Troubleshooting well pump ( with pics)

CORRECTION, CORRECTION CORRECTION:

I misread the question. The "yes" below skews my answer and it would have been clear without that word.

Reply to
Harry K
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Thanks. I had never heard (not unusual) of adding checkvalves, gonna have to read that to see if they give a reason for it. I can't see any mechanical reason for them.

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

Ah! The light dawns. That _is_ a good reason for them. I was looking at it as somehow decreasing the startup force on the pump and couldn't come up with any way it would do that.

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

.

He mentioned taking off the 'well cap' which would tend to indicate a cased well, 4" or 6". I've never worked on a 'sand point driven' well so I don't know if they have a 'well cap'.

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

The pipe in the floor is 2" galvanized.

I just thought of something last night. If I pour water down the pipe to the top, assuming the pipe goes down about 30 feet, the water level stays constant and there are no leaks, the water should remain at the top, right? Then why after about 10 minutes does the water go back down to it's steady state level of 2 feet below the floor? Is there a leak in the casing somewhere?

Reply to
Mikepier

I hope there is a big leak in the casing, because how else is water going to get in? You still seemed to be very confused here. A typical well will have a 4" casing that extends from the surface all the way down to the bottom. It includes a screened section of maybe

12 feet near the end that allows water to run in and keeps sand out. With a shallow well like you have, you then have a suction line that goes from the pump down to a footvalve at the end of the pipe. It extends down to near the bottom and sucks up the water.

Another problem here is that your posts are not clear. In the above, it's not clear by what you mean that "the water should remain at the top." The top of what? The top of the priming hole? The top of the well, where it's natural level is about 2ft below the floor? If you prime the pump and the footvalve is working, the pump should stay full of water indefinitely. If it's going down very slowly you should have time to put in the plug, turn it on and it should pump. If you wait a long time or the footvalve is open or non-existent, then the water will run from the pump until it reaches the level of the water at the top of the well.

From your test of the well with the other pump, if I understand what you described correctly, it appears there is not enough flow into the well to support realistic use. What I think you said was that with another test pump you quicky pumped all the water out. But....how did you know this? Did you have a suction line close to the bottom and it ran dry? How much water did you pump before it went dry and what was the approx rate? How deep is this well?

Reply to
trader4

I can shine a flashlight down the 2" pipe and see the water level. When I pumped out with my other pump ( a transfer pump) I stuck a 10 foot hose down and sucked out all the water in the pipe. I confirmed this by looking down the pipe after I pumped out, the water level was down about 10-12 feet. Then slowly ( a few minutes) the water came back up to steady state.

I do not know how deep this well is, but i said earlier I stuck a 20 foot electrical snake until I ran out of snake.

Reply to
Mikepier

Foot valve leaking (if there is one) is one reason.

If no foot valve (possible in your shallow well with a self-priming pump, then it is just adding itself to the water table.

I looked at your picture again and it sure does look like a 'sand- point driven well'. If so, then pulling the pipe for inspection is pretty much out of the question. I have neveer seen a drilled (or dug) well that has a cement cap leaving nothing but the suction pipe sticking out.

At this point you should consider having an expert check it out and be prepared to:

  1. Pay him (negotiate the charge beforehand if possible)
  2. Abandon all hopes of usign the well. (It looks to me like that will have to be done)

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

It took until now for you to think of this?????

The answer is there's either a leak or, more likely the sandscreen isn't totally plugged but is enough so there isn't enough flow to pump.

As noted above (and apparently ignored) you don't have a casing -- a cased well has two concentric pipes the larger outer one of which is the casing around the _DRILLED_ hole.

I have slow dialup so hadn't taken the time for the pictures to load, but I did to confirm -- there is no casing, this is a driven well, also known as a "sandpoint" well.

Here's a link from State of WI on their requirements and some background on driven wells. Note particularly their response to the question of "what if my sandscreen is plugged?" -- the answer is "the well must be properly abandoned".

Took a while to find one online, but here's an actual product...

This well appears to have been abandoned before you arrived although the steps to properly close it not taken.

I've heard of some attempting to use some chemical treatments by dropping tablets (heavier than water, obviously) down the well w/ the hope they will dissolve salts, etc., and free up a screen, but I'd think the likelihood of success w/o contaminating a well as minimal.

Driven wells are a non-entity anywhere I've been so the limit of my knowledge is theoretical in how they work--I think as someone else noted, your only real hope will be to talk to a local well company and see if they have any tricks of the trade that tend to work locally that might be worth trying. I'd expect not but ya' never knows unless ya' asks...

I'd be pretty comfortable in that the problem isn't the pump.

--

Reply to
dpb

With, say a 50ft deep well, the intake should be around10ft from the bottom to minimize sediment pull. It sounds like your foot is set way too high in a deep well but which you don't know the depth of. Why not measure the depth so you have something valid to discuss?

Reply to
Twayne

Sounds like you foot valve is clogged or buried in the mud.

Jimmie

Reply to
JIMMIE

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