 ·T-Mobile
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[Plumbing] Oh Well It Ended Well.But still another $450 down the tube. Last Friday at 4:00 AM after dropping my wife and son off at Ft Myers airport, I went back home and took a shower, I stepped out of the shower and as I was turning off the water, it turned it self off, odd. After drying off and dressing I went out to the pump house and noticed the well pump indicator was illuminated, indicating the well pump was running, the aerator low water indicator was also illuminated indicating it had run it out of water shutting down it's pump, the well pump pressure meter and the aerator pressure meter indicated zero pressure, I walked over to the well touched the pipe and found no vibrations indicating the pump was not running. Note to self, indicators and metering are well worth the money when building pump controllers. Back to the shop, grabbed a VOM and a clamp-on amp meter, a couple of screwdrivers and back to the pump house. The VOM indicated the pump was being fed 240 volts A/C and the amp meter indicated a zero draw, suddenly the amp meter jumped up to 25 amps and I could literally feel the pump running which is not good considering it is 65 feet down in the well. The 25 amp reading which lasted only 15 or so seconds and then dropped off, that indicated the pump was stuck in start and not going to run speed, as such the pump needed to be pulled up for more investigation. Well to pardon the pun, no well water, no chitting, but I was prepared, last year I installed a 2500 gallon storage tank with a submerged 1 HP 27 GPM pump inside of it, primarily for fire suppression, however when I plumbed it in I added a set of valves that would allow me to isolate the well from the filtration system and back-feed the storage tank into the filtration system, which turned out to be a wallet saver. Contacted a local well guy, he advised me he had replaced that pump about 3 years ago and based on what I described it probably took a lightning hit and needed to be replaced, a new 1/2" HP pump would be $450 and with additional materials and labor I was looking at $1100 and he could get to it Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, I thanked him and said I would call him back once I got things worked out, I am sure that puzzled him because I should have been without water, something most people cannot live without. 
And the comment about a lightning hit, well my fanny it was a lightning hit. Called up Windmill Sprinkler Supply over in Labelle, was quoted $350 for a Flint & Walling (excellent pumps) 1 HP pump, I drove over there and with the help of a very friendly counter man I had everything I needed, both plumbing and electrical for a complete change out/upgrade. The Windmill guy advised me he could sell me a 1/2 HP pump for $315, but if I used the well for irrigation, which I do, the 1 HP pump would supply me with 17 GPM more than the 1/2 HP pump (10 GPM) equating to less work for the pump, equating to a longer life for the pump. Once I saw the box the pump was in it turned out the F&W pump I was buying was the same one he sold me last year for the storage tank. He also mentioned I should install a surge protector for the pump, I advised him I had a well grounded Square D Surgelogic SPD installed at the pump controller, he looked at me like um what, and commented "we sell those, they are almost $600 each and no one other than the AG guys buy them, good choice, they really do save pumps." 
Anyhow out the door at $450 which included a 10% discount for buying more than $300 of supplies. Since pulling a submerged pump is really a two person job, (lose the pump while pulling it and it will sink 10 to 15 feet below the well casing creating a real serious problem), I ran on the tank until yesterday when my wife and son got back here. Staging 
The new pump 
The culprit 
Connecting the riser wiring to the pump. The connections are sort of a Western Union butt splice, then once twisted tight they are soldered and trimmed (low risk of coming open). 
Once the solder cools down dual wall heat shrink is sleeved over the splice, the lower 1/2" of the heat shrink is shrunk and the tubes are filled with 3M 8882 Hi-Gel encapsulant, the 8882 kicks off but never get fully hard allowing reentry to the splice if ever needed, I will never need to get back into the splice but the 8882 ensures no water can ever get into the splice, which can happen with standard butt crimp heat shrink electrical well splices. 
Two 1200 pound test Mule tapes where attached to the pump and using a board and pulley up in the rafters we began lowering the pump into the well 20 feet at a time, one Mule tape was pre cut to about 90 feet the other not being used to lower the pump was still on the reel. I figured if somehow I lost the pump and it pulled the lowering rope and wiring into the well, I had the rope on the reel to bail myself out with. When the 1 1/4" pipe was down to a couple of feet above the well it was primed and another 20 foot section was cemented in place and the pump again lowered more into the well. 
