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I think it could be like the head of a vacuum cleaner hose. I could imagine some type of material near the intake that could be loosened or eroded by turbulence.

A shroud should make it easy to ensure that the higher-velocity intake is not right next to the bore wall. I don't see why it would take "many times" to get the intake away from the well sides. Yes, the picture is for a submersible pump, but it seems to me that the same general construction could be adapted. Maybe extend the sleeve a foot below the jet assembly intake to let the flow smooth out.

Ahhhhh, finally someone sypathetic to my plight offering a helpful practical solution. Not that you electrical folks haven't been helpful, you have. Very helpful with the electrical problem. But throwing up yer hands in seeming exasperation isn't too helpful. I'm thinking there must be a way to slow this pump down without burning it out. I suggested a rheostat and if I'm off base with that, it'd be nice if someone could tell me why.

Remember that I'm proposing just running the pump for very short periods, like just 15 seconds at a time. Followed by a nice long cooling off period. It's just that I don't want to end up burning the windings out because they might do so even on just one such startup.

Is that what you guys think could happen? I mean, if I'm actually doubling the current flow through the windings I can see where that could happen. But the idea that I'm doubling the current flow seems to be something that's not agreed upon by everyone here. So if whatever additional current I'm pushing through the windings isn't likely to burn them out, per se, given the short running time involved, then I'm fine with letting things cool down before pumping again.

I do have other electric motors here. Maybe I should try one of them out under the same conditions and see if they burn out over time.

So, Reach, your suggestion is a good one and one that I already thunk of and was even going to try until I realized that the plastic "shroud" that I'd bought wasn't something I wanted to put down in my well. Basically, it's kinda toxic. It was a PVC pipe fitting about 5.5" diameter and maybe 7" long. Rigging it around the jet body would have been interesting but once I realized it was too toxic to use, I gave up on it.

I also previously mentioned a gizmo to keep the foot valve (FV) away from the well wall. That's a plastic food container about 4" in diameter mounted on the end of the FV. I pulled the pipes once after mounting it and it was still in place when the pipes came out. I therefore think it's still in place down there but there's no guarantee of that. But when it was still on I was getting brown water when pumping normally, same as now. So I assume it's still in place and it's just not enough to solve the problem completely.

I mentioned plastic casing previously because I found that it is available (non-toxic PVC). The "6-inch" size is pretty expensive but smaller sizes are available and come in 5 ft lengths. Note that it's actually less than 6" OD and I believe it would fit inside my present casing but I'd have to double-check before I actually ordered any.

A much less expensive approach than the 6-inch size would be to try a 5 ft length of smaller size as a shroud around the jet body. I do think that might well work IF other commentors here are correct that there's not much movement in the jet body other than on initial start-up. I'm not so sure myself about that.

But I agree with your feeling that the vacuum cleaner effect is in play here. I mean, I'm sucking water, no? And given the "fire hose" strength of what I see coming out my faucet I'm sucking water at a fierce rate. It's not surprising to me that silt could easily be sucked off the uncased well wall if the FV is in any kind of proximity to it.

I know that someone else here posed that the silt is just a normal function of the well in that when I draw water, other water simply comes in and carries silt with it. I don't see it that way for several reasons. Firstly, that process is undoubtedly quite slow and I'm seeing too much silt to account for that. Secondly, I never got silty water with my old FV except occasionally under very specific conditions. The old well guy 30+ years ago told me that because there was insufficient casing in the well, I might see some silty water after a long dry period because the veins that feed the well would dry up, and then when they start to feed again they will carry silt with them and into the well.

Any plumber worth his salt will tell you this is true because if you let your water pipes dry out, you KNOW you get a lot of crap out of the pipe when you get the water flowing again. And that it continues coming out until the pipes stabilize and the loose crap is all flushed out. The crap is always in there, but you don't see any of it until you let it dry out so's it can flake off.

So I never saw any silt other than under those very occasional conditions. The old well guy was right, and I got clear water otherwise.

I frankly don't think that I got this kind of vigorous flow with my old FV. I have no explanation for that because it's the same pump and I've been pumping without a pressure tank for a few years. So everything is the same except for the new FV.

Anyway, your suggestion is a good one and it's basically my last ditch approach if I can't just get by for awhile with slow pumping, which I'd like to do until next summer. I'm about "done" with this f***ing well for this year since I've been f***ing around with it since January 12th. Maybe next summer I'll have renewed energy to take it on.

