Revenge of the Plumbing Fairies

Once, just once, I'd like a home repair to go smoothly, according to plan (note to my house: this does not mean I want something else to break).

For about the last month and a half, the well pump has been switching off at random. My very helpful water softener guy, who knows more about this house's plumbing idiosyncrasies than anyone, mentioned that it looked like the cause was a short in the pump switch. No big deal. Certainly less of a big deal than replacing the entire well pump. For a while, we were content to toggle the breaker whenever the water shut off, and all was fine. Last night, for the second time, the switch shut off while the water softener was recharging, so I decided it was time to bite the bullet. My water softener guy said the switch was a $40 part, and I would just need to get my plumber to come install it.

He was wrong about the part. That was $22. He may have been right about the plumber. The part looked easy enough. Four wire connections plus a ground wire are well within my electrical capabilities. The bottom part had a nut-looking thing that screwed onto the spot where the old one was. No sweat.

Usually, I thoroughly research how to fix things before I attempt the repair. But this one looked just so darned easy, I skipped that. Had I done the research, I probably would have discovered two very important details:

1. The thing that the bottom of the part screws into is a water pipe.
and
2. Even if you turn off the power to the well pump, there is still water in that pipe, under pressure.

At this point, I would like to direct everyone slapping their forehead or muttering "Who didn't know that?" to the Where Were You An Hour Ago When That Information Could Have Been Useful, Before I Power-Washed My Face And The Utility Room Ceiling Department. And be careful; the floor is a bit slippery when wet.

Using techniques gleaned from watching many a submarine movie (in which, during the obligatory "take her below crush depth" scene, a pipe or rivet always bursts and the crew has to patch a hole that is spewing water at high pressure), I managed to get the new part on the pipe and securely tightened down. Reconnecting the wires was the breeze that I thought the whole job would be. And yes, I remembered to dry the part out before I turned the juice back on (note to PengDad: unlike the water, the smoke stayed in). Surveying the results, it doesn't look like there was as much water as I originally thought. I suppose it just seems like a lot when you've got Satan's Water-Pik clearing out your sinuses the hard way.