Advise for pulling a pump in Honduras

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JimKiefer

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Hello everyone,

My name is Jim Kiefer. I am a pastor in SE Missouri and have a dear friend and missionary in Honduras who has an orphanage and is having trouble with his well pump and I am looking for advise, tips, and tricks that may help get his water back on.

Any advice or thoughts would be very appreciated.

Specifics:
Well is located south of Choluteca, Honduras
400' deep
1 1/4" galv pipe
3 hp pump (don't have dimensions yet)

Problem:
Neighbor kids left water open and ran pump dry and burned pump out.
Complication:
Went to pull pump and hit a snag at 300'. Hit solid. attempting to pull up has bent steel tube frame set up over well. Currently pump is not stuck and can be moved freely below 300'

Other info:
There was an earthquake there several months back so there is a concern that maybe the hole has shifted partially blocking the well hole.
The crew that dug the well has a camera but it is in another part of the country currently and we are unsure when they will return to the area.
He is currently hauling water for two households and the orphanage but that is not a long term sustainable solution.
Barry was a diesel mechanic prior to moving to Honduras and is very mechanically inclined. He has pulled this pump in the past and is very familiar and capable with it.

Equipment available: Has a winch and pulley set up. Has a backhoe available if needed.

Barry has a blog that you can check out if you feel so inclined at:
http://www.childrenslighthouse.blogspot.com/
Thank you for any help or suggestion!
Jim Kiefer
 

Texas Wellman

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Are you absolutely certain that the pump/ motor is bad?
Check the volts to make sure they are right and then check the ohms. If possible install a new control box and check the amps. Make sure the overloads on the bottom are not tripped. Google Franklin aim if you need to know all the vales. You can also pull mighty hard on galv pipe.
 

JimKiefer

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He tried rotating...here is info he just sent me. I will pass back the info you shared.

4 in casing 400 ft well 3 hp 700 ft lift pump... impasse roughly 260 foot down

And info from his latest blog update:
We had neighbors in the area who kept turning on the water out by the road and running our pump dry which burns up the pump. What we did not know until we tried to pull it is there is a problem in the casing. Either it broke and shifted when we had an earthquake months back or the overheated water from the pump melted the pvc casing... only needs 100 degree water which the pump could have done. So we have no good options. Best option is redrill an new well... this one took us 8 years and lots of money.
A new one will be about $25,000. Second option break off the pump let fall back down and use the top half of the well water.
 

ACWxRADR

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Jim,

Your friend's situation is dire. I would suggest that he contact an oil drilling crew in the area or at least consult with someone who is involved in oil drilling rigs. They have much more expertise in fishing broken pipes and stuck pipes out of a bore hole. No offense to the water well drilling folks here on this forum, but oil well drillers have many specialized tools and have a huge resource of knowledge and experience with handy tricks on this subject.

Best of luck to your friend, I know this is not going to be an easy chore.

RADAR
 

ACWxRADR

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Added note: I wouldn't attempt to break the pump off and let it fall back into the well. The pipe string may not break right at the pump connection. It could break anywhere above the pump at the weakest point in the pipe. If this happens, it might be very difficult to insert a new pump back down the bore hole to the water level.

RADAR
 

JimKiefer

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Any ideas on contacting such a person, group, or company? The only thing I am coming up with is in the Caribbean which is on the other side of the country which is a long, rough road away from them. They are south of the Capital. I don't recall seeing any oil rigs on my most recent trip down.
 

ACWxRADR

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Jim,

No, I don't have any helpful notions here. My suggestion was just the best idea I could think of off the cuff.
knowing who or what company to contact down in Honduras is a blind avenue for me. Certainly there should be some company in the area, locating and contacting them is a different story.

Obviously, the bore hole is semi-open, since they can pull the well pipe up to a certain depth and then it gets stuck. The larger outside diameter of the pump and fittings are probably catching on a ridge or rock that was dislodged during the earth quake. Somehow, they need to send a fishing pipe back down the well string to that level and "twist" it to pass the blockage. Then raise the fishing pipe and the well pump up past that blockage. They will have to hope that this is the ONLY blockage as well.

