Tuesday 5 July 2016

Windpump got angry !

You may wonder if I say the Wind Pump is angry with us.  You may even suspect my sanity.  But what more can I say except report what happened !.  It is upto you.

The Angry pump
The day when we were boring a 2nd well for water, the wind pump went silent. There were these two giant drilling machines standing at a distance overlooking the wind pump.  The wind pump which was working smoothly non-stop for the past 8 months or so suddenly stopped working.  This happened on the same day.

The windpump base in active
Technically the pump had got "chocked" apparently due to a piece of PVC pipe that went down the shaft. This piece was from a pipe overhead that got eroded by up and down motion of center rod.

Imagine the situation at the farm (Last month first week) when it was peak summer,  New boring is done but inactive,  Windpump stopped and there was no water till repair is done. We almost had to purchase water in-spite of having two holes.

Subbu and team had to remove entire assembly and remove the debry.  Since then till date one or the other problem is coming to the windpump every week.

Perhaps it is angry that we have dug another borewell. Perhaps it knows that she will loose her importance because we will  put an electric pump there.

I told Subbu, come what may we need to keep running windpump.

Just few days back Subbu was atop the windpump trying to control the rotation when I called on him. He wanted to stop the blades and go for some alignment fixing.

People had to pull the tower and tilt a bit for Paramu to fix something which they said if left alone will erode a rod.  I can't visualise.

As of now everything is fixed. As a value addition, Subbu had fixed a 2 inch 10 feet pipe overhead in the place of erstwhile pvc pipe. This will guide the central rod from the top itself without allowing it to oscillate.

Still Subbu is not sure if the pump will work without issue. The concern is the foot valve is suddenly getting "tight" and gets "Chocked".  If this happens, the windpump bends the rod and turns it loose.

I guess this happens due to salt deposit in the inner piston of the rod.  Let me see. If this prolongs, we have to do sand paper or bring the pump to a lathe and drill very slightly (thinner than hair) to make the cylinder smooth.

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