Construction Contract with Umesh
Upon arriving back to Kathmandu from our R&R, we arranged a meeting with Umesh,
the well construction man from Kabilash. He arrived at our hotel at 8AM on the dot
as promised. He traveled by bus for 5 hours the night before to make it to our meeting.
That is the dedication and importance of keeping your word we see in all the people of
Nepal we work with. Umesh joined us in the hotel for a breakfast, although he didn't
eat anything, and we discussed the details of our drinking water well. We covered every
detail, fitting, valve, connection and pipe. We laid out the project into 3 parts, 1) the
water collection well. 2) the delivery system, 3) the electrical hook-up. the night
before Rick and Cordella wrote a construction contract. It covered all the usual clauses in an
Amercian construction contract in hopes to introduce a new standard which we hope
will make things go smoother for our construction and other projects in the area. We
have a Water Treaty and a Construction Contract! It's time to dig and lay some pipe.
THE WATER COLLECTION WELL
The well will be 20 feet deep. He will dig the well at the base of the bottom rice terrace closest to the river in Aapchour. He will lay a bed of gravel and then place 40 concrete rings in a stack layered with concrete and rebar. It will have a cement cover and he will install a 6inch PVC well pipe with a screen. He will install our submersible pump donated by Franklin Electric, suspend it in the pipe by a steel cable. It should have a volume of close to 1,400 gallons and he promised it will fill immediately with clean drinking water being in such a wet location. We hope to see the construction when we visit the site on saturday.THE DELIVERY SYSTEM
The water delivery system will consist of the parts we provided: submersible water pump model FPS4400 18FA07S4-PEXB, 3/4hp motor and control box donated by Franklin Electric, stainless steel centralizers donated by FOSTCO and pipe fittings. Umesh will use 1.25inch 6kg psi HDPE pipe running a line 300 feet to a water tank between the two parts of the village. He will install check valves in the water line and the tank will be a 1,500 gallon standard cement tank in accordance with local standards. The tank will have an internal valve to allow us to adjust the volume delivered to each part of the village. He will test the water flow and demonstrate it for the water committee. He will run 100 meters of pipe to the east and 200 meters of pipe to the west terminating at a meter at each end.THE ELECTRICAL HOOK-UP
Umesh will connect the pump to the existing electrical line near the home of the Water Committee Vice President. He will install the control box and an on/off switch with a built-in volt meter and train the Vice President how to manage the system. The wire will be buried in conduit according to local standards.Umesh runs his own well, pump company based in Kathmandu but does most of his work in the Nuwakot District near Kabilash and Aapchour. What a stroke of luck finding him! He demonstrated very good knowledge of working with our type of water system, from construction, plumbing to electrical. He will employee the local villagers as much as possible and he will use his own crew who have been working together for over 20 years. We are so excited to see the beginning of the construction. Umesh will email us photos all along the way up to completion which we expect within 30 days. Now we just hope the weather doesn't cause too much of a delay and the river doesn't rise before he can complete the lower portion of the project.
Today we are heading back to Aapchour at 7AM, tomorrow Rick will make a presentation at the Engineering college in Kathmandu giving a demonstration of his water hammer ("ram pump") and then saturday we go back to Aapchour to inspect the progress. Sunday we head home. Time is going by quickly...