They can try to "roll" the well pipe CW (in the direction that would tighten the threads) and hope that the pump head and fittings eventually slide over the ridge that is holding it, but they would have to be extremely patient and careful. Right now they have a great advantage and that is that the whole well string (pipe) is still in one piece. Tell them not to allow it to break. That is when things really go bad. They do not wish to go fishing for a stuck pipe!

If I can think of other strategies, I will let you know.

RADAR
 

JimKiefer

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Thanks to both of you for the ideas and thoughts. I have encouraged him to wait for the man with a camera to return and send it down the hole, but I know that hauling water in these parts and with the number of people he is supplying is challenging, time consuming, and expensive also. I have also sent him a link to this forum so that he can perhaps follow and input as needed.
 

JimKiefer

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Here is the latest if anyone has incite or advise it would be appreciated...

From Barry:
Been talking to a well drilling friend who has given alot of insite and helps the ministry here...unfortunatly he is in hong kong right now on vacation...so ph time is short... still no answer to camera guy. His office is here in choluteca but is working up north... brain storming with jr thinking of making a rimer. A sharp tube to slip inside the casing and hammer down on the obstruction. Not sure yet. Might not work and be an expensive failed tool or it might rip open the side and let all the grave in to fill the well...


Casing is all the way with a cement plug on bottom surrounded by pea gravel. Plugged seal at top with cement. It has a small tube of pvc in the upper cement seal down to the gravel that is also filled w gravel. If the level drops we know casing failed and grave filled the casing .The well was drilled 50' dirt then 350' solid rock all the way down
 

Reach4

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Is the casing steel or PVC?
It has a small tube of pvc in the upper cement seal down to the gravel that is also filled w gravel. If the level drops we know casing failed and grave filled the casing .
Do I understand you to say that that PVC tube is to check on the level of the gravel outside of the casing?
4 in casing 400 ft well 3 hp 700 ft lift pump... impasse roughly 260 foot down
A "700 ft" pump was not the right pump -- not that that contributed to the pump getting stuck.
 

ACWxRADR

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Jim,

I am really not sure of this advice, so take it as you will. It is a thought that I had that might be feasible, I don't know.

Do you know what drilling fluid is? Drilling mud? Do you understand how it works?

Drilling fluid or mud is sodium bentonite clay. It is mined, a lot of it from Wyoming. I think it is best known by one particular brand name - Baroid's QUIK-GEL. Baroid is a subsidiary of the Halliburton Company.

This clay has really special properties. It is really fine powder when dry, but when mixed with fresh water, it expands to something like 16 times its original volume and absorbs a huge amount of water. It is a sort of crystalline structure with a propensity to absorb water and make a super water seal. A form of this clay is often used to line the bottoms of ponds to keep the water from leaching away into the soil. Water and oil well drillers use it, in a specifically produced style, to drill wells.

When this clay, in a very specific recipe, is used for well drilling it offers many specific advantages. It aids in cooling and lubricating the drill bit as the bit bores through rock. Fresh water alone can do this, but when you add the clay to the water, it adds a couple of other advantages. For one, it changes the buoyancy of water so that the water can carry the debris (rock chips, sand and gravel) up the well bore hole and to the surface. When the water (mixed with this clay) stops flowing, it sort of "gels" and keeps the rock and sand and gravel in a suspension. This is handy as these drilled out rock parts don't immediately fall back to the bottom of the bore hole. The clay also binds with any loose sand and gravel on the sidewalls of the well bore hole to seal them and prevent the sides from collapsing back into the well bore when you remove the drilling tool and shaft.

If you could somehow feed a PVC tube down the well, below the stuck pump, you could add some leverage from below to PUSH the pump up with the higher viscosity clay and water mix (mud). The trick here is that the outlet of the pipe pumping the mud into the well has to be below the level of the stuck pump. If that can be accomplished, you might have a leverage source to "push" the pump up from below as well as pulling it from above.