Of course, I'll have to figure a way to hang, or fix, or attach, the 5 ft length of pipe so's the jet body is vertically centered in it.

Hmmmmmmmmm. I may have just thunk of a way to do that.

Anybody who cares to chime in on that, feel free.
 
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A easy fix may just be to shorten the drop pipe a few feet, to get the foot valve out of the mud.

Methinks you're not a "rocket scientist." Are you paying attention here? I already said I'm drawing water from 60 feet down but my well is at least 70+ feet deep (that's all the rope I had) ( Thursday at 4:36 PM )

My foot valve isn't sitting in mud. But good try anyway.

:)
 
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I think it could be like the head of a vacuum cleaner hose. I could imagine some type of material near the intake that could be loosened or eroded by turbulence. A shroud should make it easy to ensure that the higher-velocity intake is not right next to the bore wall.

I didn't realize you had mentioned this before (and linked to the thread) in your post #37. Sorry I missed it. The thread you linked is a good one.

I don't see why it would take "many times" to get the intake away from the well sides.

I was referring to a trial and error approach of putting the pipes down the well and hoping the foot valve would end up centered (by dumb luck)
 

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I don't mean to imply that the local erosion due to the vortex is the only reasonable explanation. But it is reasonable IMHO. It is one that seems relatively easy to deal with. And if it fixes the problem for several years even if the reason it fixed it is different, that would not be so bad.

Regarding toxic, even the thinner PVC intended for sewer uses, is not toxic. That is the stuff that many of those shrouds are made of. The schedule 40 pipe certified for carrying pressurized water is the same PVC, but it is thicker. The OD would be 4.5 inches. Plus, with the centering bolts possibly stressing things a tad, 4 inch schedule might be good. You would need more pie-shaped cuts at the top to bring together with your top clamp(s) due to the reduced flexibility.

Regarding 120/24o motors, they would have identical windings wired in series for 240 use and in parallel for 120. I think LLigetfa and valveman were accurate in their statements, although your brief on-time method is not something that a paying customer would ever want to have to deal with. You know that you are misusing the motor, but you make up for it by not letting things get hot before you cool it down again. Since you are only in danger of burning up an out-of-the-well motor, it sounds like a reasonable workaround. But as was pointed out, there are more conventional ways of slowing the flow from your well.

And commenting on the thought that you could fill your well bore with silt below the pump by not pumping it up, wells can be cleaned of such material. Some well cleaners will stick a single PVC pipe (1/2 inch or 3/4 inch I am thinking) down the hole and blow with a 5-HP or bigger compressor. It makes for some interesting photos and YouTube geysers. Others use a smaller compressor and take a slower approach using an "air lift pump" to lift sand/silt out more slowly. Some use a PVC pipe to carry water+sediment up, and use a flex hose to carry the compressed air down I am not saying it is likely that your well is filling up. But if it is/does, there are people who clean the wells out commercially, and there are DIY methods that could deal with that if it gets to that point. There is even something called a "bailer bucket".

I am not a pro, and I have not done the things I just wrote about.
 
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I don't mean to imply that the local erosion due to the vortex is the only reasonable explanation. But it is reasonable IMHO. It is one that seems relatively easy to deal with. And if it fixes the problem for several years even if the reason it fixed it is different, that would not be so bad.

I don't plan on being in this house for more than a few more years -- should I live so long. I'll likely be selling the place to a builder who will knock this house down and build a McMansion which is what's been going on in my neighborhood. It'll then be the builder's problem and he can just have casing installed, or whatever.

Regarding 120/24o motors, they would have identical windings wired in series for 240 use and in parallel for 120.

Yea, that's what I figured. Sounds like powering it with a rheostat (at lower voltage) would essentially be the same thing as powering it with 110 volts when wired for 240 volts. The windings are the same size wire, so I don't know that it makes any difference one way or the other.

I think LLigetfa and valveman were accurate in their statements, although your brief on-time method is not something that a paying customer would ever want to have to deal with.

Meaning they don't want to make a representation about the prospect of burning the motor out?

I don't blame them. But I did say I wasn't holding them to their view.

