Low flow / pressure from 6 yo well -- advice needed

[rivergal]

We had a new well dug for us 6 years ago after our old one caved in. The "new" 4" well is about 60' deep and has a submersible pump (one that is about 3 7/8" in diameter). As far as the quality of the water, it is hard, with hydrogen Sulfide and Iron. The H2S is more of an issue than the iron. We are a 2 person household, and used the water for garden irrigation when needed, and about 2 years ago had a water line leak that we found and fixed.

Last fall we started to notice the pressure dropping some, then later significantly -- going from 60 down to below 20 and staying there while any faucet was running. I takes several minutes for the pressure to rebuild.

We had the guy who put in the well come out, and he eliminated the easy stuff (pressure switch, tank, check valve, etc.) and said it was either a clogged well screen or problem with the pump itself. He said he could pull the pump and replace it for about 3k. He did say there was a potential, given the diameter of the pump, that we might not be able to get it out or it could break, and then a new well would be needed.

Since then we've been making do with the low flow, but know we will need to do something soon. My questions are:
1. Does this seem like a reasonable explanation for a 6 year old well?
2. How likely is it that the pump would stick?
3. Should we just go for a new well, rather than take a chance on this one?
3. Anything we can do in the meantime to help with pressure (another pressure tank?)
5. Any advice or experience in a situation like this would be appreciated!

 

[Reach4]

4-inch ID PVC casing the whole 60 ft?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Craigpump]

3k? I'm moving to Florida!

Some pumps last better than others, without knowing the brand it's hard to say if it's bad or not. A GOOD pump tech will have the equipment on his truck to check flow and pressure without pulling the pump. He should also be able to monitor the water levels during the pump test.

Another tank won't help, if you can't satisfy one, you won't satisfy two.

If you have PVC casing, and the casing hasn't deformed due to heat from the pump, the pump should come right out.

 

[PumpMd]

3k and he is the genius that put in the 4in casing to cause the problem with getting the pump back out after the checks that craigpump mentioned showed that it needed to be pulled. With it being set 40-60ft, I would think that you could possibly pull it yourself?

 

[rivergal]

Thanks for the replies, and to answer the questions -- the pipe looks to be galvanized steel coming up from the ground. The pump if I recall correctly is a Sta-Rite submersible. 3k -- this sounded pretty steep to me as well, since the well itself was done for 4k. As for pulling myself, I personally don't have the physical ability to do so. Perhaps if I knew the process, though, I could direct some able hired person?

The well guy also suggested muriatic acid as a pre-treatment to dissolve any build up around the pump before pulling it. Not something I'd feel comfortable working with for sure. Would there be a less lethal option?

 

[Reach4]

I am not a pro.

I am pretty sure adding pressure tank capacity is not going to help at this time, since the pump takes a few minutes to shut off, as it is.

2. The Sta-rite pump may be a TrimLine -- only 3-3/4 inches OD. If so, it is unlikely to be difficult to pull after 6 years. I think your guy may be over-describing the level of difficulty.

5. I think you want to seek recommendations for other pump people in your area. Or seek them out yourself. The geographic center of Florida is near Brooksville. I suspect you are somewhere else. ;-) If you were to say you were near Ocala or Orlando, for example, somebody might be familiar with a well person in your area.

Is your water extra-rusty? Do your neighbors know of people with their wells clogging up?

3. If you do get a new well some day, opt for PVC casing over steel if you can. However you are very unlikely to need a new well at this point.

 

[PumpMd]

Do you have a well seal or a pitless adapter? You can look inside your well if you have a well cap, to see if you have PVC casing below your steel surface casing that is 4in. You can post us some pictures of your well and we can tell you how to pull it, if it's not on galvanized drop pipe and the checks above from craigpump have been done to let us know that needs to be pulled. A plastic shutoff valve with a hole drilled to one side to fit a pressure gauge, can be a way to test the flow and pressure, I will post one tomorrow for you.

 

[Craigpump]

Doesn't matter if the pump is a TrimLine or reduced diameter, the motor is still 3.875" in diameter.

I seriously doubt that a little Muriatic acid would do much for encrustration on the ID of the casing, especially since you have no way of surging or swabbing the pipe clean with the pump still in the well. Once that acid hits the water it will become diluted and with a water barrier between the acid and the steel, I dont think it will be very effective.

 

[Craigpump]

Do you have a well seal or a pitless adapter? You can look inside your well if you have a well cap, to see if you have PVC casing below your steel surface casing that is 4in. You can post us some pictures of your well and we can tell you how to pull it, if it's not on galvanized drop pipe and the checks above from craigpump have been done to let us know that needs to be pulled. A plastic shutoff valve with a hole drilled to one side to fit a pressure gauge, can be a way to test the flow and pressure, I will post one tomorrow for you.

We made up a test tee from copper tubing, a 300 psi gauge, ball valve and swt x female so we can use a water meter. Remove the pitless, screw the T on and it's better than a test tank.....

