Driven point well, sandpoint well, problems getting it started

[mountbiking]

Hello,

I have spent the last few days perusing the forums here trying to find a person with my problem, a few came close but didn't quite apply.

My father-in-law has owned a cabin by a river for decades (at lease 30 years), it has a driven point well in the slab that runs down 48'. The water is very sulfury so they only take showers and flush the toilet with it. Recently (in the past 2 years) supply to the pump has seemed to drop off, he burnt up two pumps and when they were running, it was much longer than the normal duty cycle we had come to anticipate. He thought that the point on the well had clogged or corroded or deteriorated and decided to drive a new well.

Last Monday, prior to starting any work, we dipped a wrench rope combo into the old 1.25" well pipe and found water at 13' below the top of the pipe. I then attached a pitcher pump, primed it, and commenced pumping until there was so much suction in the pipe the pitcher pump handle would whip up lightening fast if you just let go of it. No water came out. Pulled the pitcher pump and we had drawn the water level up to 6' below the top of the pipe. Our educated guess was, that well produced for decades and now a pitcher pump won't cut it, she must be clogged.

Today we drove a new 1.25" point down to 22'. We would have made it to 23' except we cut 12'' of one of the 10' sticks for another project. The screen was purchased at Big R (local farm supply) and is one of the circle hole ones. Lots of Teflon tape used and we tightened the daylights out of each connection.

At 23' depth on the new installation we now have a water in the pipe 12' below the top of the pipe. I attached the pitcher pump, soaked the leathers for 15 minutes and commenced to pumping. We generated vacuum just like with the deeper well. Please note that the well sites are within 4' of each other.

Our sea-level elevation is around 550' so this regular pitcher pump should pull water 12' no problem. The suction lets me know its working. Tomorrow I am going to pour water down the new point and see how long it takes to disperse.

I wish we had taken time to call a local driller, I will most likely do that Monday.

Is there anything else I am missing or are any of my assumptions wrong?

We just want to get the toilets flushing and the sink to wash hands in going (we use hand sanitizer after the dirt is removed).

 

[Valveman]

Pouring water in would be a good test. The water level may start out at 12-13', but when you draw on it the level maybe dropping to 23', which is about max at your elevation. You may have to go deeper and use a two pipe jet pump like with a packer.

 

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[mountbiking]

Thanks for the idea, we were pouring water in today and it was starting to look very promising. However, we broke the pipe.

My father-in-law got a hold of a guy who runs wells. His advice was that we hadn't gotten to a layer of sand or rock yet so keep driving the point and turning it with a wrench every 4 to 5 feet until we ''felt'' the rocks at the other end. I had also read somewhere else to continue to turn the pipe clockwise as you were driving it to make sure you don't loosen any of the couplings. We had driven 44' down and I almost couldn't pour water in fast enough to overflow the pipe. We decided to go 3 more feet, I wrenched up to rotate and feel if there was rocks against the point (I assumed we would feel grinding through the pipewall). The pipe cracked and was free spinning. The male pipe threads on the coupling between the first 10' section of pipe and the second 10' section of pipe broke (as discovered after we pulled the pipe).

We got a high lift jack, a chain, and the clamp from our harbor freight pipe threader and pulled out all the pipe that was still connected. We were devastated. Not knowing if we could ever recover the point and the 1o' of pipe attached to it, we dropped all the other pipe in to maintain the integrity of the hole. Now we are searching for any hail Mary plan that isn't "drive a new point in a different location". A different point in another location is our plan C, (still looking for plan A and plan B).

Any ideas out there?

Thoughts on trying to sink a 4 or 5 inch casing around the 1.25" pipe already in the ground until we are down far enough to get our point out and then just use a drop pipe?

Any fancy tools out there that are cam activated that we can drop down the inside of our pipe that will wedge in (similar to an inside pipe wrench) and then we can drag everything out with it?

 

[Valveman]

Cut a piece of flat steel that is just a little too long to fit sideways inside the pipe. Drill a hole close to one end of the flat steel and attach a cable. Push the cable and flat piece of steel down inside the pipe. When you lift on the cable the steel should wedge inside the pipe and you maybe able to pull it out.

 

[thomas kelso]

had the exact same problem lots of backpressure the hand pump was kicking back
solution drove pipe in further 2 ft in my case could feel the lose gravel and lots of water now no problem at all
good luck