The pump I pulled was down about 60 feet, the well according to the permit filed is 75 feet, I connected 80 feet of pipe to the pump and still didn't hit bottom. So I decided to raise the pump 15 feet and close the well up, the commonly known reason for not having a submergible pump near the bottom of a well is silt, but the real reason to not have a submergible pump at the bottom of the well is cooling, the bottom of our well has a screen which is nothing more than a 4 foot section of 4" PVC with hundreds of slits in it, that keeps the coarse sand out of the well while allowing water to enter the well. If the pump is at the bottom it will pull water through the screen, but not around the motor, if the pump is raised 10 or so feet above the screen it will pull water around the motor as it pumps water out of the well keeping the motor nice and cool. I am not a professional well guy and have never replaced a submerged pump before, but it took us just about 4 hours to pull and replace the pump, so at $35 per man hour, I got the job done for $722. 
As for a lightning hit, BS, the pump the well guy installed was a Pentair, made in China, and the upper bearing of the pump failed preventing it from spinning up to full speed, a search of the model number of that pump on the net turned up many complaints of the same problem.
Retail the Pentair is just a little lower than the F&W, but at the quantity the well guy is buying them I am willing to bet he's paying around $200 ea.
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Nice writeup. Thanks! |
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 davidgGood Bye My Friend
MVM
join:2002-06-15
Leland, MS |
to Well Bonded
good write up, i assisted my dad many years ago when his pump died. the well house looked like an outhouse, so there was no room to use it for support of a pulley. We moved the well house off teh well and placed an engine hoist frame over it. other than that, pretty much the same process as you. money being tight for my dad we would pull about 50-60 feet out, cut it off and lay it to the side. that way he didn't have to replace all the pipe, just a couple couplers. his was about 150 feet deep so it took a good while to pull it, fix it and put the new one down. it is amazing how much bend PVC has before it breaks, we just angled it towards the shed and let it slide along the roof for support. |
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 jrs8084
Premium Member
join:2002-03-02
Statesville, NC |
to Well Bonded
Interesting.
I have found that people use "lightning" as the universal excuse for any electronics failure, and "ethanol" as the universal excuse for any small (gas) motor problem.
Stuff craps out for more than those two reasons. |
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to Well Bonded
said by Well Bonded:As for a lightning hit, BS, the pump the well guy installed was a Pentair, made in China, and the upper bearing of the pump failed preventing it from spinning up to full speed, a search of the model number of that pump on the net turned up many complaints of the same problem. Yeah, of course the lightning hit is BS. And when something is so labor intensive to replace, you always want the best instead of trying to save a few bucks. |
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·T-Mobile
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to davidg
said by davidg:good write up, i assisted my dad many years ago when his pump died. the well house looked like an outhouse, so there was no room to use it for support of a pulley. . When I bought this property the pump house was so effed up it wasn't funny. 
The roof of it was literally 4 feet off the ground, to work in there required hitting ones head constantly on the rafters.
Using my Bobcat and a bit of labor, with my wife, we raised the ceiling of the pump house to 5 feet.
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said by Well Bonded:we raised the ceiling of the pump house to 5 feet. You went all out! |
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to Well Bonded
how come no HDPE? is that not common in your area? another options guys do if they are worried about overheating is to build a pump sleeve. nice install though » www.tuhorse.us/pump-slee ··· -shroud/ |
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ke4pym
Premium Member
join:2004-07-24
Charlotte, NC |
to Well Bonded
Great job! 65 foot wells are nothing - but still a pain in the butt. My Dad's is at 275'. That's a lot of pipe to pull up. And we've done it a few times over the years.
He got this fancy contraption from my Grandfather that makes pulling the pump a 1 person job. You put the pipe inside this clamp. When you pull up the clamp releases and you can lift the pump. When you let go, the little shoe comes down and clamps the pipe to the other side of the device, holding it in place.