You know that you are misusing the motor, but you make up for it by not letting things get hot before you cool it down again. Since you are only in danger of burning up an out-of-the-well motor, it sounds like a reasonable workaround. But as was pointed out, there are more conventional ways of slowing the flow from your well.

As long as I'm in no real danger of burning the windings simply by running the lower power thru them, particularly at startup, which I would think might be the most dangerous point in time (incandescent bulbs usually burn out when first turned on due to power surge) I'm willing to continue my current method.

Put another way, if the only likely way that the windings would burn out is if I run the motor too long and thus let the windings get too hot (whatever that means), then I think I'm okay.

Put still another way, if the windings can repeatedly survive the power surge on startup without any real danger to them, then I think I'm okay by running the pump for short pumping bursts.

But of course, who knows? One way to know for sure is to continue doing it until the thing burns out. :(

And commenting on the thought that you could fill your well bore with silt below the pump by not pumping it up, wells can be cleaned of such material. . . .

I'm not worried about that. I don't think I'm creating very much silt and most of what I am creating is being sucked up my pipes. I'm of the opinion that I'm not creating much, if any, silt when pumping slow, despite the contrary view that I am creating silt, it's just not making it up to my faucet.

This is an old well and it's still pretty deep, so I don't think there's any danger of it filling in with silt under either scenario. At least, not during my remaining tenure here.

Thanks much for you posts. Very helpful information.
 
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Regarding 120/24o motors, they would have identical windings wired in series for 240 use and in parallel for 120. . . .

Does anyone have a feeling as to whether it would be better to underpower my pump motor with the windings in series, or better to do that when wired in parallel?

The power / current "surge" would seem to be the same regardless of whether I use a rheostat when wired in parallel (wired for 115 v) or in series (wired for 230v but powered by 115 v, as I have been doing it up to now).

?
 

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If anyone does have a suggestion as to how I might solve the basic problem by some means other than pumping the water more gently by slowing my pump down, please chime in. I don't think controlling the flow with a valve, as has been suggested, is going to work.

I am glad I was busy this weekend and didn’t see all of this. It is wearing me out.

A rheostat is designed to reduce the voltage, which will vary the speed of a DC motor. Reducing the voltage to an AC motor makes is run hotter as I explained. Running a motor for short periods of time doesn’t allow for the heat to dissipate as I explained.

And you “DON’T THINK CONTROLLING WITH A VALVE WILL WORK”, but you haven’t tried it. This is the biggest misconception about pumps. People THINK when the discharge flow of a pump is restricted with a valve it makes the pump work harder. This is the opposite of the truth. And since this important fact is counter intuitive, what you are THINKING is completely bass akwards.

You can valve the discharge of that pump to as low as 1 GPM without hurting anything. The amps will be about half of full load amps, the motor heat produced will be about half, and the fan will be spinning at full speed. If the pump is restricted with a valve to 1 GPM, the intake at the FV will also be reduced to 1 GPM, which is your desired effect. And yes sometimes reducing the flow rate will also reduce the sediment produced, so you are on the right track, you are just making it a lot harder than it needs to be.

With the pump wired to the correct voltage, try a simple ball valve on the discharge of the pump. You can open it when you want more flow and close it when you want less. Then you will KNOW what works, not incorrectly THINK how pumps really work.

But it is your pump and I am surprised how long some people get away with things like this. “Even a blind hog can find an acorn every now and then”. Maybe you’ll be lucky.
 

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DonL

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Those "Pulse Width Modulators" or Variable Speed Drives only work with 3 phase motors and add a whole other level of complications to the situation.

You are right I had my head up my ass on that Model and link.

They do make ones that are only for 1 HP or less operate , they have single phase in and out.

Why Frust does not think a simple Ballvalve will work confuses me a bit. But I am no pro, I just test theory.


Fixing the original problem would be a better fix. It sounds like drinking bad water has affected Frust's way of thinking.
 
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I am glad I was busy this weekend and didn’t see all of this. It is wearing me out. . . . You can valve the discharge of that pump to as low as 1 GPM without hurting anything. The amps will be about half of full load amps, the motor heat produced will be about half, and the fan will be spinning at full speed. If the pump is restricted with a valve to 1 GPM, the intake at the FV will also be reduced to 1 GPM, which is your desired effect. And yes sometimes reducing the flow rate will also reduce the sediment produced, so you are on the right track, you are just making it a lot harder than it needs to be.

