What are the tricks to pulling a well pump?

   / What are the tricks to pulling a well pump? #1  

chucko

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Polk Co , Fl
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bx1800
it is 75-100 down a 4" well hung on steel pipe. I need a new foot valve in it. The well guy want $500 to do it. I was thinking that with the tools it would only have took him and hour or so so I thought 200-300 but to me 5 seems high
 
   / What are the tricks to pulling a well pump? #2  
The 'trick' is "don't drop it" back down the well.

Other than that, knowing what you are doing and planning carefully what needs to happen as you raise and remove each section of 20' pipe, while hanging on to the pipe below, it should be a breeze. No rocket science, but just straight forward work (and supporting 20' of pipe overhead).

Good luck. Be careful and show pictures, please.

I helped do that one cold night (-15° F) at the neighbors dairy farm when he needed help to get well water by morning milking time. Cold, wet, frozen, slippery, etc. was the name-of-the-game from midnight to 4 am.
 
   / What are the tricks to pulling a well pump? #3  
If its steel pipe and heavy a " pipe vise " may be handy when uncoupling the joints. A tripod and chain hoist may also come in handy.

Egon
 
   / What are the tricks to pulling a well pump? #4  
Any way you could convert the line to plastic while you have it out of the ground ???( maybe not feasible for you though,just asking...) It would be easier to handle if you had to pull it again....not to mention when you put it back in the well. My well is 509 ft deep and it is all plastic with a 1 1/2 hp submersible Gould pump.
 
   / What are the tricks to pulling a well pump? #5  
The well guy that came to pull mine had a handy deveice that sat on top of the casing. It acted like a one-way valve allowing pipe to come up but would pinch it and hold it from falling back down.

You're going to need three pipe wrenches, really two but you might drop one down the hole. I've heard of guys using truck winches to pull it up. 5 sticks of iron pipe is going to be heavy and I don't think you can just lift it by hand. Do you have 20'+ of clearance above the casing.

Before putting it back down the hole, why not switch to the black plyethylene pipe. My 80 foot well had it originally and I will be using it when I drop in a new pump. It is cheap and light so that you can pull it up by hand while letting the pipe lay on the ground, that way if you drop it you won't be in trouble.

At least use the lanyard on the pump to attach a small cable to the pump to be better prepared for the next pull.
 
   / What are the tricks to pulling a well pump? #6  
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( <font color="blue"> Before putting it back down the hole, why not switch to the black plyethylene pipe. My 80 foot well had it originally and I will be using it when I drop in a new pump. It is cheap and light so that you can pull it up by hand while letting the pipe lay on the ground, that way if you drop it you won't be in trouble </font> )</font>

The guy that set my pump had a device that was 3 pneumatic tires pointing towards each other in an aluminum frame setting above the well opening/casing and one of the tires had a small hydraulic jack that was used to adjust the pressure of the tire pushing against each the other 2 tires thus gripping the plastic water line and the one tire was ran by an electric motor that would feed the pipe and pump attatched right down in the well,the well driller told me if the pump ever had to be pulled they simply reversed the process and as the plastic line was pulled out of the well it would coil up in a pile....
 
   / What are the tricks to pulling a well pump?
  • Thread Starter
#7  
"Do you have 20'+ of clearance above the casing"

Above it, I just have to work around the moon. For some reasion the guys around here refuse to use plastic.
I am going to try first to put a check valve outside be well beteen the well haead and the tank
 
   / What are the tricks to pulling a well pump? #8  
I ended up calling a guy in for my well pump.
I saw water down the hole with a flashlight not more than 20 feet down.
I could not budge the pipe up.
He used a special machine on top of the well to get the pump out. We both could not pull it.

Turns out I was well over 500 feet down. Ended up shortening the pipe quite a bit.

-Good Luck.
-Mike Z. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
   / What are the tricks to pulling a well pump? #9  
Yikes, 500 feet down! The drillers here get about 30$ per foot. 15000$!. The good news is that you should have plenty of water, heck, 500 feet of 6" casing holds 734 gallons.
 
   / What are the tricks to pulling a well pump? #10  
I helped pull one with iron pipe only once..... that was enough of a lesson to learn not to offer again. Steel pipe is a hassle to pull, and what we did was to use a pipe cutter and kept cutting off the top section and laying it down. It is also a hard hat operation. If one of those pipes comes down on you, it is time for a new collar bone. This is one of those jobs that you don't feel that it is worth $500 to do, but in the end, you might realize that he has earned that $500 the hard way. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and pay the piper for safety sake. This is one of those times in my opinion... Junk
 
 
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