Off the Grid
Stories from a disconnected life by Alanna Vitucci
You don’t normally pay attention to how important water is to a functioning home. Without water you can’t flush the toilet, take a bath/shower or cook.
Recently we learned this lesson the hard way – when our well decided to quit pumping water at 2 am on a Saturday morning. Having woken up to some rather alarming noises from our water heater, once the sun was up, we started trying to contact the pump company. Only to learn that they had no 24-hour service number, and normal hours of operation were from 8-5 Monday through Friday. (Note to self – when living off the grid always ensure that you have repair numbers handy.)
After several frustrating hours, we quickly learned that water for cooking and showers was a plus, being able to use the toilet was non-negotiable. So amid dire thoughts of having to drill a deeper well, or worse – that the huge aquifer that we lived on top of had suddenly become bone dry – we packed up the baby and decamped to my parents home in Scottsdale for the remainder of the weekend.
Come Monday morning I placed a very anxious call to the pump company and they promised to send a technician out right away. After eight hours of work we had a new pump and several hundred feet of new casing inside the well itself.
The verdict – phew – was not that we had a problem well.
Rather, when our home was being built, the company delivering the roof tresses had backed over one of our tanks. At the time, everyone thought there had been no damage to the well itself. It turns out everyone was wrong – as the well casing had been cracked in five places and the old pump working overtime to draw water out of the leaky well.
That evening I took a long, hot bath and thanked the gods that our well was still, well, well!
Alanna Vitucci is the President of Cactus Blossom Communications, a full-service marketing communications firm located in Ft. McDowell, Arizona. For additional information or to request a project quote, please log onto elance.com and search for CactusBlossomCom under the provider list. Or, contact her directly at 602.418.9068 / cactusblossomcom@direcway.com.