Works like a dream. |
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to LittleBill
To Well Bonded great troubleshooting. Nice knowing for sure what the problem is before buying replacement parts. said by LittleBill:how come no HDPE? is that not common in your area? I wondered the same thing. Around here wells are several hundred feet. Ours is 275 the pump is set at 250 feet if I remember correctly. That is a lot of solid pipe to feed down the well. The good news is static water level is only about 25 feet below grade. We have a Goulds 1/2 hp pump installed in 1980. Lightning took out the controller in the early 90's and I replaced it again recently due to a leaky start capacitor but so far the pump has worked like a champ. Replaced the cap in the old controller and now have a spare I can quickly swap out. /tom |
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said by tschmidt:To Well Bonded great troubleshooting. Nice knowing for sure what the problem is before buying replacement parts. said by LittleBill:how come no HDPE? is that not common in your area? I wondered the same thing. Around here wells are several hundred feet. Ours is 275 the pump is set at 250 feet if I remember correctly. That is a lot of solid pipe to feed down the well. The good news is static water level is only about 25 feet below grade. We have a Goulds 1/2 hp pump installed in 1980. Lightning took out the controller in the early 90's and I replaced it again recently due to a leaky start capacitor but so far the pump has worked like a champ. Replaced the cap in the old controller and now have a spare I can quickly swap out. /tom yea same here 185 i think mine is set at, goulds is also the gold standard here. |
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to Well Bonded
Glad if I have no water I just call the municipal water department to take care of.  |
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scooper
join:2000-07-11
Kansas City, KS |
to LittleBill
Another question on the why no HDPE ?
FYI - that PVC can develop cracks and holes, thus it will not hold pressure. When that happened on my well (PVC problems), the plumber replaced it with the HDPE - no further trouble.
We also have a Goulds pump installed in 1996, still rolling along. Having the correct size pressure tank helps alot for this.
You should have also had a rope tied to the pump in case your pipe ever has problems.
Did you install a torque arrestor as well? |
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ke4pym
Premium Member
join:2004-07-24
Charlotte, NC |
to bmilone2
said by bmilone2:Glad if I have no water I just call the municipal water department to take care of. Yeah, I'd take well water any day over municipal water. |
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·T-Mobile
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to ke4pym
said by ke4pym:He got this fancy contraption from my Grandfather that makes pulling the pump a 1 person job. You put the pipe inside this clamp. When you pull up the clamp releases and you can lift the pump. When you let go, the little shoe comes down and clamps the pipe to the other side of the device, holding it in place.
Works like a dream. That is an excellent idea, I understand how it would work and an definitely going to build one just to have on hand. |
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| Well Bonded |
to LittleBill
said by LittleBill:how come no HDPE? is that not common in your area? I have never seen it sold locally, all the well guys around here use is PVC and some fools actually use thin wall to lower the weight. |
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to Well Bonded
said by Well Bonded:the tubes are filled with 3M 8882 Hi-Gel encapsulant, the 8882 kicks off but never get fully hard allowing reentry to the splice if ever needed, I will never need to get back into the splice but the 8882 ensures no water can ever get into the splice, Thanks for mentioning the 8882. Although I have municipal water, this might solve a couple of low-voltage splicing and underwater problems for me. Can you elaborate on how you're applying it? From what I could read, the instructions seem to say it's a 2-part product mixed in the bag, but it looks like you're using a syringe. Also I see Digi-Key has it for a reasonable price. I only need a tiny amount for each application. What's the shelf life on any unused, unmixed amount? |
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 DarkLogixTexan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX |
to Well Bonded
said by Well Bonded:said by LittleBill:how come no HDPE? is that not common in your area? I have never seen it sold locally, all the well guys around here use is PVC and some fools actually use thin wall to lower the weight. I was wondering about the pipe thickness. So is the pipe weight that much of an issue? I'd think the water in the pipe would have more weight. |
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said by DarkLogix:So is the pipe weight that much of an issue? The issue is not weight but flexibility. A polyethylene pipe is flexible. Attach the pump and lower it into the well casing in one continuous length. Later if you need to pull the pump the pipe is flexible enough to coil up rather then having to be cut. I guess it all boils down to well depth when it comes to local practices. /tom |
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·T-Mobile
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to ke4pym
said by ke4pym:Yeah, I'd take well water any day over municipal water. No kidding, when I lived in Davie our water was supplied by the City of Sunrise and it was some nasty stuff, I had to build a whole home filtration system to clean it up to the point it wouldn't stain my wife's laundry and to be able to take a shower without smelling like a bottle of bleach. However when I bought this home, literally just after closing, the sellers husband advised me to not drink the water from our well as it contained pesticides and had given him cancer. I was skeptical, but better to know than to wonder, so I purchased a real water test from a real testing lab, not someone trying to sell water conditioning systems. Three weeks after overnighting the samples to the lab I received my test results and other than excessive calcium (limestone) the well water met all EPA drinking water requirements and the tests for pesticides came back "not detectable," not even a trace of pesticides. None the less the water did have a bit of an odor and would leave white stains on glassware, so I built a filtration system to supplement the aerator. The system consists of a spun polypropylene sediment filter feeding two charcoal/micron filters for general use water, that is followed by two more filters one a .5 micron filter and the other a second charcoal filter, these filters feed into a 1/4" stainless steel line that goes to a tap in the kitchen for drinking and cooking water. In order to keep up on maintenance I installed two water meters, one for the general use system and another for the drinking water system. 