This would require a trash pump or "mud" pump and hoses and fittings and a pipe to jet the "mud" into the lower section of the well.

This process doesn't assure any success and it also leaves a residual effect that must be addressed. The mud will seal the water bearing formation and reduce the well water production. If it works to remove the old pump and a new one is installed, the well bore hole has to be reconditioned by purging it with fresh water and constant pumping action to remove the "seal" that the "mud" created.

This is just one idea . It may not be the appropriate method to "unstick" the pump, but it may be a consideration.

RADAR
 

JimKiefer

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Is the casing steel or PVC?

Do I understand you to say that that PVC tube is to check on the level of the gravel outside of the casing?
A "700 ft" pump was not the right pump -- not that that contributed to the pump getting stuck.
THE reason for the 700' pump is that the well pumps water up to a reservoir on the mountain behind the house. Power often goes out there so they use a gravity feed from the storage tank to have a constant supply to the orphanage and house.
 

JimKiefer

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Is the casing steel or PVC?

Do I understand you to say that that PVC tube is to check on the level of the gravel outside of the casing?
A "700 ft" pump was not the right pump -- not that that contributed to the pump getting stuck.

Casing is 4" pvc down 400' that is surrounded by pea gravel.
 

Reach4

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THE reason for the 700' pump is that the well pumps water up to a reservoir on the mountain behind the house.
Nice.

It sounds like your storage up the mountain is more than 200 ft up.

Most 4 inch pumps are about 3.9 inches OD. Mine is 3.75 in a 4 inch steel casing, but it is only 3/4 HP 7 GPM. I don't think you could get a 3.75 in such a big pump. That "3-inch" pump suggestion sounds attractive regarding getting stuck, although I think you would get less than 3 GPM with a 600 or 700 ft head and the Grundfos 5SQE15-450. Maybe they have a powerful offering. I think with the 3 inch down the hole you might want one pump bringing water to the surface and another climbing the mountain.

I plan to seek another 3.75 conventional pump if my pump fails, thinking there is less to go wrong.
 
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Craigpump

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Random thoughts.......

4" sch 40 pvc has an inside diameter of 4", 4" pump motors are 3.75" in diameter, there is NO way you're going to get a tube down past the pump and push it out with mud.

Running a camera all the way will be tricky at best. Camera cables tend to get wound around drop pipe and wire, once that happens you cut off the cable and add to the junk in the hole.

A last resort would be to get a blaster on site and have him shoot off the pipe at the pump, you won't need a huge shot, probably a blasting cap will do it, especially if there is a hoist truck onsite to pull on the pipe. I would then run a camera in to determine why there is a tight spot in the pipe.
 

JimKiefer

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well+in.jpg

Here is the pump being install Nov of 2013
 

Valveman

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I agree with Craigpump, except that I think trying a camera might be worth it. Maybe you could attach the camera to a string of 1/2" or 3/4" steel pipe and guide it past the pump wire and still be able to get it back out. You won't be able to get past the pump, but you maybe able to get close enough to see if the casing is parted and help spin and line up the pump to get it out.

A blasting cap may cut the pump off the pipe, but you probably want to drop the pump down below the casing first, so it doesn't make a bigger mess of the casing.

If you can get it out either way, you can make a cone on the bottom and top of the new pump to help guide it through the parted casing. Although PVC casing in earthquake country is not good for obvious reasons, you still maybe able to rig a pointed cone on both ends of the pump and be able to service it a time or two if needed. With a week producing well, I don't think you will be able to use it unless you can get the pump past that 260' problem and set it close to the bottom of the well. And I don't thing they make a 3" pump large enough to pump much from that depth.

When you get it back to working or drill a new well give me a call. I will donate a Cycle Sensor so nobody will be able to run that pump in a dry well condition again. The Cycle Sensor has a way to lock it so nobody can bypass it. Unless they physically remove the Cycle Sensor, it will always protect the pump from running dry.
 
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