Opinions on Grundfos 10S05-9 to replace a Goulds 10GS05

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LLigetfa

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The GPM on my 12 year old Goulds 10GS05 240V 3-wire is slowing down. I have the pressure switch set to 30-50 and while the wife is filling her soaker tub, the gauge cannot get above 30 PSI. The lower GPM (pressure) is also affecting the backwash on my iron filter and the aeration through the micronizer. I have a 3/4" copper line from the iron filter/softener to the hot and cold manifolds and 1/2" copper lines to the tub.

I've been trying to source parts to rebuild the Goulds but not having much luck. Maybe rebuilding a 12 year old pump makes no sense and I should replace. One on-line dealer that sells Goulds quoted me a Berkely when I asked them to quote Goulds. I cannot make sense of the quote to determine what exact model they are quoting but suspect it is a plastic model.

A local dealer quoted me a Grundfos 10S05-9. The local dealer said I can reuse the existing Franklin control box from the Goulds.

I think I should replace rather than repair a 12 year old pump. I could always tear into the Goulds in my spare time and see if it's worth overhauling to have as a spare.
 

Texas Wellman

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First off, it may not even be the pump. You could have a hole in your drop line if it's galvanized, a split if it's black PE pipe, or a clogged intake. Seen all three things happen before.

Secondly, 12 years is a good run. Why even bother repairing the old one knowing that the motor etc. is already that old? If you're that determined, just buy a new wet end and re-use the motor. What kind of pricing (American dollars) are they giving you?
 

LLigetfa

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The pressure holds so there's no hole in the pipe. The day I put the pump in 12 years ago it ate a bunch of sand and stopped up. After I got the well driller back to fix the well, it stopped eating sand but has never produced 10 GPM since. Sure, the intake or impellers could also be clogged up with iron and manganese contributing to the decline but it's still a case of rebuild or replace. Since I cannot get anyone to quote me for the innards of the pump, I don't know what it would cost to rebuild.

I was quoted $479 CDN for the Grundfos without control box. Can I use the Franklin control box from the Goulds?
 

lockewell

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I would not recommend trying to repair the liquid end at all. By the time you purchase all of the impellers and diffuser you will have at least 50% to 75% cost of a new liquid end. Also,if the pump is 12 years old, I would guess you probably will not even get the liquid end apart in order to repair. You would be better off buying a new pump and motor. Some companies will also supply a new control box with the pump.
 

LLigetfa

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I picked up the Grundfos from my local dealer tonight on the way home and plan to install it this weekend. I was pleased to find that Grundfos Canada is now providing a 5 year warranty. The out of Province dealer that quoted me the Berkeley wanted $100 more for a Grundfos than the local dealer.
 

LLigetfa

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What a day I had Sunday. Did not find joy.

I pulled up the Goulds and it was heavily encrusted with manganese. The torque arrestor was disintegrated. That's not the worst of it though.

First I just lifted it up about 8 feet so the pitless just cleared the top of the casing. I thought I would run the pump to see how well it could pump and at the start it was coming out black from having churned up the manganese so I let it run for a bit hoping it would clear up. Big mistake... rather than clear up it turned muddy and then the water level dropped to where the pump was sucking air. I decided to take the 10 foot section of pipe I used to screw into the top of the pitless to pull it, and extend the down pipe with it to get the pump back down to where it was. That's when I realized my worst fear, that I sucked mud up into the well casing. The same thing happened to me 12 years ago when I installed the Goulds. The problem was that the well driller only developed the well for 5 GPM and my 10 GPM Goulds ate enough mud to stop the rotor twice. I got the driller back to flush the mud out of the well and he threw some crushed stone down the well supposedly to hold back the mud. No attempt was made to develop the well any further. I had just shortened the drop pipe to make room for more mud in case it drew more of it up. Since I was running the water through a Banjo 100 mesh and through a micronizer, they were rate limiting the GPM but I wasn't getting enough GPM for proper aeration.

Now the bottom 15 feet of well is full of mud, mostly fine clay and sand. The GPM recovery rate on the well is too slow so I couldn't make much progress using the old Goulds to suck the mud up out of the well. I was pumping it at full bore and lowering the pump a little at a time but I think mud was coming in as fast as I was sucking it out. Finally I captured the discharge into a barrel and siphoned the water off the top back into the well. The mud would collect in the bottom of the barrel and I would dump it periodically. The progress was slow but I managed to get back several feet of depth but still had to shorten up the downpipe by 2 feet to be able to put back the old Goulds and call it a night. The poor old Goulds is now slower than ever but at least I had water to wash up with.