 

[Valveman]

In Florida nobody knows what a pitless is. It should have a regular well seal holding the pump up. But since the casing is steel, it wouldn't surprise me if the drop pipe is also steel, which makes it heavy to try and pull yourself. I don't know why anyone would use steel in a well that has high iron and H2S? A properly installed well should last a lifetime, and a pump should last much longer than 6 years.

Get another opinion and quote from a different well man. You should have many to choose from in Florida. A 1/2HP or 1HP pump can be bought for 300-500 bucks. Installed for $1,000 or so would be more what I would expect.

4K every 6 years plus electricity is way too much to pay for water. Well water should be much cheaper than city water. These are the kinds of installations that give drillers and pump installers a bad reputation.

 

[PumpMd]

Your going to have to show me sometime, I've been wanting to rig up something different like that.


Very simple and cheep to rig up in the picture and want it to be threaded, you can put a bigger pressure gauge in it, my 200psi broke and I've been to lazy to buy a new one since I can still make it by with a 100psi gauge. Show us a picture of your well, so we can tell you how to hook it up on your water line coming out of your well seal.

 

[rivergal]

Here's a photo of what is above ground, and the contract says the following:
1 HP Sta-Rite submersible pump and controls, constant pressure installation includes the following: 1 1/4" drop pipe, well seal, union, check valve, pressure relief valve and all in galvanized steel pipe.

I think Reach4 is correct that it is a trimline 3 3/4, not 3 7/8 as I had indicated.

What the well guy did to isolate the problem to the well or pump is disconnect it where I've indicated by the red arrow and turned on the pump. He didn't measure the flow, but it was visibly low.

Cost of well was actually 3k in 2010.

Our location is Seminole County.

 

[PumpMd]

Since it was visibly low and to see what kind of drop pipe it has, turn the breaker off, drain your pressure off the lines, disconnect your wires in the pressure switch that are going down the well, break the union loose again, and see if you can get someone to lift the pipe up to put it on a stay jack or if you can pull it up far enough to a place where you can slide a metal plate with slots under a coupling to hold the weight of the drop pipe/pump because sometimes they will put it on a long galvanized nipple into the drop pipe that comes up to that tee on top of the well seal. I will post some pictures of a stay jack and metal plate with slots, if you want to try it or I would just do what Valveman said on finding a more reasonable pump installer and keep your old pump for some research I've been doing.

After seeing your well pump system, I want to know if it's pump end causing the problem.

For some reason with no error code coming up, I can't get the metal plate to post.

 

[Valveman]

Maybe steel casing is required in your area, I don't know. From the look of the rust on the union I would suspect the well screen is just as rusty. It does have a Cycle Stop Valve on it. So I am very curios if the well screen is clogged or if you have a pump problem.

There are ways to clean up the clogged well screen, but you would need to remove the pump first.

 

[rivergal]

Here in Florida, with the nearly year round humidity, everything rusts, but I do agree that the screen may be rusty as well. Before I do anything else, I'll see about another opinion from someone local, as you advised.

I did find out another neighbor had to pull his submersible last year, and after some work (at one point it was stuck), the well guys were able to get it out. I think he replaced it with an above ground pump. I wonder if this is the better option for us as well. That's what I had on the old well, and while there were down sides to that choice, at least the pump was easier to get to

 

[PumpMd]

I would think about this option as well, 3in submersible well pump

http://groundwaterdrilling.com/doc/GRUNDFOS_SQ_&_SQE_PUMPS.pdf

http://us.grundfos.com/content/dam/GPU/Products/DME/sq-sqe-sqene-cu331sp.pdf

 

[Reach4]

I would think about this option as well, 3in submersible well pump

Do you think an SQ would be more resistant to the hypothesized iron clogging?

 

[PumpMd]

If it's truly a clogged screen, then I would go with a aboveground pump after you clean the well screen. I don't sell grundfos pumps to see how they hold up with iron clogging them up. I have only seen one well in my area that has a big enough problem with iron clogging the pump up but it also takes more than 6yrs to do it and the nasty black stuff I have seen in the wells, it takes about 8yrs to clog the pump up.

I looked it up and found that it made it to about 8yrs on a Myers SS 1 1/2hp 10gpm before it clogged up.

 

[Valveman]

I agree that if the pump is hard to get out of the well an SQ pump would be much smaller diameter to put back. But you don't need the CU301 box that makes it variable speed or "constant pressure". You already have a Cycle Stop Valve to do that for you, which works well with an SQ pump.

I am afraid that the 10,700 rpm of the SQ will cause more iron to clog the pump than the 3,450 rpm of a standard 4" pump. But I would wait until the pump is out and the cause of failure is determined before making that decision.

 

[Reach4]

As far as the quality of the water, it is hard, with hydrogen Sulfide and Iron. The H2S is more of an issue than the iron.

Not that this is your immediate concern, but I would get a water test. I like http://www.karlabs.com/watertestkit/ kit 90. It does not test for H2S, but your nose did that. Since it takes around 2 weeks to receive the kit, sample, and get results, you might want to try to get that done to help with future decisions.

Search for discussions that include "katalox light" on this forum for ideas on how to deal with that. It is supposed to be good for H2S as well as iron.