Drive point well question

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Sammyhydro11

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dave,
sounds like progress. I would develop that well as much as you can. Keep going until you cant get any more fines out. I would charge the well with air until you see water coming out and then shut air off to the well. If you do that a few times and then let that compressor go full blast you should get real good results. Keep raising the colum of water and dropping it like i said. Developing takes time and patience.

SAM
 

sucker dave

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Update. Things didn't go as expected. I reconnected my 2†jet packer dropped it down the well attached to 1 ¼ galvanized pipe hooked up the ¾ hp Gould’s pump and crossed my fingers. The pump would run fine for 2-3 minutes than it would stop pumping for a minute or so and continue again. Same as before. Being frustrated, I unplugged the pump and just left it alone. Now, 2 months later I decided it’s time to revisit this pump problem. I disconnected the pump and started pulling the packer back up. I noticed that there was no water in the 1 ¼ pipe. Completely dry. I did have water between the 2 pipes meaning my leather packers were sealing. Could this mean my packer assembly could have a leak? A small crack maybe? Could this be the cause of the surging? I’m getting pretty frustrated. I plan on spending some more time developing the well hoping that might help as well.
 

Sammyhydro11

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Dave i think that your overpumping this well. If that packer assembly is right above the well point where it should be that means that you have less than 2' of water above that packer. Unless you had super porous material at that well depth you are going to get a significant amount of drawdown. I think if that well was 5' to 10' deeper you would have better results but its a gamble not knowing whats down there for material. Try driving some more sections and i would use pvc drop pipe for the jet w/ thin wall couplings.

SAM
 

sucker dave

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Sam,
Is there a way to measure the amount of water that a well will flow? If I use PVC, don't I risk not being able to get the packer back out if I have problems? The packer was located 29' down in the 30' well, I was using a 3' long 1" dia drop pipe from there, could that be restricting the flow?
 

Sammyhydro11

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The pvc is easier to get in and out of the hole while you are figuring this out and yes it could be more dificult to get out in the future but regardless of steel or pvc once the inside of that casing gets incrusted you can say goodbye to that jet assembly all together. I have pulled entire wells back tugging on that drop pipe because the jets get stuck in the hole with a steel well. If you are going to use steel pipe make sure you are using thin wall couplings so the water can pass in between the well casing and the drop pipe. I realy think that well needs to be another 5 to 10 feet deeper.

SAM
 

sucker dave

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I'm using thin walled couplings now. I guess I'll try driving it down another 5'. Did you see my coment about not having any water in my suction pipe when I was pulling it up? Could my packer be bad?
 

Sammyhydro11

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Dave,
that packer needs to be located just above that well screen. The packer could be bad. I would check it when its out of the ground. If it was in the well screen that would explain why you had no water in the drop pipe.Those packers keep that water from going back down the well so the water gets circulated back up through the nozzle in the jet.

SAM
 

sucker dave

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It was, It was 1' above the well screeen. I went down 3' with a stand pipe from there. So my foot valve was 1 foot off the bottom of the well.
 

Speedbump

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The jet will let the water in the well and the droppipe seek it's level in both pipes. The leathers hold the water in the casing and the footvalve holds the water in the droppipe. But with the pump unhooked, the water will seek a level which will be the same in the casing and the droppipe. What is the water level in this well Dave? Never mind, I just found your earlier post.
I'm using a gause 80 well point which is 3' long. my static water level is 5' .My packer was at down 29' with a 3' drop. I have 6 sections of 5' pipe plus the well screen for a total depth of 33 feet.
If this is the case, you don't need a packer jet. A shallow well jet pump will work great. Or at least until the well runs out of water.

bob...
 

Sammyhydro11

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Speedbump,
that was a typo,his static water level is 5' above the bottom of the well at 28feet. He has that packer in less than 2' of water.

SAM
 

Speedbump

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Ok Sam,

Back to the drawing board. I'm with you. I think he needs to go deeper or something. Of course were drilling in the dark here, so anything goes. I'm also thinking he is going into some really fine sand using an 80 gauze screen, so 5 gpm might be a little on the high side for production.

bob...
 

