How to Recover a Lost Submersible Well Pump

[stumblinhorse]

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.

Different parts of the country same thing. But I still burn only wood. Cutting wood early this morning. I burn 15 cords a year. Me and my wife are the workforce. 12 cords done only 3 more to go!

 

[MossRoad]

Different parts of the country same thing. But I still burn only wood. Cutting wood early this morning. I burn 15 cords a year. Me and my wife are the workforce. 12 cords done only 3 more to go!

Yikes! In the worst winter we’ve had, we only burned 6 cords. Lit the fire October 1 and it burned darn near continuous until the end of March. Only used 4 matches that year!

I like to keep two years worth ready to burn, but the last few years have been so mild that I haven’t had to split anything.

 

[ponytug]

This is all fresh in mind for me as well, as I noticed a little turbidity getting pump into our storage tanks a year ago last fall, which lead me to investigate, and I realized that the footer (check valve) was leaking in the pump. I called the local well drillers, well not so local, as I later found out that they cover the entire state, 500 mile radius. They had drilled the well and installed the original pump thirty odd years ago. They said it was the longest lived pump that they had in their service area.

It was a fiasco on many levels not in the least because they fluffed their original paperwork for our well that they put in. So when they pulled the pump, they had the wrong size pump on the truck. I begged them to come back that same day as rain was in the forecast, but they decided not to. Due to the rain making everything ice like slick, it was a week or ten days before they came back, (yes, no water, other than what we had stored) and they couldn't get their boom truck to the well, because it was still slick, and they don't believe in 4WD trucks. I did ask. So, the new pump and pipe was lowered by hand by a guy standing on my pump house walls. When they got down a hundred feet, I took pity on the guy doing the lowering, and used my tractor as anchor for the safety rope. Then they fluffed the wellhead installation, both on the plumbing side and the electrical side, requiring another trip. I would only recommend their clean up guy. He was good. The rest of them literally had trouble looking in the truck to find a matching size fitting, so yes, it was me rooting around until I found the right fitting. Don't get me started on their mastery of dielectric isolation.

Still, I was impressed at the number of use specific tools in their tool box. I would have needed to buy more than a few of them, and the 30' boom assembly to do the job, and it would have taken me days to do it.

All the best,

Peter

 

[LouNY]

Makes me appreciate our shallower wells mine is 150'.
I'd have a bit of difficulty doing mine today, but 25 years ago one of my brothers and I did my install ourselfs,
Heavy wall poly pipe, barbed pipe adapters, pitless adapter, under water splice kit to terminate the pump (actually used two kits as the well was artesianing ). It was interesting boring the hole in the casing with water flowing over and down the pipe while running a heavy duty drill motor and hole saw, at least I didn't need to lubricate the hole saw. After I finished the pump we had arranged to borrow to pump the water level down in the casing showed up.
But we connected the poly pipe to the pump lowered it down taping the wires to the pipe on the way in and spacing out the centering supports,
connected the pitless adapter, we also installed a check valve at the pitless adapter and lowered it down and set it in place. Had already run the lines to the house and yard hydrant. Connected them up fished the pump wiring through another pipe into the basement, wired up the control box and had water flowing in less then half a day. Used a 135 ft of poly pipe to get the pump about 10 ft above the bottom of the well.

 

[stumblinhorse]

Yikes! In the worst winter we’ve had, we only burned 6 cords. Lit the fire October 1 and it burned darn near continuous until the end of March. Only used 4 matches that year!

I like to keep two years worth ready to burn, but the last few years have been so mild that I haven’t had to split anything.

You are a lot warmer than here! Fire runs from mid October to late May. Last year was the coldest we had in a long time. Had 8-10 days reach -35 to -40 and we had a couple of stretches that we didn’t get above 0 for a couple weeks and didn’t get above freezing for over a month. I wish I could do 2 years of wood. But that is a lot and I like to keep it close to grab 2x a day!

 

[not2old]

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.

Before I retired, I did almost everything DIY. Mostly because if I spent the time earning the money, the government would confiscate 53% of my last dollar earned and that made a big difference in the actual cost.

 

[PILOON]

Wouldn’t the only additional water weight be the amount of water in the pipe that’s above the water level in the well? Anything below the water level in the well can be discounted. So now it only weighs…. A lot more than I can lift safely.

yep, right.
We got caught rising 300 ft setup but lucked out as a delivery guy just arrived on time.
300 ft of water gets rather heavy.

 

[Valveman]

Depending on how far it fell, the bottom of the motor could look like a hollow point bullet all mushroomed out. The pipe can also look like a cork screw sometimes. But maybe it didn't fall far or hard. Even so, it will be stuck in the muck and take probably twice as much pull as you have weight. The power wires and cable can be a big problem. If you don't pull them out at the same time and rate as the pipe comes out, they could wedge between the pump and casing and stick the pump. That is the good thing about only having casing at the surface. The bad thing about no casing to the bottom is that the pipe will be laying on one side, and maybe even dug in a bit.

I would use a cone as was described with a wall hook cut out of one side. Turning the wall hook will drag the pipe away from the side. The cone will center the pipe once it is drug from the side. Then above the cone I use an overshot. Fingers sticking up on the inside slide over a coupling on the pipe and spring in under the coupling to get a grip. Hopefully the wire and cable will be attached to the pipe and come above surface. If not, I use a spear with multiple hooks out the side to twirl in the wire and cable until it snags to a hook. Pull the wire and cable first or at the same time as the pipe.

Not going to be an easy job even with the right tools. And if break anything or drop ANYTHING else in on top of that rats nest it will make it much worse. I like to help people DIY, but even the experts may have their hands full with this one.

Oh, and I am old enough that cameras were not available to me and we just went fishing by the feel. A camera will save you BUNCHES to know what you are needing to attach to and where.

 

[/pine]

Maybe Lassie could help?...!

 

[bdhsfz6]

Maybe Lassie could help?...!