Those cattle guys came by on Friday, and yesterday I wandered over to see what they’d been up to…
They tried sealing the floor of that old cistern…
…and all the big cracks in the walls…
Curiously, through all this they’ve ignored the original well which last time I checked did have water in it. It’s very shallow, around fifty feet, and the water isn’t potable by human standards but the cattle wouldn’t care. I’ve seen no sign that they ever even looked inside the casing, they just paid big bucks to dig a conventionally deep well. Now they’re nickel-and-diming the old cistern. Weird.
If I had been gonna try to save the cistern, the first thing I’d have done is to wrap two or three circumferential bands tightly around the outside and snugged ’em up TIGHT , , , then applied whatever “sealant” goo seemed appropriate. Actually, a good interior application of cement applied like stucco might not be too bad an idea. Sprayed-on Gunite would be great, given the money to do it.
Not that saving the cistern is the best idea, but given time and cheap labor it might be worth a try.
Penny wise and pound foolish… seems to be a common affliction.
This is just like any other business. Looks like the business owner hired a contractor or tasked his employees to fix a “simple problem” and saw that the workers were going to blow through the set budget. So the site supervisor or the contractor was reminded that there is a limit to the money and now they are trying to save money where they can.
Contracted the well drilling, cistern repair was a chore for the regular hands.
Can’t imagine why you didn’t go over & point out the easier, cheaper way they could have done it, Joel. That’d be neighborly. It’s almost like you’d rather they weren’t there.
I think they probably noticed that 8-inch pipe sticking out of the ground directly under the picturesque windmill they had to awkwardly work around to screw with the cistern, TB. 🙂
But on the offchance they didn’t, I’m under no obligation to point it out and I can look forward to their impending financial demise.
I’ll wager a truckload of OSB – Enough to sheath the entire Lair, plus the wages of 4 hired men to strip every bit of the original (now junk) off, tack in fiberglass insulation, and hang the new sheathing, that you are wrong and the cistern is repaired.
Why are you so sure? They can seal the cracks in the floor, but the walls are cracked all the way through. They’re maybe twenty years from falling to pieces all on their own. A little caulk won’t change that.
What makes me curious is why they didn’t even consider the existing well. The windmill appears to be all there with the exception of a hooked-up rod, and a pump could be installed (assuming a decent well casing). Makes me think the top guys simply decided to go with new stuff right off the bat. That flies in the face of “saving” the old cistern, though, and also makes me wonder if the generator is merely a temporary fixture until the well/cistern situation is resolved with solar power in the long-term plan.
At any rate, the decision to get water flowing at this location certainly would seem to be in anticipation of MORE COWS.
I’m with Kentucky on the circumferential bands. Put sealer in the cracks and then pull the cracks closed before the sealer sets up. I even have the large-sized Band-It tool that could make it happen.
I would have replaced the cistern with a large-ish horse tank. Someone might steal it or shoot holes in it, though…
Bullet holes in stock tanks? There’s a part for that! http://www.midlandhardware.com/774588.html?gclid=Cj0KEQjw6OOoBRDP9uG4oqzUv7kBEiQA0sRYBOmy_ic0VhYwSAPKZ4Q_nN0nVt4ZL5YH2PRBiCfvGBQaAhef8P8HAQ#.VRmXmzh0yUk
Wagers are not about being sure. Are you interested? I have some appropriately high stakes in mind for your side.
Uh…