With the pump wired to the correct voltage, try a simple ball valve on the discharge of the pump. You can open it when you want more flow and close it when you want less. Then you will KNOW what works, not incorrectly THINK how pumps really work. . . .

We missed you. Glad so see you didn't try to unsubscribe out of frustration. :D

Soooo, here's my question for you today: Can I not just control the flow (at least for starters) by turning my faucet partially off such that I get a lot less flow out of it? I take it that since I keep hearing about a ball valve that's the preferred method because (I assume) it can be set to a specific flow rate and then ya don't have to keep fiddling with the faucet to get the right flow rate. So I'm guessing that the ball valve is just a better way to control the flow, but that shutting a faucet down sufficiently would accomplish the same thing.

No?

Now, if I slow the flow to zero, the pressure switch will shut the pump off. Duh! So by "controlling the flow with a valve"I'm obviously going to raise the pressure in the system. I'm therefore not sure how much I can slow the flow before the pressure switch will come into play.

But I can certainly try shutting the faucet down somewhat and see how much that slows the flow and what the water coming out looks like.

BTW, this Sears jet pump operates by flinging the water out of the "diffuser." So spinning it at full speed means it's trying to pump the water by flinging that water out of the diffuser. And if that water it's pumping can't go out the faucet, or into a pressure tank ..... could be a problem?

When I'm slowing the pump down, it's not spinning at full speed and thus the water's not being flung out of the diffuser as much. Thus when I shut my faucet completely, and "deadheaded" the pump running at slow speed, it only got to 12 lbs pressure and stopped there. The pump kept running but the pressure never went up. And that was because (I think) it wasn't actually pumping water any more. It was just spinning the diffuser with no actual pumping going on.

Just thought I'd mention that.

Keep smiling; we're having fun here boys and girls. :)
 
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We missed you. . . Can I not just control the flow (at least for starters) by turning my faucet partially off such that I get a lot less flow out of it? . . .

Okay, I did it. The slowest pumping rate I could get was 1 gallon / 12 seconds, which is 5 gals/minute. Any slower than that causes the pump to shut off, then come back on, then shut off, etc.

It's a bit of a faster rate than when I run the pump slow the other way because that way fills a gallon in ~15-16 seconds. And I'm not so sure that doing it this way doesn't cause movement in the jet body because the pressure is so much higher. The other way of pumping just seems "gentler."

In any event, I'm seriously considering getting a 5-foot or 10-foot length of PVC casing because I may have come up with a way to hang it so that the jet body will be vertically centered in it. I have to think about it some more, but I have an idea about how to do it.
 

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Any slower than that causes the pump to shut off, then come back on, then shut off, etc.

The shutting on and off is what stirs up the sediment. You can’t valve a pump down to 1 GPM flow if the pressure switch is shutting it off. You maybe down to 5 GPM at the faucet, but the pump is producing 10 or 15 GPM until it shuts off. (stirring up sediment)

The “ball valve” we are talking about would go before the pressure tank/pressure switch. Then you could control the discharge rate, which would match the intake flow.

I just deleted my smart-ass comments. I know pumps can be confusing. There are many pump engineers who don’t know how water is “flung”. Pumps are counter intuitive, which means they can never make “sense” to you. It is happening just the opposite of the way you are thinking.

It is the cycling on and off that is stirring up the sediment, not “flinging water out the diffuser at full force”. But “flinging water out at full force” is what causes the cycling.

Running a motor with low voltage is one way, but not a good way to slow down the “flinging”. Keep doing it that way and your next thread will be titled, “My jet pump motor is smoking and won’t run. House full of Inlaws for the holiday, please help me get the water flowing?”
 
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The shutting on and off is what stirs up the sediment. You can’t valve a pump down to 1 GPM flow if the pressure switch is shutting it off. You maybe down to 5 GPM at the faucet, but the pump is producing 10 or 15 GPM until it shuts off. (stirring up sediment)

Uh, 'Scuse me? How do you figure the pump "is producing 10 or 15 GPM until it shuts off" when I'm getting 5 GPM at the faucet? The off/on that I referred to was momentary, and it HAS to be only momentary since once the pump shuts off with the faucet remaining open, the pressure will immediately be relieved and the pump will therefore come back on.

Immediately

But I do agree that even a momentary interruption is likely to stir up sediment given my particular uncased situation.

