Used Backhoe

Posts Tagged ‘water’

This is the real reason why you don’t want to vote for Obama. He just doesn’t understand.

Given the furor about “Joe the plumber” I’ve written an open letter to Mr.
Obama myself. I think it is worth the read. Maybe if Americans could take a closer look at what a small businessman is, they wouldn’t want politicians penalizing their success. Feel free to forward it if you want…
Cory

Mr. Obama,
Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by Joe the plumber, and the persecution that has been heaped on him because he dared to question you, I find myself motivated to say a few things to you myself.
While Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already have started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me introduce myself. You can call me “Cory the well driller”. I am a 54 year old high school graduate. I didn’t go to college like you, I was too ready to go “conquer the world” when I finished high school. 25 years ago at age 29, I started my own water well drilling business at a time when the economy here in East Texas was in a tailspin from the crash of the early 80′s oil boom. I didn’t get any help from the government, nor did I look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my first job.
My businesses did not start as a result of privilege. They are the result
of my personal drive, personal ambition, self discipline, self reliance,
and a determination to treat my customers fairly. From the very start my business provided one other (than myself) East Texan a full time job. I couldn’t afford a backhoe the first few years (something every well drilling business had), so I and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are necessary for each and every job with hand shovels. I had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for my water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck).
A year and a half after I started the business, I scraped together a
20% down payment to get a modest bank loan and bought a (28 year) old, worn out, slightly bigger drilling rig to allow me to drill the deeper water wells in my area. I spent the next few years drilling wells with the rig while simultaneously rebuilding it between jobs. Through these years I never knew from one month to the next if I would have any work or be able to pay the bills. I got behind on my income taxes one year, and spent the next two years paying that back (with penalty and interest) while keeping up with ongoing taxes. I got behind on my water well supply bill 2 different years (way behind the second time… $80,000.00), and spent over a year paying it back (each time) while continuing to pay for ongoing supplies C.O.D.. Of course, the personal stress endured through these experiences and years is hard to measure. I do have a stent in my heart now to memorialize it all.
I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for being the most
competent and most honest water well driller in East Texas . 2 years along
the way, I hired another full time employee for the drilling business so
that we could provide full time water well pump service as well as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I bought a water well screen service machine from a friend, starting business # 2. 5 years later I made a business loan for $100,000.00 to build a new, higher production, computer controlled screen service machine. I had designed the machine myself, and it didn’t work out for 3 years so I had to make the loan payments without the benefit of any added income from the new machine. No government program was there to help me with the payments, or to help me sleep at night as I lay awake wondering how I would solve my machine problems or pay
my bills. Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen machine working
properly, and that provided another full time job for an East Texan in the
screen service business.
2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time for
$250,000.00, to buy anot her used drilling rig and all the support equipment needed to run another, larger, drill rig. This provided another 2 full time jobs for East Texans. Again, I spent a couple of years not knowing if I had made a smart move, or a move that would bankrupt me. For the third time in 13 years, I had placed everything I owned on the line, risking everything, in order to build a business.
A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for a new
kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary pump used on water well drill rigs. I spent my entire life savings to date (just $30,000.00), building a prototype of the pump and took it to the national water well convention to show it off. Customers immedi

I know I have a leak in my main water line somewhere under my yard from the water main in the street to my house (because when I turn off the water to the house itself, the water meter still spins). The plumber wants to dig up my entire yard with a backhoe and charge me thousands of dollars to find the darn leak. That strikes me as using a rocket when a BB gun would do as well. Isn’t there any simpler, less expensive way of finding a leak ?

My boss has a small pond (1/2 acre) that has cattails growing around edge.At first they made good cover and kept the sides from eroding but now they are out of control.They are so thick you can’t even get near the water and enjoy the pond.There are fish in the pond.Are there any pesticides that are safe to use.We have dug them out with a backhoe and they come right back.Also I have heard if you place a bale of Barley Hay in the water source of a pond there will not be any moss on top of water.

im making a hydraulic arm (backhoe type thing) for science class at school, and im using 4 syringes and some tubing stuff, i was wondering what would be better, filling the cylinders with water or just leaaving it with air… it will be lifting light stuff nothing heavy. but which one would be more powerfull air or water.

Thanks

I am associated with a group of people who bought land East of Portland, OR. The 50 acres are on a dirt road, with no electricity or water. Mostly for personal camping and party use, the regulations from the government are that no permanent structures can be built. There are a couple geodesic domes. One of the people has brought in a thousand gallon water tank, with the idea of filling it with snow run off and rainwater, to help water the trees (Ponderosas) that live up there. ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET, how do we keep the filled tank from freezing and bursting during the extended 0c wintertime? Burying the tank is not a option (rocky soil, no backhoe). Electricity, if needed, would be solar panel/deep cell battery. We could enclose the tank in a simple structure if needed.

Our external water pipe running from the meter (by the sidewalk) to our house burst, and one of the plumbers we talked to said they’d use a mole instead of a backhoe to replace our pipe. We would love to avoid having our yard dug up with a backhoe, but don’t know what the mole is, or if it’s a reliable option. The plumber also said he would run the new piping through the existing pipe (ie breaking the existing pipes along the way). THANKS!