc.net>
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Does this idea stink?
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 2:04 PM
No, I'm deathly allergic to fish and shellfish. We live five minues from a crystal clear river..if I should ever overcome the problem and be starving to death, I'd get
my fish from there. (I actually enjoy fly fishing).

We'd like a place to store winter squash, potatoes, onions, our home canning jars, etc. Most of the pioneer homes around here had 'spring houses' for
this...square above ground concrete rooms with the top "floor"
being a container for the water pumped from the well. Our pioneer well is outside the pump house with a large ground level metal plate covering it weighted in place with some large stones. The hole is rectangular, about the size it would take a man with a pick axe to carve, and about 40 feet deep with water flowing like a river in a sheet across a deeper pool on the bottom of it. So there is also the consideration of building something over the well for cool storage, maybe attached to the well house like an addition. The water comes out of the ground here at 65 degrees. Would this be a better solution?

--Sage

On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:37:08 -0500
Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com> wrote:
> > On Jun 24, 2008, at 2:34 PM, <eureka AT hctc.net>
wrote:
> >> This thing was custom poured, not prefab, probably
when
>> the house was built. The opening is roughly a 3
foot
>> square lid about two feet away from the house and
about
>> six feet from the kitchen door. It's at least
six feet
>> deep, maybe a 10 foot square. The wall away from
the >>house
>> is perpendicular to the ground, but the wall
opposite it
>> slopes to somewhere under the house. The field
line that
>> once drained it's former function was clay
pipe that
>> collapsed (thus, the problem). As a container it
appears
>> relatively water tight (maybe good for a septic,
not >>good
>> for a cellar?). If it leaks, it is minimal as we
tested
>> our well when all this came to light and they told
us
>> there was not enough nitrogen in the sample to
have been
>> contaminated by the septic tank.
> > Do you like to eat fish?
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