Now I need to get the driller back to blow the well with water again. He will pump a few thousand gallons of water into it to try to force the mud back to where it came from and what won't go back will hopefully wash out the top so that I get back my 50 feet of depth. After we throw in more crushed rock, I plan to drop the old Goulds right to the bottom to further develop the well but this time I will put a new longer poly pipe on it with a ballvalve to rate limit it. Hopefully, I can develop the well to produce enough GPM without sucking up too much mud and if not, I will have to consider alternatives.

My new Grundfos 10S05-9 is still sitting on the counter waiting for the outcome. The wife is not a happy camper.
 
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Valveman

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I am sorry you had a problem. While the driller is there, wouldn't it be a good idea to just bust a new well with some screened casing and gravel pac so you won't get mud and stuff? Its only 50' deep.
 

LLigetfa

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The original well was put in prior to the house being built and all the landscaping. The $2000 I paid 12 years ago won't go far these days and the damage to the landscape would probably be more than a new well.

As for another 50 foot mud well, I'd never do that again. With the poor quality of water trapped between the clay and the bedrock, a screen would just clog up. I chiselled off more than 1/4" of hard black from my pump so I can imagine what that would do to a screen. As for gravel pac, not sure what you mean and how it's done. The last time the driller came back to blow the well, he poured about a cubic foot of gravel down the well and called it done. Is there a method whereby they use the drill derrick to force more gravel into the mud? Is there any other way to get more gravel into the base of the well? Is crushed stone better than river (pea) gravel?

My neighbour put in a rock well recently and had to go down a few hundred feet. He claims the new rock well has much better water quality than his old mud well.

When I spoke with the driller today he said that he could keep my existing 6 inch casing, and not have to dig up the yard. He could bore down through it and sleeve in a section of 5 inch casing into the bedrock. Of course they cannot say how far they will have to go down to get a good supply of water. In the end, I could still have a low producer with a very expensive bore hole to use as storage.
 

LLigetfa

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Now I need to get the driller back to blow the well with water again...
Dang... he promised to come out and didn't show. Now he won't return my calls. I think he's the only game in town. The other drillers are a hundred or more miles away.

Anyone have ideas for a DIY solution? How much water would it take and what sort of pump or is it just dropped by gravity? Maybe I could get my neighbour who is the volunteer fire chief to borrow a fire truck/pumper out with a "donation"? Maybe I could buy a cheap inflatable swimming pool and slowly fill it with my well water and then pump it back into the well? I don't think my 10 GPM pump would do it though and would need to get my hands on a portable fire pump.
 

LLigetfa

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I have 50 feet of threaded 3/4 metal conduit that I could use for washout drilling. I would just need to drill a series of holes in an end cap to form a nozzle and push down 50 feet of 2" PVC conduit to carry the mud up out of the well.
 

Masterpumpman

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I suspect the driller doesn't want to mess around! Putting a liner in an existing well and deepening it is a patch and not a good idea! If your existing well isn't working and you don't want another MUD well, you'll just have to bite the bullet and have a new well drilled and maybe by a driller 100 miles away!
 

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You will need to mix up some heavy mud in that inflatable pool to be able to lift the gravel and heavy material. Then pump about 200 GPM of that down the well to have enough volume to bring up the cuttings.
 

LLigetfa

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I suspect the driller doesn't want to mess around!
If that is the case then he should be straight up with me and say so, not say he'll come by and not show up and then not return calls. What was planned was for him to flush out the well to get back the 15 feet that I lost and then pack in some gravel. After that, I would try to develop the well further, taking care to regulate the flow so as not to suck another 15 feet of mud into the casing.

Putting a liner in an existing well and deepening it is a patch and not a good idea!
Sorry, if I muddied things up by mentioning that. It was plan "B" only if I could not stabilize the mud well.
 

LLigetfa

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Going by the original well driller's report, the well could produce 5 GPM. There was never any attempt to develop it. The report said the first 11 feet was brown clay and the next 37 feet was blue clay. Then there was a 4 foot layer of fine sand and gravel before hitting bedrock at 52 feet. Total bore depth of 55 feet and casing depth of 52 feet.

My understanding of well development is that one can open up the granular aquifer essentially washing out the fines and hopefully leaving behind coarser material. The larger the area from which the fines are removed, the greater the GPM one can pull without causing movement of the coarser material. I understand that part of the development may involve reversing the flow to unclog some of the coarse material that has fines trapped behind it. As the radius of coarse material increases, the flow rate on the periphery decreases so at some point the fines will no longer get carried forward.

I am trying to understand what it takes to push mud back versus percolate it up out of the well. Ideally, what I want to remove from the well is only the fines that easily come up. The coarser stuff can stay down there where it belongs. What I don't know is what the ratio is between fine and coarse.

So, if the well makes 5 GPM with a static level of 13 feet, flushing the well at some rate greater than 5 GPM should cause the casing to fill up to the point of overflowing. In my case that would add 15 feet of head pushing down at the mud which equates to about 6.5 PSI. Inversely, drawing down the well by 15 feet would apply the same 6.5 PSI to push the mud up. The additional head should increase the GPM that the well can take but I don't know by how much.

