AMeador
New Member
We have a well drilled to 360' We have a 1.5hp Grunfos submersible pump in the well to 300'. We had the well drilled about 3 years ago, and only just got the pump put in the well about a week ago.
We used those cable organizer/protector things on the pipe about every 15' and put nylon zip tiess in between these instead of electrical tape (I was concerned this might come off after a while). The pipe is 1" black pipe (200psi?). The pump should produce at about 20GPM at this depth. The pipe comes into the house and then goes through a complicated valve configuration to a whole house filter. This then feet the house, hot water tank, water hose connection, etc... Our well driller detailed the well as going through limestone and sandstone layers alternating about every 10' to 15'. Orignial output was only 1.3 gal/hour after first drilled and the water level came up to 157' and stopped there.
When we first turned the pump on, the water was very "red" - like it had gone through red clay. And it has sandly like particulates in it - all the way from typical sand looking particles to very very fine particles that sparkle and flow around in the water. Anyway, I was concerned about how "red" this was - if poured into a pitcher, you could only see maybe 2 or 3 inches into it. I called our farmer neighbor and asked them what they thought we should do - pump it all out, or just run it for a while to see if it would clear up. They suggested pumping it all out being that murky - didn't want to cause hot water tank issues, faucet issues, etc...
So, I pumped it all out. About 150 gal in about 15 minutes through the waterhose connection. All the water was murky - it seemed very consistent and it had a bad smell - iron? sulfur? mix? Very funky odd smell. The next day I pumped it all out again - about 24 hours later and got 50 gal. So a little improvement ~2 gal/hour. This time it was still pretty murky at the beginning, but cleared up a bit after about 30 seconds of pumping and the smell was not as bad. A few days later I pumped again - but it seemed to stall at only about 40 gal. I went inside the turn the pump off, but realized that the pressure guage (before the filter) was reading 40psi. So I figured the filter had clogged up. Took the filter off and yep - about .5" of fine sand like stuff at the bottom of the filter canaster and the filter was plugged up. So, I told everyone in the house not to use any water, and put the filter canister back on without the filter in place and turned to pump back on to pump the rest of the water out. I noticed in the filter canister when I cleaned it out that there were also so small pieces of rock - like slivers from the drilling process? They were maybe 2mm by 1mm by .5mm? Fairly smalll, but still, stuff I would think would have long ago settled to the bottom of the well - which should be some 60' below the pump at this point. Could this have been from the water above the pump causing the little flakes to come off the side of the well walls?
So, I decided to get a tank of city water and dump that down the well - to help wash the sides of the well and to help diluted this murkey water. I put 100 gal down the well, then pumped that water out. Again it started out pretty murky, but after 30 seconds or so, it looked very clear. Then I put another 100 gal down the well and pumped it out again. Same thing - murkey, then clear. Then I decided to fill the thing completely up and let it set - one to dilute, two to soak the walls of the well all the way up to help get everything loose, three - to see if the well would hold water above the 157 point that the water level came to initially, and finally - maybe to generate a little extra pressure on the incoming water source to see if it may help increase the flow any (low pressure hydro-fracturing ) I know that's nothing in comparison to real fracturing - but it's potentially an extra 1000lb of pressure or so on the source that it didn't normally have. Sooo, I ended up putting 420 gal in the well (6' well) and only got it to about 40' below the surface. I could 'just' see it with the flashlight. Now from what I was told, a 6' well holds ~1 gal/foot. So, when I pumped the well out with the pump at 300', this should have only taken 300 gal - but it took 420 and still needed another 40 or so. I suppose there must be a void somewhere.
I let it set until the next day and re-checked the water level - I couldn't see it anymore, so it went down - but to where? So, I pumped it out again. The water was pretty murky again at first. Then it cleared up a bit - but not as wood as before - most of the color was gone, but can't see the bottom of the 12' tall pitcher from the top. Also, I pumped out 200 gal and had still not run out of water - to the water level did not go down to the origina; 157'. I didn't have time to pump more, so I don't know how much it was holding total.
I any case - this was a lot of clea water added to the well and it's still fairly murky. Small seems to be significanly gone if not completely, but It is still getting this fine sand in it. I'll have to check then filter canister for larger particulates, but again, with this pump setting 60' from the bottom and this much water pumped out and clean water/washed, is this normal? Has the bottom 60' of the well filled in with this fine sand and the pump is setting on the bottom? What does the larger particulate mean in this situation? That bothers me the most as I can't see why it would be pumping stuff like that out when I'd think that stuff should be at the bottom of the well - not near where the pump is pulling in water. One other thing - there is stainless stell casing in the first 70' of the well. The well driller said he usually only puts about 20' but he hit a couple of voids initiall and had to go to 70' to pass the last void by about 10'. With that much casing, would it be likely that we are getting water intrusion from the surface? We do have red clay at the top of the well, but from ~10' from the surface to the bottom of the well is solid rock - and I think maybe a layer or two of shale. Or... is this all normal and we just to need to be patient for it to clear up?
