"Baby It's Cold Outside!!!!"

Last night the temperatures began to drop and finally stopped when it reached 2 degrees but the wind chill made it feel about 10 below! It's now 11 degrees! We've had some heat problems recently in our private section of the B & B, all related to our natural gas well. Everyone is always fascinated when we tell them we have FREE heat in the downstairs of our house because the furnace, stove, and hot water heater are fed from our private gas well 1000 feet underground! The well was put in in the 1960's and has served us faithfully for 16 years. But in Jan. the gas all of a sudden stopped. Finding a gas well repair person was no easy task but after serveral phone calls we found someone who would come out. He found water in the well and managed to bail it out down to 850 feet and then discovered that it had developed holes below that allowing more water to come in. He sent us to another
driller who could go deeper and he said we needed to pack the well and install new pipe as it had collasped at the bottotm! So in order to have hot water, we had to install a supplemental electric water heater and we are still waiting for the driller to insall the new pipe. I think that all the money we have saved over the years getting our "free" gas has been eaten up with the cost of repairing the well! But with the cost of propane (we can't get Columbia gas in the country) we figured we can still recoup the repair cost. Let's hope so! I'll write an update when we start getting our gas back! The guest bedrooms are quite warm and toasty, there is plenty of hot water so the B & B is still running smoothly. It is just our private areas that can get a little chilly.