Need advice on Well

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Hello everyone!

The home I purchased has a well inside a concrete pit that is pumping dirty water (the pit was flooded a bit after the recent thaw and surface water entering the well may be a problem).

I would like to pull the pump to replace the piping and also get a look inside the casing. I have a 1500lbs hoist over the pit all ready to go. my questions are.

1. to pull the pump do i just loosen the cap bolts in the picture and attach my hoist and start pulling?? I was told the pump is about 120ft down - about how heavy is this going to be and when I loosen the bolts will the pump/piping fall without the hoist attached?

2. What's a good way to prevent a pit from flooding? I noticed the concrete walls do have some cracking. Should I go in with some tile cement (really sticky) or something and try to make watertight or should I just have the pit removed?

3. The pump has a red/black/yellow wire - I'm guessing the pump is 220 volt, if I wanted to just run the pump how do I know which wire is ground? (the control box looks shot).

Any advice is appreciated!!
 

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Here's my hoist set-up using swing-set brackets with 4x4's and harbor freight hoist
 

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Valveman

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120' of 1 1/4" pipe full of water with pump and wire will weigh about 441 pounds. The casing needs to be extended above grade and the well needs to be cased and sealed with cement to keep out surface contamination.

Oh and a 3 wire pump will not work without a good control box, and the control box shows where the R,Y, and B wires go.
 

Reach4

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Bordercollie050, when you get that casing extended, you will want to have a pitless adapter installed below the frost line. I had my casing extended by welding more casing and 2 walls plus top of the pit demolished as required locally. . I messed around before, trying to seal things, and I even had put in a temporary utility pump with a water sensor. Getting it fixed right was good. Expect to spend $1500 to $2000 with the well people if you reuse the pump as I did. It is money well spent IMO. Maybe more if you have more done. I had brass fittings on top and schedule 80 PVC pipe down the hole already. If you have steel pipe and fittings, I would consider getting those changed to threaded PVC schedule 80 to get less rust. But I still have the steel casing, so maybe steel drop pipe does not add a lot more iron. It is the pipe that you see that the lift is applied to. I would not DIY, but if you did, I am thinking that top galvanized cap could be replaced by a tee that you could put a clevis or something through for the initial lifting. Well people have clamps that they use to hold the pipe at the top of the casing after they have lift each 20 ft piece of pipe and unscrew each section. They have a piece that lifts by each coupler once the pipe is coming up. If you cannot lift well over 20 ft, it seems that you would have a problem doing the job. The experienced guys with the rig and backhoe can do it all in half a day. It is possible they will not even need the backhoe in your case if you can leave the pit in place.

After extending the casing, you may get the well cleaned. I did not, but I think my leak may not have been as intense as yours. I had a 4 inch casing, and I wanted to retain the ability to use a 3.75" diameter pump. So I had a pitless installed that does not reduce the casing diameter. An alternative would have been to make the casing extension 5 inch with an adapter welded in from the 4 inch casing. Some have cleaned DIY. An air lift pump is one slow way. A pipe down the hole with a 5+ HP compressor blowing is more spectacular and faster. I don't know how the Youtube videos compare for their well depth to yours.

http://www.moravecwaterwells.com/index.php/maintainance/disinfection-and-testing is my favorite disinfection process. That is an easy DYI process that takes time.
 
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Bordercollie050, when you get that casing extended, you will want to have a pitless adapter installed below the frost line. I had my casing extended by welding more casing and 2 walls plus top of the pit demolished as required locally. . I messed around before, trying to seal things, and I even had put in a temporary utility pump with a water sensor. Getting it fixed right was good. Expect to spend $1500 to $2000 with the well people if you reuse the pump as I did. It is money well spent IMO. Maybe more if you have more done. I had brass fittings on top and schedule 80 PVC pipe down the hole already. If you have steel pipe and fittings, I would consider getting those changed to threaded PVC schedule 80 to get less rust. But I still have the steel casing, so maybe steel drop pipe does not add a lot more iron. It is the pipe that you see that the lift is applied to. I would not DIY, but if you did, I am thinking that top galvanized cap could be replaced by a tee that you could put a clevis or something through for the initial lifting. Well people have clamps that they use to hold the pipe at the top of the casing after they have lift each 20 ft piece of pipe and unscrew each section. They have a piece that lifts by each coupler once the pipe is coming up. If you cannot lift well over 20 ft, it seems that you would have a problem doing the job. The experienced guys with the rig and backhoe can do it all in half a day. It is possible they will not even need the backhoe in your case if you can leave the pit in place.

After extending the casing, you may get the well cleaned. I did not, but I think my leak may not have been as intense as yours. I had a 4 inch casing, and I wanted to retain the ability to use a 3.75" diameter pump. So I had a pitless installed that does not reduce the casing diameter. An alternative would have been to make the casing extension 5 inch with an adapter welded in from the 4 inch casing. Some have cleaned DIY. An air lift pump is one slow way. A pipe down the hole with a 5+ HP compressor blowing is more spectacular and faster. I don't know how the Youtube videos compare for their well depth to yours.

http://www.moravecwaterwells.com/index.php/maintainance/disinfection-and-testing is my favorite disinfection process. That is an easy DYI process that takes time.

Thanks for the info. Re: pulling the pump, I have a 1500lbs hoist and a couple of pipe vices. I might not be able to pull the whole 20ft sections so what I'm thinking now is to pull as much as I can (then hold with a vice) and cut the pipe? or I can probably pull the whole section but by myself I will have to see how manageable that is.