Thanks for your time and thoughts!
We used those cable organizer/protector things on the pipe about every 15' and put nylon zip tiess in between these instead of electrical tape (I was concerned this might come off after a while). The pipe is 1" black pipe (200psi?). The pump should produce at about 20GPM at this depth. The pipe comes into the house and then goes through a complicated valve configuration to a whole house filter. This then feet the house, hot water tank, water hose connection, etc... Our well driller detailed the well as going through limestone and sandstone layers alternating about every 10' to 15'. Orignial output was only 1.3 gal/hour after first drilled and the water level came up to 157' and stopped there.
When we first turned the pump on, the water was very "red" - like it had gone through red clay. And it has sandly like particulates in it - all the way from typical sand looking particles to very very fine particles that sparkle and flow around in the water. Anyway, I was concerned about how "red" this was - if poured into a pitcher, you could only see maybe 2 or 3 inches into it. I called our farmer neighbor and asked them what they thought we should do - pump it all out, or just run it for a while to see if it would clear up. They suggested pumping it all out being that murky - didn't want to cause hot water tank issues, faucet issues, etc...
So, I pumped it all out. About 150 gal in about 15 minutes through the waterhose connection. All the water was murky - it seemed very consistent and it had a bad smell - iron? sulfur? mix? Very funky odd smell. The next day I pumped it all out again - about 24 hours later and got 50 gal. So a little improvement ~2 gal/hour. This time it was still pretty murky at the beginning, but cleared up a bit after about 30 seconds of pumping and the smell was not as bad. A few days later I pumped again - but it seemed to stall at only about 40 gal. I went inside the turn the pump off, but realized that the pressure guage (before the filter) was reading 40psi. So I figured the filter had clogged up. Took the filter off and yep - about .5" of fine sand like stuff at the bottom of the filter canaster and the filter was plugged up. So, I told everyone in the house not to use any water, and put the filter canister back on without the filter in place and turned to pump back on to pump the rest of the water out. I noticed in the filter canister when I cleaned it out that there were also so small pieces of rock - like slivers from the drilling process? They were maybe 2mm by 1mm by .5mm? Fairly smalll, but still, stuff I would think would have long ago settled to the bottom of the well - which should be some 60' below the pump at this point. Could this have been from the water above the pump causing the little flakes to come off the side of the well walls?
So, I decided to get a tank of city water and dump that down the well - to help wash the sides of the well and to help diluted this murkey water. I put 100 gal down the well, then pumped that water out. Again it started out pretty murky, but after 30 seconds or so, it looked very clear. Then I put another 100 gal down the well and pumped it out again. Same thing - murkey, then clear. Then I decided to fill the thing completely up and let it set - one to dilute, two to soak the walls of the well all the way up to help get everything loose, three - to see if the well would hold water above the 157 point that the water level came to initially, and finally - maybe to generate a little extra pressure on the incoming water source to see if it may help increase the flow any (low pressure hydro-fracturing ) I know that's nothing in comparison to real fracturing - but it's potentially an extra 1000lb of pressure or so on the source that it didn't normally have. Sooo, I ended up putting 420 gal in the well (6' well) and only got it to about 40' below the surface. I could 'just' see it with the flashlight. Now from what I was told, a 6' well holds ~1 gal/foot. So, when I pumped the well out with the pump at 300', this should have only taken 300 gal - but it took 420 and still needed another 40 or so. I suppose there must be a void somewhere.
I let it set until the next day and re-checked the water level - I couldn't see it anymore, so it went down - but to where? So, I pumped it out again. The water was pretty murky again at first. Then it cleared up a bit - but not as wood as before - most of the color was gone, but can't see the bottom of the 12' tall pitcher from the top. Also, I pumped out 200 gal and had still not run out of water - to the water level did not go down to the origina; 157'. I didn't have time to pump more, so I don't know how much it was holding total.
I any case - this was a lot of clea water added to the well and it's still fairly murky. Small seems to be significanly gone if not completely, but It is still getting this fine sand in it. I'll have to check then filter canister for larger particulates, but again, with this pump setting 60' from the bottom and this much water pumped out and clean water/washed, is this normal? Has the bottom 60' of the well filled in with this fine sand and the pump is setting on the bottom? What does the larger particulate mean in this situation? That bothers me the most as I can't see why it would be pumping stuff like that out when I'd think that stuff should be at the bottom of the well - not near where the pump is pulling in water. One other thing - there is stainless stell casing in the first 70' of the well. The well driller said he usually only puts about 20' but he hit a couple of voids initiall and had to go to 70' to pass the last void by about 10'. With that much casing, would it be likely that we are getting water intrusion from the surface? We do have red clay at the top of the well, but from ~10' from the surface to the bottom of the well is solid rock - and I think maybe a layer or two of shale. Or... is this all normal and we just to need to be patient for it to clear up?
Thanks for your time and thoughts!