However, I don't buy your idea that the pump is producing 10 or 15 GPM until it shuts off. It may be trying to produce that rate of pumping, but it can't do it since I've restricted the flow at the outlet.

Can I just say "Duh!"

I'm getting 5 GPM and that's all the pump is "producing." In trying to produce more than that (if you want to look at that way) it's causing the pressure to increase to the point where the pressure switch shuts it off. But the momentary interruption in pumping isn't materially affecting my flow rate of 5 GPM, particularly when it only happens twice per gallon of water pumped.

I think what you meant was that the pump is trying to produce it's normal pumping rate. And I guess you could say that it is pumping (or "producing") that rate in the sense that it's running at full speed -- or essentially full speed-- and thus flinging water out of the diffuser at the same rate it would if the outlet were unrestricted. So in that sense, you were right and it just wasn't registering with me.

I guess I wasn't clear in my last post about sediment. I didn't particularly see any more sediment in the water I pumped; it's just that I was afraid that pumping at high pressure (as opposed to low pressure) would have the effect of stirring up more sediment. That's why I said what I said about sediment. The water that I did pump -- and I didn't pump all that much -- was actually pretty clear.

Your ball valve comment intrigues me. If I install the ball valve in the drive line, that would definitely reduce the flow to the jet body and make for a much gentler pumping situation even tho' the pressure in the pump would still be high.

Now, when you say: The “ball valve” we are talking about would go before the pressure tank/pressure switch.

and: Then you could control the discharge rate, which would match the intake flow.

I guess you are saying to install the ball valve in either the drive line or the suction line. There's nowhere else to install it (other than the discharge line, which is what I already did, in effect). And either of those two places (suction or drive line) will, it seems to me, result in increased pressure throughout the pumping system and thus I'll have the same problem with the pressure switch.

Of course, I could always bypass the pressure switch or adjust it to shut off at a higher pressure.

Now, the good news is that I've decided to follow your advice and restrict the flow rate either by installing a ball valve in the drive line, or by doing it as I am doing it (@ the outlet). It seems that either way will have the same effect, pressurewise, but I would think that restricting the drive line flow might result in gentler pumping down at the jet body and thus reduce any movement of the jet body that might be occurring.

Either method will (I think) reduce the "vacuum cleaner effect" since less water will be sucked in through the foot valve.

I think.

So I'll try this method as opposed to running the pump the other way, and if I decide to "fix" the well "properly" (by putting some kind of "shroud" down there, I can then go back to pumping at full GPM and hopefully will have a "normal" well situation once again.

I never had this kind of a problem with the old foot valve. Not sure why, but I didn't. It could just be that it was centered, or more centered, in the well, thus reducing both the vacuum cleaner effect and the movement effect (if that's actually happening).
 

Reach4

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Uh, 'Scuse me? How do you figure the pump "is producing 10 or 15 GPM until it shuts off" when I'm getting 5 GPM at the faucet?

It's easy to miss that posted you have no pressure tank. There is usually the presumption of a pressure tank. So while you said it more than once, it can get lost amid the other surprising info.
 
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It's easy to miss that posted you have no pressure tank. There is usually the presumption of a pressure tank. So while you said it more than once, it can get lost amid the other surprising info.

Oh.

That's very different.

Never mind!

(that's an Emily Litella reference for all you yung'uns and others who may not know. Or may not catch it)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Litella

:D
 

Valveman

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If the pump is controlled by the pressure switch, when it turns on at 40, it is pumping 10-15 GPM until the pressure gets up to 59, where you have it holding 5 GPM. That is unless you have a ball valve “in the drive line”.

But wait, “you don’t really see any more sediment in the water”?

So you don’t really have a problem (that you know of).
 
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DonL

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I never give up on a lost cause. I have time to waste. lol

Running a pump with no tank of any size is not very smart.

When the pump starts and stops, the whole system Bangs, Open and closed, You have No damper. How do you flush the toilet ? You have a Outhouse ? Me too...

Pipes do not provide a damper, if they are filled with water. Water can be a bit hard to compress.

Just because you have a open outlet in the house, that does not keep the bang from happening at the pump and well. I call it bang, that may not be correct, but I hope you understand what is happening.

http://www.cyclestopvalves.com/simple/home.php

Come on out and see the light.
 
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