Well Drilled - Results

[Valveman]

Interesting, I didn't know that. So if the pump is a 480 feet which is 260 feet below the water level (220 feet static), the pump will act like it's in 260 feet of water.

So the water acts like pressure booster?

Another way to explain it is that water under other water doesn't weigh anything. So until the pump lifts water above the static or pumping level of the well it doesn't see any head or lift. Any pump will add what pressure it can make to the pressure coming into the pump. So a static of 220' will add 95 PSI to the pressure the pump can produce.

Sorry Goose, you beat me to it. Funny how brilliant minds think alike.

 

[Pettrix]

Another way to explain it is that water under other water doesn't weigh anything. So until the pump lifts water above the static or pumping level of the well it doesn't see any head or lift. Any pump will add what pressure it can make to the pressure coming into the pump. So a static of 220' will add 95 PSI to the pressure the pump can produce.

Sorry Goose, you beat me to it. Funny how brilliant minds think alike.

So would this make the pump not work as hard?

 

[Richard]

Would a 3HP or 5HP pump be better with my well depth?

My two options:
3HP Goulds 3 phase pump OR a 5HP Gould 3 phase pump.

The pump installer wants to use a #10 wire for the 480 feet depth but can install a #8 wire but will upcharge another $400 for the thicker wire.

The pump installer also said that he wants to use 1.25" SCH 40 galvanized pipe for the last 380 feet due to the weight, depth and power of the pump. The first 100 feet from the pump level will be SCH 120 PVC pipe to prevent electrolysis.

My concern is will galvanized pipe rust?

I'm no expert so discount my thoughts a bit...

My well is something like 300/400 feet down. I have something like 90' of water above my pump (my pump is around 10 feet off the bottom)

I'm told my flow rate is about 103/107 gallons/minute. Seems when he was 'filling his little bucket' the bucket almost got washed away.

Anyways, today, 15 years later.... I've developed some "gee, why didn't I do..." thoughts

First is, I wish when I found out about this, I had been told of options before the pump went in. I would have liked a bigger pump to provide more water as my wife wanted to install an irrigation system (which we've done)

I've also thought it might have been intersting to install two pumps. (I don't know if that is possible)

Put my drinking pump down deep. Higher up, put the second pump for the irrigation, house (outdoor) spigots.

I did take some advantage of the larger flow....ripped out all the 1/2" copper pipes to the downstairs shower, replaced them with 3/4", both hot and cold. Bought 3/4" valving for the shower. The sales girl laughed and asked if I was building a car wash.

It is an absolutely fantastic shower!!!

When the shower is on, it will diminish the power of the upstairs shower (2 floors up) and the kitchen (1 floor up)

When you are in there, you don't care!!!

Wife is concerned about using all this water and "being wasteful"

I told her another way to look at it is, each minute, we evidently have 100 gallons of water presented to us so, for each gallon that we DON'T use (and inject back into the ground via our septic), is a gallon that we've let flow by and therefore wasted!!

She wasn't sure how to respond to that.

I say, if you have the flow, find some way to have the ability to utilize it.

 

[TheGoose]

Pumps work the hardest when they are moving a large amount of water. When you increase the pressure the amount of water being moved goes down and thus the pump is actually working less hard.

So would this make the pump not work as hard?

 

[teejk]

I'm no expert so discount my thoughts a bit...

My well is something like 300/400 feet down. I have something like 90' of water above my pump (my pump is around 10 feet off the bottom)

I'm told my flow rate is about 103/107 gallons/minute. Seems when he was 'filling his little bucket' the bucket almost got washed away.

Anyways, today, 15 years later.... I've developed some "gee, why didn't I do..." thoughts

First is, I wish when I found out about this, I had been told of options before the pump went in. I would have liked a bigger pump to provide more water as my wife wanted to install an irrigation system (which we've done)

I've also thought it might have been intersting to install two pumps. (I don't know if that is possible)

Put my drinking pump down deep. Higher up, put the second pump for the irrigation, house (outdoor) spigots.

I did take some advantage of the larger flow....ripped out all the 1/2" copper pipes to the downstairs shower, replaced them with 3/4", both hot and cold. Bought 3/4" valving for the shower. The sales girl laughed and asked if I was building a car wash.

It is an absolutely fantastic shower!!!

When the shower is on, it will diminish the power of the upstairs shower (2 floors up) and the kitchen (1 floor up)

When you are in there, you don't care!!!

