Fix-Redrive or Punt New Shallow Well Sand Point

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Mossback

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Hi Folks-Great Website.

Here's the dilemma. Act 1: Lakesite with sand/fine silt substrate. Our 45 year old Shallow Well jet pump and motor burned out and the local plumber replaced only to discover the sandpoint must of gone out as couldn't get any water. Act 2: Aging football players with pipes of their own to the rescue and drive a new 52" 1-1/4" 10 slot SS sand point 16.5 deep in record time (10' water table ),...oops,...Trogg broke the threads on a buried section while tightening,... too far to reach. Act 3: Test pump put into action and we get good water but also air probably due to the compromised casing. Act 4: Shove some 1" Poly down to the sandpoint, test again, good water but still with some air. Pulled the poly on the plumbers suggestion and direct hook up to the " New " Flotec pump from HD (installed earlier in the week)......can't get pressure up, low flow, can only get 10 psi on the system and the pump overheats. What can us cavemen do for an encore??
 
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Sammyhydro11

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Moss,
the only thing that i would punt is the flow tec pump.The only way for you to get the pump from drawing air is to insert a tube back in the well so you are not putting a vacume on the well casing itself. For now i would get the poly pipe back down the well maybe 1 foot off the bottom and pump the well of with a gas pump.If its drawing air at that point then you are probably taking more water out of the well than what it will produce. Under that circumstance i would normally tell someone to bang another section in but seeing that you have a compromised coupling i would deal with what you have and get to developing the well. A well pumped pumped sand free at a high rate will pump sand free at a low rate. With that in mind pump this well off at a higher rate than than what you will use for your house or irrigation.I would pump the well with a gas pump and periodically throttle it up and down so the colum of water is being moved up in down in the casing. This surges the screen and breaks up the fine sand that builds up around the screen.You will get to a point where no more sand will come through as you are pumping. Once you get to that point i would do a flow test to see what you have for water. Take a five gallon bucket and fill it with water being pumped from the well. Time it to see how long it takes to fill to the five gallon mark. Take that time and divide it into 60,multiply that figure by 5 and thats your gpm.If you dont have the amount of water you are looking for i would consider another well but go easy on tightening the couplings this time. Another thing that i am concerned about if this is going to be used for drinking purposes is where that coupling is broken. You could get some surface contamination in the well.

Good Luck,

SAM
 

Mossback

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Thanks Sam,

Yes, there are a number of things to consider. I have 6' of water in the well with a 4' sandpoint. The old well was 23' deep. The neighbor's 3 houses to the west have a 16' well but the neighbors next door is 24',...perhaps we didn't go down far enough but when we hit water at 10' and drove another 6' beyond we thought we were deep enough. Yes, it is a potable water system. The well is located in a crawl space under the house... By the way,...our pipe was standard taper thread pipe but no way could we tighten so the pipe met and seated against each other in the drive coupling? The pipe only took up 1/2 to 3/4" penetration into the 2-1/4" Drive Coupling. What gives?

Thanks a bunch.
 

Sammyhydro11

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Moss,
with only 2' of water over the screen i would not consider that a viable point well. Depending on the condition of the material in the ground i would like to see atleast 5 to 10 feet of water over the screen. You have to go nice and easy when tightening those couplings. Nice and easy to a line backer might be balls to the walls for a regular sized guy.You only have to snug it a little here and there. I think your only option at this point would be to try to get that well out and pound another one. If you stay with that well it will turn into a headache. If the water table drops a couple of feet durring a drought that well will be pumping air. Get someone that weighs a buck and a half to tighten the couplings and have the line backer pounding the point. Never tighten the casing as the well is being pounded and again just snug up the casing here and there. I'm not to sure why you had problem with the pipe penetrating into the coupling. Make sure your threads match up with the drive couplings and it should go together fine.

SAM
 

Mossback

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Thanks again Sam,

That's what I kinda thunk. Any ideas on recovering the point if the bad section of pipe breaks off or should we abandon it for a learning experience?....The plan is to attach a Riser Clamp and use car or hydraulic jacks to raise the pipe. We may be abe to get a small lever jack assembly going if that is a better method but it is a small space. Another option is to use a cable puller or electric hoist and anchor it into the concrete ceiling of the storm shelter but seems like too much trouble unless these buggers are really tough to pull. I'm almost 100% sure that it's going to come apart but could get lucky. I just hate to lose that pretty perforated SS pencil.
 

Sammyhydro11

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Mossman,
i would make what we call a pull plug. