Home Maintenance: I have to clean WHAT?

 

What are you looking at in this photo? That's Brian with Mohave Well Service at the bottom of my 10' tall water tank, cleaning the bottom, and Robin, his wife, is at the top holding the camera and doing the boots-on-the-ground part of the job. This post is from MY house, when Brian and Robin came to clean out the BOTTOM of my water tank. WAIT, WHAT did I just say??? That's right, Brian climbs to the bottom of these 2500 gallon (and up to 10,000 gallons, he told me) water tanks to clean the minerals off the bottom. I had the added pleasure of dead spiders in mine along with the minerals. EEW; I'm drinking that! 

So ... if you have no idea what I'm talking about, in our area of NW Arizona, the wells are deep, and fire protection services are far away, so most of us rural homeowners have a 2500 (or more) gallon water tank that sits next to the well as a holding tank. This allows the deep-well pump to only turn on periodically. For example, mine calls for water when 500 gallons have been used. So it's not turning on that very expensive deep-well pump every time you turn on a faucet in your home. So far, so good, right? Well, what I DIDN'T know until I was on a client Well Inspection with Brian recently is that you need to clean these tanks periodically. That involves putting a PERSON through the 18" diameter hatch cover at the top of the tank to go shovel, vacuum, and clean the mineral debris the water leaves after years of use. My tank has been in service for 5 years, and Brian said we were due for a cleaning, and he was right! 

Always one to want to save a buck, I foolishly asked my sweet (and 6'4" large-framed man) husband to watch how Brian does it, thinking we could do our own tank maintenance next time. When he told me that Brian climbs down into the tank, I said, well, sounds like we'll be writing a check every time this needs to be done!!! I'm smaller than my honey, but you're not getting me in there either!!!

So, add TANK CLEANING to your maintenance schedule, rural homeowners. In eastern Mohave County, approximately every 5 years for full-time usage. And give Mohave Well Service a call when it needs to be done. Brian, Robin, and Daniel Tankesley are great at their jobs, and awesome people to boot.  Mohave Well Service is my go-to expert about installing, fixing and maintaining and inspecting water well systems on my property and my client's properties here in Northwest Arizona. So glad to have experts in my life!!  (photo used with permission)