Wife is concerned about using all this water and "being wasteful"

I told her another way to look at it is, each minute, we evidently have 100 gallons of water presented to us so, for each gallon that we DON'T use (and inject back into the ground via our septic), is a gallon that we've let flow by and therefore wasted!!

She wasn't sure how to respond to that.

I say, if you have the flow, find some way to have the ability to utilize it.

You are still limited by the fittings/fixtures once that water is in your pressure tank (pressure delivered by your pump). I think plumbing code mandates 3/4" until you tap off to a single fixture (an exception for toilets I think). Then the typical faucet/shower head/whatever probably drops to 3/8". Water being water it will push...constricted at the end creates the high pressure. We have a few pros here that can correct me but I think typical wells use 2" or less pipe from the pump to the pressure tank.

 

[Valveman]

I'm no expert so discount my thoughts a bit...

My well is something like 300/400 feet down. I have something like 90' of water above my pump (my pump is around 10 feet off the bottom)

I'm told my flow rate is about 103/107 gallons/minute. Seems when he was 'filling his little bucket' the bucket almost got washed away.

Anyways, today, 15 years later.... I've developed some "gee, why didn't I do..." thoughts

First is, I wish when I found out about this, I had been told of options before the pump went in. I would have liked a bigger pump to provide more water as my wife wanted to install an irrigation system (which we've done)

I've also thought it might have been intersting to install two pumps. (I don't know if that is possible)

Put my drinking pump down deep. Higher up, put the second pump for the irrigation, house (outdoor) spigots.

I did take some advantage of the larger flow....ripped out all the 1/2" copper pipes to the downstairs shower, replaced them with 3/4", both hot and cold. Bought 3/4" valving for the shower. The sales girl laughed and asked if I was building a car wash.

It is an absolutely fantastic shower!!!

When the shower is on, it will diminish the power of the upstairs shower (2 floors up) and the kitchen (1 floor up)

When you are in there, you don't care!!!

Wife is concerned about using all this water and "being wasteful"

I told her another way to look at it is, each minute, we evidently have 100 gallons of water presented to us so, for each gallon that we DON'T use (and inject back into the ground via our septic), is a gallon that we've let flow by and therefore wasted!!

She wasn't sure how to respond to that.

I say, if you have the flow, find some way to have the ability to utilize it.

I am guessing your well tested at 103 GPM, but they put in a much smaller pump like 10 GPM? If you had a 100 GPM pump you could run 50 showers at a time or irrigate a golf course. With a good producing well like that you should size the pump to your maximum demand, which is usually the irrigation. Then you can use something like a constant pressure valve or CSV to make a large pump work like a small one when a single shower or sprinkler is all that you need to run.

 

[Qapla]

Of course, at 10 gpm, though you could irrigate a golf course, it would take a very long time to do so since a home rotor comes standard with a 3gpm nozzle and those used on golf courses generally use quite a bit more.. We prefer to have more along the lines of 20-25 gpm for a standard home irrigation system that we plumb with 1" Mainline. I would want to use more like a 2" TO 3" mainline, and that would deliver more along that lines of 55-140 gpm

But then, you can get a 1.4 hp 4" submersible pump that will produce 25 gpm.

When using water in the house, especially something like a shower that has water conserving head, the pump could cycle and you would never notice it as long as it is a slow/normal cycle. Irrigation, on the other hand, is a different situation. You want the pump to run constant the entire time the irrigation system is running. That is why the irrigation zones are designed to use close to the production of the well at 40 psi.

All said, a Cycle Stop Valve (CSV) is a good idea/investment for either/both especially when the same pump is running both - sometimes at the same time.

 

[Pettrix]

I was told by a few well installers in my area that depending on the well pump design a CSV can hurt the pump since a CSV creates backpressure. It's like driving a vehicle with the gas and brake pedal both pressed at the same time. A CSV is just a mechanical switch that creates backpressure in the line and in the well pump motor.

It all depends on who you talk to and what their "agenda" can be. Those selling CSV's claim they are the best thing out there while those selling VFD's don't sell or install CSV's.

I believe the TRUTH is somewhere in the middle. CSV's can and do work but can damage certain pumps and can damage PVC drop pipe and VFD's can and do work and have a place in residential applications where short cycling damages non-VFD pumps. Commercial or agricultural applications are a different animal and they basically just need a pump that turns on and stays on for a long time and puts out high GPMs.