Sammyhydro11

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Speedbump,
i always like to see atleast 5 to 10 feet of water over the jet and thats pushing it. The depth that i set my screens has always been determined by the porosity and condition of the material that i'm drilling in,the finer the material the deeper i want that screeen. I have never installed a gauze type screen only continuously wound v wire so i'm not even sure what size 80 gauze is in comparison to slot size. But like you said,drilling in the dark,so the screen size would be anyones guess.

SAM
 

Speedbump

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The 80 gauze would be around a 7 slot in a wire wound screen. Like you said, they have a lot less openings than a slot screen too. In Michigan where I used to drill, there were a few areas where the sand was like talcum powder and even a 100 gauze wouldn't keep it out. We used to double screen this stuff with two 100's and hope for the best.

bob...
 

Sammyhydro11

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Speedbump,
that material your talking about is way difficult to get water out of. Most of the time i have to install a lemco drawdown seal above the pump to get good results. Even then if there isn't enough material you cant get much water out of it.

SAM
 

sucker dave

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Unfortunately when I sunk this well, that was the only screen that ******* carried so 80 gauze it was.
I have another question.

If I have my packer and jet down to the top of the well screen and have 3’ of water over it, what good will going down 5 more feet do for me? Aren’t I still limited by how much water I can pull thru the screen?

Dave
 

Sammyhydro11

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Dave,
the more water you have over that screen the better. As you start to draw water from that well you create a cone of depression. It takes shape like a whirlpool where the water is converging towards the center on all sides.The center of the cone is where your drawdown occurs. How deep you are into the aquifer and the porosity of the material that you are pulling water from is going to determine how much drawdown you get.The more porous the material the less drawdown you will get but the larger the cone of radius which is the top portion of the cone. Drilling the well you are able to sample the cuttings as they are coming out of the ground and by doing so you can size a screen and determine how deep you want to set it in order to stabilize your drawdown. With only 2' of water over that screen that material that you set the screen in has to be way porous in order to get a steady amount of water.So its pretty clear that the material is not sufficient enough and you need to go deeper in order to stabilize that drawdown. Also if that 80 gauze screen is equivalent to a 7 slot v wire it might not be big enough to pull enough fines through in order to open up the zone that your pulling water from. For example if you get a hand full of of dirt or a mix of sand you will see that there is some large grains some medium and some fine. Basically you would want to pull all the fine sand or silt through and by doing so you create a nice filter pack around that screen that allows the water to flow freely into the screen.But not being able to sample that material its impossible to size a screen. Anyway after you get that well in,the developing portion of the installation is so important because you are pulling out all those fines and creating tiny voids spaces between the heavy grains for the water to flow through. I'm sorry if I'm getting too technical but there is a science to it.I would go down in 5' intervals and see what you get for water. I say this because eventually you might get into some clay and that will give zero water.

SAM
 

sucker dave

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Sam,
Technical is good, and that's a lot of good information. Let me see if I understand, it’s more about being in a good water bearing material than actually how much water is above the jet. I was looking at literally not as a overall measurement of water quality.
Being the water in the pipe over the packer is pressurized, I couldn't figure out what difference it made.
Thanks!!!!!

Dave
 

Sammyhydro11

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Its all about the material that the screen is set in.The material will determine how deep the screen needs to be in the water bearing zone. Having only 2' of water over your well screen is really pushing it no matter what material that screen is set in. In your situation i would have went with a 10 slot screen.Its large enough to pull some fines through but small enough to keep the big granulars out. Those gauze screens limit the amount of water that can get into them because thet don't have alot of entrance area. You would have been better off with a continuously wound stainless well screen. Hammer that down another 5' and inspect those packers every time your remove that jet.

Good luck,

SAM
 

sucker dave

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I stopped and bought another 5' section of pipe and a big bottle of advil for the sore shoulders. I'll let you know what happens. thanks for all the help!
 
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