Sandpoint well ... Grasping for straws to avoid digging it up (again)!

Users who are viewing this thread

Gadgetrover

New Member
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Duluth, MN
I have a sand-point well which, beyond the pump, consists of all new piping, connectors, well point, etc. We had been having problems with the well for some time and ended up pulling the old well point and driving a new one a few feet away. The old point was very obstructed and not allowing the water in the pipe to recover quickly enough.

The new point has nine feet of water in the pipe and recovers with no problem, producing full flows from all outlets, simultaneously. Our problem is that soon after the pump has been used on full prime, it seems to lose its prime and we have to go through a process of sputtering, followed by virtually no water, followed by a period of pulling the water back up the pipe and displacing air in the pipe. Finally, at the end of this cycle, the water is at full pressure and volume once again and is fine as long as we are drawing water. I assume that where the pump does not automatically kick in while the pump is off, water pressure is being held successfully by the pump and check valve, indicating a problem beyond the check valve.

A couple of other tidbits are that on occasion, the pump seems like it will not re-prime (e.g., the pump runs for some time and nothing comes out but an occasional trickle). When I go out and remove the priming plug, water shoots out. After reinstalling the plug, the pump seems to re-prime right away. Additionally, whenever the pump kicks in, even when the water has been running continuously, there appears to be some air mixed in with the water.

As mentioned, we replaced the point and all input-side piping and connections. We have never used foot valves and have never had a problem at least until we replaced the old pump with the current one a few years ago. We have, as shown below, a check valve installed near the pump.

I hate the thought of having to dig the 5-6 feet down to the connections in the ground and possibly having to pull up the new point but if that is the way it is, so be it. Before doing that, however, I am wondering the following:
  • Do I have things installed in a reasonable fashion?
  • Could the problem be with the pressure tank? It seems to work and the bladder seems fine although it is quite old. It seems I have heard or read that a pressure tank can force air back down the line through the pump, causing a loss of prime. If this were the case, however, I would think the pump would kick in due to a loss of pressure.
  • Is the column of pipe above the tee creating a problem in that it would likely always have a column of air in it? This was left in place so that it would be easier to uncap the pipe and clean out the point, “shock” the well, etc., rather than having to dig down to where the line to the pump connects.
  • Given the check valve and pump components, I assume there is nothing on the output side of things that would be contributing to the problems … correct?
Things I am considering are:

  • Removing the current check valve and installing a new one right before the elbow where the pipe goes into the ground. I would think this would rule out any connection issues on the input side, at least those above ground.
  • Removing the pressure tank and plugging the line to see if the pressure tank is introducing any problems.

I have the following well setup (see diagram, below):

upload_2015-8-7_16-26-45.png

  • Newly driven sand-point well with 1.25” point and pipe.
  • Depth from ground level to tee in pipe is approximately 5 feet.
  • Depth from tee to end of point is approximately 18 feet.
  • 1.25-inch line to pump is attached at tee.
  • Horizontal distance from well to pump is 18 feet
  • There is 9 feet of water in the pipe.
  • There is no foot valve (I do not think one can put a foot valve on a driven-point, single-pipe well. Correct me if I am wrong.)
  • The well pipe is capped at the ground surface.
  • All joints and couplings have been “sealed” with TFE paste and Teflon tape.
  • All components of the system were recently replaced, from the point to the pump, with the exception of the pressure tank and output lines.

Here is a picture of the actual pump installation:
index.php


  • The pump is a half-horse, Wayne, shallow-well pump.
  • The priming plug on the pump tends to leak a bit
  • The pressure tank is at around 22 psi with no pressure in the water line.
Thanks for any help!
 

Attachments

  • Pump System.jpg
    Pump System.jpg
    79.6 KB · Views: 25,199

Gadgetrover

New Member
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Duluth, MN
UPDATE

After going through all the joints above ground and resetting them and replacing pieces as needed, and placing the check valve immediately prior to the elbow that goes into the plastic underground pipe and noting no improvement, I have now dug up the main well pipe to the tee that brings the water line to the cabin. There is nothing obviously wrong with the pipe or exposed joints. I tried torquing down on the pipes a bit but the well still loses its prime.

I second checked the water in the pipe and there is a good 9 feet of water in the pipe. I measured the seeming maximum output of the well, once primed, and it appears to be around 6.5 gallons per minute. I really don't know how good those values are but suspect they are not too bad.

I threaded a plug into the top of the tee, replacing the capped 3-foot vertical pipe that comes up to ground level and that had no effect.

I then removed the tee and all things connecting to it, torqued down on the well pipe, and reset the tee and the line going to the cabin and am waiting to see how that works. If this takes care of the problem, I would suspect the connections joining the plastic pipe to the galvanized pipe to have been the problem. I set both of the plastic connectors more deeply into the galvanized connecting points.

If the above fails, it appears my choices are to expose the entire run of plastic pipe to the cabin (I had replaced it when I drove the well a few weeks ago.) and check that or just replace it again.

I could pull up the line to the point and check the two couplings. I used both paste and teflon tape on the couplings and tried to re-tighten things when I added a new section but given inconsistencies I have run into with threads, etc., of pipe and fittings made in foreign countries, who knows?

