Suzanne Perrin

I finally got the spring covered with a tight fitting wood lid.

The friend who helped me cut and assemble everything came up with using a 2" pvc pipe as a brace for the back corner. He cut and flattened a 3" section at the end and predrilled holes to attach it to the wood frame. It extends to the floor of the spring.

We used plumbing foam strips (not spray foam) to seal off around the chains and hoses that suspend the pumps. I have been meaning to post some photos but have not been able to take any.

The wood frame fits very tightly to the rock wall and the floor, so only a little strip of foam backer rod was needed to seal it all up. I had gotten some food grade silicone but it was not needed.
Thanks all for suggestions. Hope this helps someone else with similar issues.

Update on project...

A friend is helping me to build a wood frame and plywood cover. He thinks we should use spray foam to fill the gaps between the stone and the wood frame. I'm not sold on that idea...

Does anyone have any thoughts on how best to fill the gaps between the wood frame and the stone?
It needs to be able to keep out insects snakes and mice...

Thanks so much for the advice! Now I have a plan of attack! I will feel much better about the continued safety of our water quality after there is a proper cover to keep out any little critters who may be thirsty.

Ah I see, would it be something like in this photo? They also had ones with plastic sleevs.

Bolting the wood to the wall is a good idea. I would assume it would need to go into the grout between the stones?

Lol! Ah yes the "concrete curb"... I even know that and I still always say the wrong thing...

Any stone masons, or engineers..., here who have any thoughts on the eroding stonework inside the spring?

Here are some photos of the water spring. It seems to slightly undercut the foundation wall, Perhaps from years of eroding by the water flow. I have titled things in the Photos hopefully it is readable if not I can post descriptions.
Edit: I reduced the photo file size. they were a bit too big to load well..

I'm not sure if this would be an option for you or not, but here in NY state a lot of people have a small donkey (burro) as a guard animal against coyote and wild dogs. They are very feisty little animals with a good kick, but really gentle with people and other livestock from what I have seen. My neighbor had one burro to protect his 3 sheep 2 horses and many chickens and ducks.. He only lost chickens from the mink sneaking into the shed, but no coyote or dogs ever bothered them. We have large coyote wolf hybrids in the northeast of the United States.

The house I live in has a spring in the basement as it's water source, it is a very old house. The spring flows directly through a stone lined pit approximately 2 to 2 1/2 foot square and about 2 feet deep. It has no cover and due to its location in the corner of a stone basement I am having some difficulty figuring out how best to maintain and cover it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, especially any links or sites that might show how to repair a spring...

It has a lot of flow, my parents have lived in this house for 40 years and the spring is always full, in fact we continually siphon water out of it and have backup pumps to keep it from overflowing into the basement. Power outages have caused it to overflow and fill our entire stone basement in 6 inches to a foot of water, so that's fun!

The water has tested as safe from lead, we have installed a filter for the occasional silt and a uv treatment unit and it tests as safe to drink after that.

I want to shore up the walls of the spring without damaging it, and I need to figure out how to cover it to keep critters out. I will attach some photos as soon as I can.