The Water Is Working!
I got the water pump to work!!! After several trials followed by errors, I finally figured out some of the basics of pressurized water distribution. Here’s a text I sent to announce the occasion:
WHEN I TURN ON THE FAUCET WATER COMES OUT OF IT 🎉 💧
In hindsight, as in so many other things, the main problem that I’d been having was obvious, and the fix for it was that I needed a check valve. But to properly introduce the problem I’ll describe how the water system is set up.
The water at our place starts underground. We have a well, with a pump[1] that pushes water up out of the ground, through 300’ or so of 3/4" PVC pipe, and then into a couple of 55-gallon blue plastic barrels.[2] The barrels sit on the ground at the highest elevation on the property, so when we want to, we can turn a valve and the water will flow out along a length of poly tubing to drip-irrigate our fruit trees.
But, I digress! The plastic barrels also drain out to a length of 1" blue PEX that’s hooked up to our booster pump.[3] The booster pump pushes water through a cycle stop valve, past a pressure tank, and then into another length of PEX that connects to the Mighty House.