I could try driving the point down another 5 feet but have a fear that I might go beyond the aquifer.

Does anybody have any comments or recommendations? A couple of things I have been wondering are:
  • Can a worn or defective pump cause problems like we are experiencing?
  • Where we are in a colder climate, if I were to place a check valve down by the tee, how could I drain the line for the portion that is above the frost level?
I just found out we will be having storms tonight, so ideally, I need to complete my excavating, solve the problem, and get things covered up before we get washed away.

Thanks!
 

Gadgetrover

New Member
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Duluth, MN
UPDATE

We are down to pulling up the well pipe and/or the plastic pipe to the building since redoing the connections at the tee and torquing on the well pipe did nothing. The good news is that the storms are hitting, tornadoes have been spotted in the area and we may be able to take refuge in the hole I dug to get to the tee!
 

Gadgetrover

New Member
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Duluth, MN
UPDATE

At this point, I am posting in the hope that our experiences somehow help somebody else in a similar situation. In any event, yesterday, we dug up the entire line going from the pump to the house. The line is poly with plastic connectors going from poly to galvanized at each end. Upon digging up the line, our system held its prime. We did nothing but uncover the pipe and it started working! I didn't want to re-bury things until I could hopefully find the cause of the problem and, at the least, planned to replace the poly pipe with a new run and the connectors with steel connectors because I suspected the compression of the soil over the pipe may have put just enough strain on the connectors or possibly bent the poly to expose a pin-hole leak.

Prior to this, we had also been considering the possibility of a leak in the well pipe and pulling the well pipe would have been the next step had the excavation and repair of the water line failed to take care of things. We just had 4 days of steady rains and I began thinking that perhaps the rain water may have seeped into the soil and if there were leak(s) in the well pipe that previously were sucking air, they may now be under water and not allowing air to enter.

Awoke this morning to a well that had lost its prime. Further, it is back to losing its prime within 20 minutes or so, as it had previously done. Today's plan is to make the 120-mile round trip to get the necessary parts and replace the connectors and poly pipe to the house. If that fails to produce results, we will disconnect the line from the well pipe and pull the well.

I am seriously thinking of giving up drinking water and switching to beer ... It is cheaper and less work in the long run!

As always, if anybody has any wisdom to impart, it would be greatly appreciated but, as Valveman said, it comes down to a process of elimination.
 

Reach4

Well-Known Member
Messages
38,798
Reaction score
4,413
Points
113
Location
IL
Above you say "3-foot vertical pipe that comes up to ground level" but in your picture you say 5 feet. I figure your frost line is about 4 feet.

I have never even seen an operating jet pump. So my comments are not based on experience. Some pumps are described as self priming. My expectation is that they could draw a vacuum and eventually suck water even if there was a small leak in the intake pipe. They do need water added to the pump initially. I presume that your pump is not described as self priming.

When your pump is pumping, there will be a vacuum inside the piping. I would consider applying a liquid that would get sucked into a tiny crevice at the in-place joints and then harden up. I would probably think a 2 part epoxy, but there may be something better for that. Pipe dope (paste) might be the better choice. I would make a little dam with tape to hold liquid to the crevices during the process. I would keep the pump pumping while my liquid hardened to maintain the vacuum.

As to whether a bad pump could account for all of your symptoms, I don't know.
 

Gadgetrover

New Member
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Duluth, MN
Hi, Reach4, I appreciate your help! The vertical pipe is, in fact, 3-4 feet up from the tee. I had a longer pipe on it originally that brought it up a couple feet above ground level.

Our pump, I suspect, would be in the self-priming category in that there is always water in the pump allowing it to create suction and, as you noted, it is able to suck all the air out of the line, down to the water level in the well pipe, despite the apparent leak(s), and eventually pull the water up. This process takes a fair amount of time, pulls water from the hot water heater (allows it to flow back into the vacuum), and is pretty hard on the pump.

I like your idea of putting pipe dope on the outside of the joints while under suction. I used both the paste and the teflon tape on all the joints and have been considering spraying the joints with the rubberized spray they advertise on TV, where they spray the bottom of a screen-bottomed boat and it remains leak free. My concern right now is that the leak may be coming from the well pipe, probably in one of the unions between sections that loosened up while driving the well, despite my giving things a tightening twist whenever a new section was added. The process of pulling the pipe up to check is a bit daunting after having pulled up two old 20-foot well pipes and points in the process of all this. Plus, I have read that if one pulls a well point and then re-drives it, they must "shock" the well to avoid contamination.

I will try your idea of creating a suction in the pipes while applying either more pipe dope or some of the rubberized spray and see how it goes. I am also dangerously close to just biting the bullet and pulling the well pipe, checking thing and re-driving it, just to make sure.

Thanks again.
 