I don't know if relying on gravity alone would be enough to push back much of the mud and I don't know if the driller does his drop simply by gravity or by pumping. I also don't know what size pipe the driller drops into the well which not only determines the GPM, but also determines via displacement of the 6 inch casing, the velocity of flow to carry the mud up and out. If the drop pipe displaces more of the bore than it leaves, it would also slightly increase the head pushing against the mud.
 
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Ballvalve

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Send the submersible back and pump it with a pumpjack and a windmill type cylinder. Set it as high as possible and pump into a 2500 gallon settling tank. Pump as slow as possible and your mud will likely stay in place. Easy to pull and repair and inspect.

I have a mud making well, 250' -and cranked the submersible pump down to 2GPM to fill a tank, and now I get no mud. lined it with slotted 4" PVC also. The pump was drawing it down almost to the pump from a 8' static, and in the process "washing out the sidewalls of the mostly unlined borehole.

Whats bizzarre is the well log shows all hard rock and shale all the way to the bottom. I drilled another well 150 above this well on a hillside, and its 200' deep and produces 20 GPM of water you could bottle. less than 800 feet away. Go figure.

If I had the time or energy, I would pour pea gravel around the sides of the liner - its a 6" hole.

Have a 60' deep hard rock 6" well in a valley that makes 60GPM, well proven. Drilled a well for a house I built on a big hill up from this well [can acutally see it from the valley, its perhaps 120' higher than my surface of the valley. That well went 140' [bottom of it higher than my valley well] and it produces 30 gpm of pristine water.

Just did a 50 footer that gives 60GPM + and a stones throw away the next one went 250' with 8 gpm. Almost in a creek bed.

Its a real crapshoot.
 
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LLigetfa

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The new sub is going to go down the hole eventually.

I finally got the driller on the phone... said he was really busy and came down with the flu. He promised to drop by tonight to assess the situation which should put to rest some of the conjecture.

As for pea gravel, I've got bags and bags of the stuff the wife bought for a landscape project and then changed her mind. If I get back all 52 feet of casing, how many feet of gravel should I put down there? I was hoping to get by with about 5 feet of gravel and set the pump about 3 feet above that, so 50 - 8 = 42 feet down. With the static level 13 feet below ground level, that would give me around 28 feet of draw-down.
 

LLigetfa

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Ok, he came out and we discussed what he would do. He said his tanker holds 2000 gallons. His Honda pump has 2 inch lines so I'm guessing it might push around 100 GPM.

He thinks if we put down too much pea gravel, that clay fines will fill up the spaces and stop up the well. I'm thinking pea gravel would be better than crushed stone.
 

LLigetfa

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The well driller did a no-show. At least he saved me $1000. The wife and I cleaned much of the well out by hand. We got it down to 47.5 feet and started bringing up stone. That left about 4.5 feet of clay/sand/stone in the casing.

I dropped the old Goulds right on the bottom and slowly started developing the well. That poor old Goulds had a lot of clay and sand go through it but I was careful not to jam up the impeller. I started out choking it down with a ball valve and some 3/4 inch pipe. I could hear the sand and gravel in the ballvalve and it did a sandblast number on it.

In the end it was pushing into 100 feet of 1 inch poly with nothing on the end and it was putting out 7 GPM. The well had no problem keeping up. After 2 days of pumping it finally ran clear. When we pulled up the Goulds, the intake was full of stones too big to get through the screen. I would have liked to develop it further but the Goulds was giving her all she's got and I didn't want to put the new Grundfos through that torture.

We dropped in the Grundfos and hung it on the pitless just as the sun was setting and had to turn on the yard lights to wrap up the tools. She did bring up a hint of clay since the GPM surged as it filled the line and the precipitation tank. I took a chance that the Banjo filter and micronizer would rate limit it enough to not churn the well too bad.

The pressure switch is now set to 40/60 and the micronizer stops drawing air at 55 so I'm very pleased. While I had the system down, I added a ballvalve between the micronizer and the tank so that I can flush the Banjo or service the micronizer without having to drain the tank. The air volume control only bleeds off air when the tank is half full so it needs to be precharged with a compressor after it has been drained. The intake on the tank has a standpipe so that the water contacts the air in the top of the tank.

I also changed out some 90 degree elbows between the precipitation tank and the iron filter with more 45 degree elbows so that the iron won't plug the line as bad.
 
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LLigetfa

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Just a quick followup two months later... The well and pump are doing fine. I've been monitoring the Banjo filter for any sand and finding very small amounts, not enough to fill a thimble.

Maybe in 10 years I will use this Grundfos to do what I did with the Goulds to flush out and further develop the well should it need it again.
 
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