When we bought the place we live in 2012, we had a yard hydrant that was seized and couldn’t be turned on. With a new garden plot on that side, near the barn. That would have proven to be inconvenient, had we not had more than our share of rain this summer.
I have been working lately to dig up the offending hydrant to replace it with a new one. Here in Iowa, the “extreme” freeze line requires the water lines to be five feet deep to avoid having your water freeze up on the coldest winters.
The rusted, formerly galvanized pipe, leads me to believe this hydrant has been in the ground a long time!
I can tell you tonight I am feeling every shovelful of dirt I have thrown out of the hole. We bottom two feet was definitely still plenty wet (and heavy and gummy) from the earlier rains.
The block structure is a previously used well pit. The blocks are merely stacked and not mortared. When the water was converted to supply by the local rural water supply, the metered water was connected in the existing pit and the well was retired (I was told the well was sulfurous, which might explain the bad drain and waste yard hydrant). There are cut-offs in the pit, which I will need to access when the new hydrant is installed.
Right now I am looking for a source for a stainless tee than can insert into the poly pipe and provide a 3/4″ NPT (normal pipe thread) to attach the new hydrant.
These hydrants have a drain hole near the bottom that allow them to empty when shut off so they don’t freeze in winter. It seems to me the four-inch drain tile and handful of rocks (still on the ledge next to the block wall) was a pretty poor installation, given that the level of the drain hole is in a pure clay strata.
Missionary Sojourn 
very tough work. Having a working hydrant is worth it though.
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John, I spent most of Saturday at my friend Bruce’s farm just up the road from you on Elba Ave. As we worked on his new house addition, I heard a rooster crow multiple times throughout the day. Was that rooster yours?! Good project for you on the new water hydrant. Hope the water is good. Chaplain Dan
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Dan, My wife hatched two batches of eggs, seven each time. The first batch had one hen. So we do have competitive crowing!
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Remember when you were a kid and wanted to be an archeologist? Congratulations – dream fulfilled. And I’m amazed at the details that get lost in a relatively short period of time, both the physical (looks like you did a lot of digging) and information about the equipment. Somebody knew that installation, knew how to handle it, knew the places where it was lacking. And they didn’t write it down. My wife and I want to create a “house wiki”, to help us remember and to share (somehow) with the next owners. Your post reminds me that I need to do that. Don’t know how long I have breathing and thinking. Yes, I’m reading through Ecclesiastes right now. Pretty sure Solomon was depressed, and I don’t want that to catch. Happy Labor Day, laborer.
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Funny you should mention archeology. When I was a kid in Eastern New Mexico, my parents were members of the Llano Archeological Society and my dad helped with a surgical excavation of a bison that contained a Clovis point at the dig at the Sanders Gravel pit between Portales and Clovis NM.
A house wiki sounds like a good idea. We forget details we may need later even before our abode passes to another.
On Ecclesiastes, Solomon’s life, like most of us, was mixed. High points like the dedication of the temple; the depths of despair seeming to follow ignoring what he knew to be true about God.
I got the guy with the excavator used to tear down the old building where my new shop is going in to remove about the top half of that dirt to give me a head start. Having the top part a lot larger than necessary helps reduce the risk of being down in a hole.
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Excavating is good. Automation/technology is a blessing, saving humans for better/higher things.
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Wow that’s a lot of hard work! I can’t help but be impressed by the stairs!
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The local soil at that depth is nearly pure clay. It is plenty stable enough to support temporary stairs. It actually seems to take less digging than making it large enough at full depth to put in a ladder.
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Sometimes DIY should not be attempted. We have found our share of repairs that were not done correctly.
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