How to Recover a Lost Submersible Well Pump

[bdhsfz6]

How far is it from the house to the barn? A roll of 3/4" black poly pipe is about $.50 per foot, PEX is slightly cheaper. It might be easier to run a temporary pipe from the house and wait a month.

I thought about this but the barn is almost 1/4 mile from the house. It's also 80' higher in elevation and on the other side of a private road.

Right now, I'm using a 50 gal poly tank mounted on a pallet. I keep it on the forks and run it up the hill with the tractor once or twice a day. Not really a big problem.

 

[MossRoad]

What sucks about the whole things is this…

After much contemplation, thinking the whole thing through, and finally deciding to let the pros do it, they’ll show up, walk over, look down in the pipe, walk back to the truck, pull something out, walk back to the pipe, and have it coming out in 5 minutes.

It’ll look surprisingly easy to you and you’ll always wonder for the rest of your life if you could have done it yourself.

But that’s why they’re pros.

When our well pump went out on a Friday night on a holiday weekend, I knew it was the well pump. I knew there was some sort of special connector down 6’ in the hole. I knew it could be done myself. But I just didn’t want to wait around and see if I could do it myself while the wife and kids are wanting to take showers, flush the toilet, etc. So I called the well company. They showed up, had the old pump out, new pump in and everything done in about an hour! $300 call out fee on holiday weekend, plus $$ for new pump. When I saw how they did it, I just shook my head and paid the money. Yes, I could have done it myself. But yes, I’d probably have messed a few things up and made multiple trips to the store and it might have taken me a couple days to get it done.

All in all, I’d have had to purchase a new pump anyway, so all it cost me was the $300 call out fee + labor. It’s one of those times where it’s nice to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it, watch them do it so you know how next time, then realize if it happens again, you’re still going to call them out.

 

[stumblinhorse]

What sucks about the whole things is this…

After much contemplation, thinking the whole thing through, and finally deciding to let the pros do it, they’ll show up, walk over, look down in the pipe, walk back to the truck, pull something out, walk back to the pipe, and have it coming out in 5 minutes.

It’ll look surprisingly easy to you and you’ll always wonder for the rest of your life if you could have done it yourself.

But that’s why they’re pros.

When our well pump went out on a Friday night on a holiday weekend, I knew it was the well pump. I knew there was some sort of special connector down 6’ in the hole. I knew it could be done myself. But I just didn’t want to wait around and see if I could do it myself while the wife and kids are wanting to take showers, flush the toilet, etc. So I called the well company. They showed up, had the old pump out, new pump in and everything done in about an hour! $300 call out fee on holiday weekend, plus $$ for new pump. When I saw how they did it, I just shook my head and paid the money. Yes, I could have done it myself. But yes, I’d probably have messed a few things up and made multiple trips to the store and it might have taken me a couple days to get it done.

All in all, I’d have had to purchase a new pump anyway, so all it cost me was the $300 call out fee + labor. It’s one of those times where it’s nice to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it, watch them do it so you know how next time, then realize if it happens again, you’re still going to call them out.

wow. That is an amazing story. If that happened here the call would go unanswered. I would call over 2 or 3 days and maybe get someone. They would say maybe next month they could do it for $3-5k. Last plumbing thing I had quoted was a new hot water heater put in on my hydronic heating system. I had already bought the water tank. Estimate was $900/hr 4 hours for $3600. I did it myself obviously in about 4 hours…

I do absolutely everything myself. The “pro” people don’t ever do a better job than you do on your own property. I truly can’t remember for the last 20 years a single thing I paid someone to do that I was happy with or they did a good job. Different area of the country I guess. No specific industry is different, auto, plumbing, electrical, painting.

I hope the OP has someone they can call to make this mishap fix easy for a few hundred bucks. My neighbor just paid the local person to do his as preventative maintenance, 10 years old. He paid $8k.

 

[bdhsfz6]

What sucks about the whole things is this…

After much contemplation, thinking the whole thing through, and finally deciding to let the pros do it, they’ll show up, walk over, look down in the pipe, walk back to the truck, pull something out, walk back to the pipe, and have it coming out in 5 minutes.

It’ll look surprisingly easy to you and you’ll always wonder for the rest of your life if you could have done it yourself.

But that’s why they’re pros.

When our well pump went out on a Friday night on a holiday weekend, I knew it was the well pump. I knew there was some sort of special connector down 6’ in the hole. I knew it could be done myself. But I just didn’t want to wait around and see if I could do it myself while the wife and kids are wanting to take showers, flush the toilet, etc. So I called the well company. They showed up, had the old pump out, new pump in and everything done in about an hour! $300 call out fee on holiday weekend, plus $$ for new pump. When I saw how they did it, I just shook my head and paid the money. Yes, I could have done it myself. But yes, I’d probably have messed a few things up and made multiple trips to the store and it might have taken me a couple days to get it done.