Reach4

Well-Known Member
Messages
38,798
Reaction score
4,413
Points
113
Location
IL
Plus, I have read that if one pulls a well point and then re-drives it, they must "shock" the well to avoid contamination.
Shocking (sanitizing) well is not hard, and it should be routine. I think your surface cap would make an easy way to introduce chlorine bleach. http://www.moravecwaterwells.com/index.php/maintainance/disinfection-and-testing is the sanitizing method I like, but most people use a much simpler system: dumping some amount of bleach into the pipes. A lot of bleach, or a little bleach over a long time, is not good for the softener resin. So I keep the softener in bypass until the levels are low enough. The water heater is hard to get much bleach into, so the hot pipes take a little extra consideration.
 

Gadgetrover

New Member
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Duluth, MN
Reach4, thanks, that is the good information on shocking the well. We have a definite mineral issue here and I had not thought about he effect of pH on the action of the bleach.

Yesterday, we pulled up the well pipe, examined it, carefully redid all the couplings, and re-drove it back into the ground, carefully re-tightening the couplings as we went. I also gave the external area of each coupling a shot of the rubberized spray I mentioned before. We decided to drop the pipe another 3 feet down. Additionally, I bought all new parts with regard to the run of poly-pipe.

Dropping lines into the well indicated that we had a solid 12-13 feet of water in the pipe. We attached a little 1/2 horse transfer pump to a hose and dropped the hose down the well as we had previously, to pump out the dirt, etc. The first hose collapsed because it was one of the flex hoses that stays flexible in freezing weather ... A good sign, however, since this meant there was something down there to try to suck up. Put on a more rigid hose and all we got was an occasional spurt or trickle. I thought perhaps the pump was not able to take the run of hose that had 15 feet horizontal run and another 25 down to the point, so I tried pulling the hose up to the 16-20 foot level, and still nothing.

I don't know if I punched through the aquifer, the pump is just not powerful enough, or I have a hole in the hose somewhere. Moving the hose up and down in the pipe, one does not feel the resistance expected if it was submerged in water down below (although I did feel it with the hose that had collapsed). The hose comes out of the pipe covered in water and the pipe itself is icy cold. After pulling the hose, we quickly measured the level of water in the pipe and came up with the same 12-13 feet as before.

Not sure what today's plan is. I was working on the well until 10:30 last night and the rigors of pulling well pipe and manually driving a new well has awakened an old shoulder injury, so today's undertakings will be limited. Nonetheless, I have to get it working and have things covered up within 2 days, as we will be leaving our little piece or paradise.

If anybody has any suggestions at this point such as what to do if one goes through an aquifer, etc. they would be greatly appreciated.
 

Gadgetrover

New Member
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Duluth, MN
UPDATE
Under the assumption that I had driven the point completely through the aquifer, I brought the point up three feet, the whole time with a hose down the well pipe and a utility pump valiantly trying to pump water. Bringing it up 3 feet brought it to where it was when we seemed to be getting good water (9-10 feet in pipe and recovery capacity of at least 6-7 GPM). This time, however, the water flow seemed steady but reduced. The flow reduction, however, could have been due to the hose collapsing under the suction. I brought the pipe up another 6 inches, and the flow of water stopped.

At this point I don't know if I am above or below the aquifer, if I should go deeper than the 26 feet I was down or more shallow than the 18 or so feet I am at now. Further I don't know if I should pull the entire pipe up and replace the point since perhaps all this has plugged the point (The point was new at the beginning of this project.). Suggestions?
 
Last edited:

Gadgetrover

New Member
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Duluth, MN
FINAL UPDATE

I drove the pipe back down 3 feet or so and we seemed to get a decent flow using the transfer pump and hose. We used the transfer pump to pull water out of the pipe until it was clear and then reconnected the new poly pipe, new connectors, etc. Things worked fine last night and, as of this morning, we still have a continuous flow of water, albeit with one unnerving sputter. Today, we get to move all the dirt back into the hole and trench and finish the whole thing off. Next time up, we will "shock" the well per the instructions suggested by Reach4 and all will be good for another 20-30 years or so (with occasional sanitizations).

In hindsight, I think the air leakage was likely caused by: 1) Plastic connectors going from the poly pipe to the galvanized - these don't thread as deeply, they don't insert into the poly as deeply and I don't think are able to take the strain of the dirt placing a little downward pressure on the joint. They were replaced with steel connectors. 2) A previously used, 3-foot section of pipe - I didn't realize it but the threads on this piece of pipe seemed to have more of a taper allowing the union to loosen severely, no matter what was done with regard to taping, doping, etc. I kept overlooking this section because it was at the top of the well pipe; the one that came out of the ground.

This marks the 4th sand-point well I have put down in this area. The other three had no problems at all until they began to lose their output due to clogged points. I was younger when I did the other three and I believe the combination of brute strength and ignorance saved me. This time, I was far more careful and thoughtful and far less inclined to dig and bang pipe for hours on end and the well gods made me pay for it!

Thanks to Valveman and Reach4 for their help!
 
Top
Hey, wait a minute.

This is awkward, but...

It looks like you're using an ad blocker. We get it, but (1) terrylove.com can't live without ads, and (2) ad blockers can cause issues with videos and comments. If you'd like to support the site, please allow ads.

If any particular ad is your REASON for blocking ads, please let us know. We might be able to do something about it. Thanks.
I've Disabled AdBlock    No Thanks