On the opposite side of the pump house is the aerator and the pressure tanks, one for the well pump and two others for the general use system. 
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| Well Bonded |
to ArgMeMatey
said by ArgMeMatey:Thanks for mentioning the 8882. Although I have municipal water, this might solve a couple of low-voltage splicing and underwater problems for me.
Can you elaborate on how you're applying it? From what I could read, the instructions seem to say it's a 2-part product mixed in the bag, but it looks like you're using a syringe. You take the bag roll up one side and that breaks an internal seal, then you shake the bag back and forth mixing the two parts in the bag. Once mixed you can just cut a corner of the bag and pour, I used a syringe with a long needle to be sure the gel filled the heat shrink with out any air pockets. Also I see Digi-Key has it for a reasonable price. I only need a tiny amount for each application. What's the shelf life on any unused, unmixed amount? I have no idea, but I'm sure 3M's tech support can answer that question. |
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| Well Bonded |
to DarkLogix
said by DarkLogix:I was wondering about the pipe thickness. So is the pipe weight that much of an issue? I'd think the water in the pipe would have more weight. The water is where the real weight comes in which is why I bought new pipe allowing me to chop the old pipe as I pulled it out lowering the weight as I went along. The difference in weight between Schedule 40 and thin wall is negligible but there are people who are convinced it is not. |
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DarkLogixTexan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX |
said by Well Bonded:The difference in weight between Schedule 40 and thin wall is negligible but there are people who are convinced it is not. OH I was thinking by thin wall you meant sch40, I'd have been leaning to sch80 or 120. But I'm sure 80 and 120 would be overkill. But I figure it's that far down I wouldn't want a weak pipe becoming an issue. |
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ke4pym
Premium Member
join:2004-07-24
Charlotte, NC |
to Well Bonded
There you go! I'm jealous that you can have the piping out in the open like that. Dad has a big giant well house with a super heavy lid on it. Takes 2 of us to lift it.
He's got 2 filters on his well. Mostly to try to stop the iron from getting in. We're changing those filters every few weeks. |
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DarkLogixTexan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX |
said by ke4pym:He's got 2 filters on his well. Mostly to try to stop the iron from getting in. We're changing those filters every few weeks. Sounds like you need higher capacity filters. |
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to ke4pym
if your iron is that bad, you should be using iron filters or water softners with iron pellets |
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to ke4pym
said by ke4pym:Yeah, I'd take well water any day over municipal water. The water supplied here comes from artesian wells. But, understand your position if it was New York City or the likes. |
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said by bmilone2:The water supplied here comes from artesian wells. But, understand your position if it was New York City or the likes. I beg to disagree. NYC water has no smell or taste. The only water filter I use is in my fridge (for ice), but the water is amazing straight from the tap. Wow, I am surprised by the great lengths you go through for good water Well Bonded. The most annoying thing I have to worry about is the high ppm of dissolved iron which results orange rings in the bathroom sink and in the toilet. |
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 PSWired
join:2006-03-26
Annapolis, MD |
to Well Bonded
Good work with the extra storage ahead of time. I also have been bailed out by having two water sources. I resurrected the original well installed in 1963 when my house was built, which was never properly abandoned when the present-day well was installed. Although it doesn't produce the same flow rates as my main well, it is perfectly suitable for normal living, sans irrigation, if there's a problem with the main well. This helped me with a leisurely swap of a failed submersible pump a few years ago. Supply manifold: 
Backup well pump: 
Primary well pump 
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 garys_2k
Premium Member
join:2004-05-07
Farmington, MI |
to bmilone2
said by bmilone2:The water supplied here comes from artesian wells. My house's well turned out to be artesian, too. Was quite "exciting" for the crew that drilled it and found the water coming up to meet them, and then kept on coming. They wound up packing a bunch of bentonite in to seal it up, I don't think doing any maintenance on that pump will be a DIY deal. |
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