All in all, I’d have had to purchase a new pump anyway, so all it cost me was the $300 call out fee + labor. It’s one of those times where it’s nice to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it, watch them do it so you know how next time, then realize if it happens again, you’re still going to call them out.

The older you get, you also have to decide what your time is really worth!

 

[bdhsfz6]

wow. That is an amazing story. If that happened here the call would go unanswered. I would call over 2 or 3 days and maybe get someone. They would say maybe next month they could do it for $3-5k. Last plumbing thing I had quoted was a new hot water heater put in on my hydronic heating system. I had already bought the water tank. Estimate was $900/hr 4 hours for $3600. I did it myself obviously in about 4 hours…

I do absolutely everything myself. The “pro” people don’t ever do a better job than you do on your own property. I truly can’t remember for the last 20 years a single thing I paid someone to do that I was happy with or they did a good job. Different area of the country I guess. No specific industry is different, auto, plumbing, electrical, painting.

I hope the OP has someone they can call to make this mishap fix easy for a few hundred bucks. My neighbor just paid the local person to do his as preventative maintenance, 10 years old. He paid $8k.

I've been a DIY'er most of my life. I built the house I live in from the ground up. While I agree with what you say about contractors in general, the well company I deal with has always been fair with me. They put in the house well 40 years ago and have replaced the pump twice since then. The last time was a weekend in mid December of 2019 (My birthday actually). The temp was -5F and they were here within 2 hours of my call. Charged me a total of $2100 to pull 500' of pipe and replace the pump. Took them around 3 hours, including warm up time next to the coal stove. Unfortunately, the pandemic hit them hard and they lost half their work force. Hence the 1 month wait.

Sure, I could have done it myself but at what cost to me AND my wallet. Others aren't so lucky with contractors though, so it all depends on where you live and who you know.

 

[MossRoad]

The older you get, you also have to decide what your time is really worth!

That’s true.

I heat mostly with firewood in the winter. The amount of time I spend producing that firewood heat could be spent working a part time job that would pay more than the cost of the natural gas bill that I’m saving by burning wood.

However, I enjoy the activity and like the feel of wood heat VS forced air.

 

[Egon]

Deep hole, lots of weight to pull up, need pulling tools(lots of different types), need tubing for the pulling tools, may need rotation of the tubing and then there’s the rig to hoist and turn.

Call a service company! They have the tools you are missing.

 

[MossRoad]

wow. That is an amazing story. If that happened here the call would go unanswered. I would call over 2 or 3 days and maybe get someone. They would say maybe next month they could do it for $3-5k. Last plumbing thing I had quoted was a new hot water heater put in on my hydronic heating system. I had already bought the water tank. Estimate was $900/hr 4 hours for $3600. I did it myself obviously in about 4 hours…

I do absolutely everything myself. The “pro” people don’t ever do a better job than you do on your own property. I truly can’t remember for the last 20 years a single thing I paid someone to do that I was happy with or they did a good job. Different area of the country I guess. No specific industry is different, auto, plumbing, electrical, painting.

I hope the OP has someone they can call to make this mishap fix easy for a few hundred bucks. My neighbor just paid the local person to do his as preventative maintenance, 10 years old. He paid $8k.

I do most of my own work myself as well. Plumbing, heating, carpenter, electric, flooring, carpet, concrete, most of my own car work until recently when electronics make it unaffordable to diagnose, etc.

Between my father, 2 grandfathers, and myself, there are 18 women and no other men. They passed on the wisdom to me that there are times when it’s better for everyone involved to hire a professional.

Having my wife and daughters without a toilet or shower for a few days is one of those times.

 

[stumblinhorse]

I do most of my own work myself as well. Plumbing, heating, carpenter, electric, flooring, carpet, concrete, most of my own car work until recently when electronics make it unaffordable to diagnose, etc.

Between my father, 2 grandfathers, and myself, there are 18 women and no other men. They passed on the wisdom to me that there are times when it’s better for everyone involved to hire a professional.

Having my wife and daughters without a toilet or shower for a few days is one of those times.

2 years ago my pump died. For fun I called, soonest appt was 6 weeks out. I paid $900 to rent a boom truck so my livestock would have water. Trucking in water from 10 miles away was no fun for only 1 day.

 

[bdhsfz6]

That’s true.

I heat mostly with firewood in the winter. The amount of time I spend producing that firewood heat could be spent working a part time job that would pay more than the cost of the natural gas bill that I’m saving by burning wood.

However, I enjoy the activity and like the feel of wood heat VS forced air.

I hear you. There's nothing better than the feeling of a hot stove on a cold day. I switched from wood to coal 25 years ago but still enjoy the work required to handle the coal & ash.