Residential use is totally different. Water is needed every so often so a VFD does a better job with soft starting/soft stopping and keeps pressure at 60psi without causing issues. A standard "non thinking" well pump just knows ON/OFF and when it turns on it creates a lot of torque and when it shuts down it's also harsh. Short cycling a non_VFD well pump shortens its life and your PVC plumbing pipes take a beating in the well.

 

[Valveman]

Like TheGoose said, backpressure on a pump makes it work easier, not harder. Any pump installer who doesn't understand this simple fact has no business installing something as complicated and confusing as a VFD. You should run away screaming from anyone who says it is like driving a car with one foot on the brake and one on the gas. They have NO IDEA what they are talking about. A pump does not have pistons like a car engine, and restricting the flow makes the pumps work easier as we have said.

After studying electrical engineering I started with VFD's back in the 80's. I discovered that I had been lied too, as they actually increase energy consumption, not decrease energy consumption as I was told. After having multiple problems with all the VFD's I had installed, I figured out a way to do the same thing with a simple and dependable valve. In 1993 I replaced every VFD I had installed with a CSV, and have never looked back. They keep claiming that the newest version of VFD's has solved all the problem of the past. This is the same thing they were saying 25 years ago. And although they have gotten better at BandAiding some of the problems of VFD's, they will never be able to solve them. There are many inherent problems with varying the speed of a pump, and mother nature will never let this change.

That being said there are some good applications for VFD's, just not with pumps that have centrifugal impellers. I have a VFD on some plastic injection machines that work very well. However, I have to keep the cabinet doors open and an air conditioner pointed at the VFD to keep it from tripping out on overheat. Most plastic injection machines now use servos instead of VFD's because they have had these problems with VFD's.

A VFD does not do a better job on residential or any application. The soft start doesn't help much when you have a CSV or VFD and the pump is not starting repeatedly anyway. Plus the CSV does a mechanical soft start, which works as well as any electrical soft start. The CSV makes the pump start and stop at minimum flow, which takes out all the water hammer and is the opposite of "harsh".

Don't get me wrong. I like it when people use VFD's on their well and booster pumps. It gets them use to constant pressure and really small pressure tanks. Then after they realize the VFD is not saving energy and is costing a lot to maintain, they start looking for an alternative, which is the CSV. The biggest part of my business is replacing VFD's, as I did the ones I had installed back in the 80's and early 90's. The more VFD's people install, the more there are for me to replace.

 

[TheGoose]

There is some information trickling out that some of the newer pumps are not lasting as well when throttled back by either a CSV or a dole valve due to the way the impellers are designed (floating stack vs other designs). Cary (valveman, owner of CSV) can give you more information. I primarily use Goulds pumps but I usually do not use either CSV's or VFD's but I would not hesitate to use a CSV and actually have one on one of my personal wells with a 20 gallon bladder tank. Works as advertised. I'm not a big believer in constant pressure as I personally cannot tell you when the pressure swings from the cut on a 40 to the cut out at 60 but some people can I guess.

My own personal belief is that VFD's are a computer and the main reason I am against them is I do not think they can hold up to the Texas heat (95-100 deg F air temp and up to 120 deg + if in sunlight). Your cellphone will overheat in a hot car but somehow a VFD is supposed to last?

I worked in a large industrial facility with VFD's on several hundred horsepower motors for fan speed and we had to add an A/C to the VFD room and still had problems.

I was told by a few well installers in my area that depending on the well pump design a CSV can hurt the pump since a CSV creates backpressure. It's like driving a vehicle with the gas and brake pedal both pressed at the same time. A CSV is just a mechanical switch that creates backpressure in the line and in the well pump motor.

It all depends on who you talk to and what their "agenda" can be. Those selling CSV's claim they are the best thing out there while those selling VFD's don't sell or install CSV's.

I believe the TRUTH is somewhere in the middle. CSV's can and do work but can damage certain pumps and can damage PVC drop pipe and VFD's can and do work and have a place in residential applications where short cycling damages non-VFD pumps. Commercial or agricultural applications are a different animal and they basically just need a pump that turns on and stays on for a long time and puts out high GPMs.

Residential use is totally different. Water is needed every so often so a VFD does a better job with soft starting/soft stopping and keeps pressure at 60psi without causing issues. A standard "non thinking" well pump just knows ON/OFF and when it turns on it creates a lot of torque and when it shuts down it's also harsh. Short cycling a non_VFD well pump shortens its life and your PVC plumbing pipes take a beating in the well.