Our first summer here at Gingersnap farm (new to us property as of Spring 2022) went way to quickly. The first two months here entailed lots of unpacking and organizing. As soon as the animals were moved and settled in things seem to get really busy. We had a foal due in July, we would be making a trip to South Dakota to drop off some friends horses for them, and to top it off the water pressure for the outside spigot (which we depend on to water the horses) decided it didn't want to work as hard and we ended up with only a trickle of water. Which I was happy we still had water but it went from taking 10-15 minutes to fill a stock tank to an hour or more. This was something we needed to get fixed soon.
As we began to experiment with different things to solve the hydrant issue, we ended up having to dig out the whole 8x8 section of concrete which was over the top of the water line. We thought since the hydrant was older it might need to be replaced since pressure testing the line yielded no results other than that we had pressure. So the back breaking work of attempting to dig from the other side of the stall wall and down at an angle began. This allowed us to get almost to the bottom but unfortunately not close enough to be able to remove the old hydrant and access the water line connection. We ended up having to rent a jack hammer to attempt to remove the concrete over the water line. Unfortunately this did not yield do much for us. The concrete was too thick and the rebar in it made it extremely difficult to remove. Luckily our friend had a concrete saw that he allowed us to barrow with which we were able to cut cross sections into the concrete in almost grid pattern. Once we go the cuts made, he brought over his excavator and was able to break up the concrete with it. Thanks to him it saved us a lot of time and energy. We still had to remove the concrete pieces and finish digging the hole but once that was done I would like to say it was smooth sailing but it definitely was not...
We first replaced the whole hydrant, and redid the connection to the water line. Pressure tested, it was all good. But still the water pressure coming out of the hydrant was a tiny bit better but still not what it was before.
We decided we would do some more research and talk with an old neighbor of ours to see if he had any suggestions as so far out efforts had yielded little to no results. After speaking with our neighbor, he suggested changing the pressure gauge in the house. We increased the pressure gauge and guess what that fixed the problem completely! We didn't need to even dig the concrete out or replace the hydrant, just a simple fix on the gauge in the house. But you live and you learn and I am sure this will be one of many things we learn the hard way. Needless to say I was happy, the water pressure was fixed and now all we needed to do was refill the hole with the sand we dug out. We are not redoing the concrete at this time.
Summer 2022
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