pumping water, long post

Mike(NEOhio)

Well-known Member
Location
Newbury, Ohio
I'm trying to pump out my well because of a sediment problem. I had a driller in last week to bail and scrub it. Got a lot of sand and some clay. They said to leave the pump running till it cleared but that made it worse. The well is drilled 78 feet, cased to 28 feet, all sandstone below that. The water level is 12-13 feet and the pump is down about 30 feet. The well was always good but brought up sediment when we used a lot of water. Last couple of years the sediment is always there. I think over 40+ years the sediment built up to where it's close to the pump level. I think pumping from the 30 foot level is not flushing it enough because the well can deliver over 30 GPM. I pushed a 1-1/4 plastic pipe down about 70 feet and connected it to a 1-1/2 inch Homelite pump rated 100 GPM. My thinking was that to lift less than 15 feet, I could pull water from 70 feet and flush from the bottom up and get the sediment out. Not the full 100 GPM but a lot faster than the well pump. I have used this pump to empty a cistern in about a half hour from 10 feet down but I couldn't get it to work at all in the well. Primed it several times and left it running for an hour, nothing. When I drained it the water was hot enough to give vapors on an 80 degree humid day. I tested the pump from a drum and it pulled fine at a two foot lift.
I'm open to suggestions. Would it help if I added a foot valve and primed the whole vertical pipe? A different type of pump? Tried pumping from say 20 feet in stead of 70? I thought I understood the principles but I'm obviously missing something.
 
I am thinking you pushed the end of the pipe into the sediment; plugging the pipe. Can you pull the pipe up, establish flow and then push down? Even if you run a jet at the bottom you would have a similar problem.
 
I would rent a big air compressor, like you use to run a jackhammer, and run a pipe all the way to the bottom, blow it out, wait for it to refill and blow it again, do this over and over until it clears up. Has someone been hydrofracking in your area? That can cause this problem. Otherwise you might have to put a small pump in it with a flow restrictor and pump less gallons per minute into a large tank and then draw your water from that, I have known folks that had to do that.
 
Hello Mike,

The well is collapsing in and sand is now up to the pick up level. What normally works is blowing down the well, and waiting for it to settle down. You won't be able to flush it like you doing it at 70 feet pick up. It will just keep collapsing and sucking up sand. We were lucky with ours. Raised the new pump five feet and all is well. You may end up raising it as well. Blow it down first and most importantly.....LET IT SETTLE! Good luck...


Guido.
 
I have heard of shooting a well with a firearm. Also using cherry bomb or M80. My fil did a sandpoint with a 22 handgun. Now I am trying to remember what they were trying to cure. I think super fine sand plugging the sandpoint screen.
 
Use the same pump. start sucking water near the existing pump level and work downward. mud weighs way more than water and cannot be lifted in quantities. if you work the depth modestly, I think you will be able to pull up the muck. As you go deeper, the rate will need to decrease (again because of the weight of the silt/mud. Jim
 
Thanks all for the suggestions. I'm going to give it another try. I'll pull the pump and test the depth before I put the pipe in so I'll know what depth I actually have. Too wet to work on hay anyway.
 
The farthest you can suck water is 10 meters, isn't that ironic, it seems the metric system is relative to everything! That would be a sea level, I presume. Shallow well pumps are quite inefficient, but easy to maintain. I replaced one with a submersible and pump twice the water on half the electricity.
 
The depth of the end of the pipe in the water doesn't matter - it's all about the vertical distance between the pump and the top of the water column in the well. If at any point this distance exceeds about 30 feet the water in the pipe will boil and the pump will lose it's prime. (The exact distance depends on your elevation relative to sea level - the higher you are the less lift you can get.) When the resulting vapor from the boiling recondenses into liquid water a lot of energy is released which would explain the heat you described. When you start your pump do you get a little water then nothing? It is possible it is trying to pull water so fast that the water level in the well is dropping more than 30 ft below your pump which would lead to the problem described above.
 

As others have said 32 feet is max, and that is at sea level. You could get a deep well jet pump. They are good to 110 feet. they force water down to an eductor at the bottom where suction is created to draw water in. I installed one once where the casing of the shallow drilled well didn't hold adequate water, so I was able to draw from a lot deeper.
 
Way important and correct. Water has a specific gravity of 1. Ground up shale is about 2.5 times that heavy. So the proportion of shale mud to water needs to be considered when pumping mud. You are correct, if the lift is 10 feet, it will pump. but maybe not if the level drops to 20 feet!! Jim
 

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