And as far as digging out the concrete I guess the floor might be the most difficult but I found a pretty nice breaker hammer on harbor freight http://www.harborfreight.com/15-amp-heavy-duty-professional-breaker-hammer-68147.html
 

Reach4

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The floor probably does not need to be dug out. The reason is that the pit presumably already is deep enough to get the water pipes below the frost line. The only reason two walls were demolished was local law. The top removal would have been needed even if it were not for local law, because the hole was about 19 inch square. After the casing was welded in place to extend the casing to a foot above ground level (typically -- codes vary), there would not have been room for a person to pass. They lifted the top with a big backhoe/excavator.

There may be a good way to extend the casing without welding, but I expect that would require ripping out the floor and digging down I would think. Remember that the weld not only holds up the casing, it seals the casing. So I would think that this would call for an experienced welder. That is your drinking water you are dealing with.

So even without laws and inspection involved, you might have to do some jack-hammering to make space for human access for welding and applying the pitless, if you cannot tear the top slab out whole. They enlarged the dig hole some and buried my top slab 2 to 3 ft down rather than cart it away. If you buy from HF, make sure you wait until you are ready to do the work or buy their extended warranty. Their stuff breaks more than you would expect. They are good about swapping it out for I think 30 days, but a trip to HF may not be trivial. On the other hand, a rental place probably has a better quality electric hammer with tips for rent.

How big is your casing? My well seal (the thing the water pipe comes out of) was 4.65" OD, and my casing is 4.00 inches ID.
 
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The floor probably does not need to be dug out. The reason is that the pit presumably already is deep enough to get the water pipes below the frost line. The only reason two walls were demolished was local law. The top removal would have been needed even if it were not for local law, because the hole was about 19 inch square. After the casing was welded in place to extend the casing to a foot above ground level (typically -- codes vary), there would not have been room for a person to pass. They lifted the top with a big backhoe/excavator.

There may be a good way to extend the casing without welding, but I expect that would require ripping out the floor and digging down I would think. Remember that the weld not only holds up the casing, it seals the casing. So I would think that this would call for an experienced welder. That is your drinking water you are dealing with.

So even without laws and inspection involved, you might have to do some jack-hammering to make space for human access for welding and applying the pitless, if you cannot tear the top slab out whole. They enlarged the dig hole some and buried my top slab 2 to 3 ft down rather than cart it away. If you buy from HF, make sure you wait until you are ready to do the work or buy their extended warranty. Their stuff breaks more than you would expect. They are good about swapping it out for I think 30 days, but a trip to HF may not be trivial. On the other hand, a rental place probably has a better quality electric hammer with tips for rent.

How big is your casing? My well seal (the thing the water pipe comes out of) was 4.65" OD, and my casing is 4.00 inches ID.

I'm not exactly sure how big the casing is (and it snowed last night so work has stopped) but given the bolt pattern on the cover I'm guessing at least 4" (probably more).

I would almost like to keep the pit and just dig the nearby drainage ditch a few feet deeper (the ditch would at most carry a few inches of water b/c my house is at the top of a small hill) . The code here (Iowa) says only new wells must be pitless. Having a pit makes sense but it has to be maintained properly and I think the last owner just let things go.

Anyhow my new plan is

(1) pull the pump and inspect the casing (I'm looking for a cheap CCV camera to drop down the hole) any ideas where to buy one?.
(2) rewire old pump to new PVC pipe - is this a good idea or is the pump (3 wire) too old?
(3) figure out what kind of controller I have (if I purchased a new pump, I could just match it with a new controller) what does everyone think (probably buy new?)
(4) dig nearby drainage ditch several feet deeper to drain area well and make repairs to concrete pit?

I know going pitless would in the long-run probably be a better idea but if I can solve the drainage issue why bother? The well is just about at the top of a hill and I'm pretty sure a deeper ditch would drain everything well
 

Craigpump

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That looks like a 6" well seal.

DO NOT REMOVE THE BOLTS, just loosen them a few turns and knock them down with a hammer, that will help break them loose. It can take serious work to pop those seals, especially if the pump is on steel pipe.

Once you pull and cut the pipe, how do you propose to grab the pipe again?

You'd be far better off to PROPERLY extend the casing and install a pitless adapter now rather than have a contamination issue down the road.

For a camera, you can call a tool rental place but be sure to thoroughly disinfect it with chlorine before putting it in your well!

You may find that the pump is hung on poly pipe.

You have more faith in that oversized saw horse than I do.
 
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Yeah, on 2nd thought removing the pit is probably the right way to go. Besides, water will always flow to least resistance (i.e. the well pit).

I'm looking at some USB cameras and trying to decide how far down I need to go? (water table is at 30ft so that would be the max I need to go).

The saw-horse/swing set is all new 4x4's so I think it can do the job - the winch I'm not sure about but is rated at 1500lb (horizontal pulls though). I have 2 pipe vices to hold the pipe as I go
 
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Just bought a waterproof USB camera with 50ft of cable for $40 bucks - I just want to get an idea of the casing and I probably dont need to go down that far - maybe 20ft.
Eggsnow USB Borescope Endoscope Inspection Camera - 15M/49ft, Len Diameter 7mm, 0.3 Megapixels, 6 LED, Waterproof IP67 (Lens 7mm-15M)
 
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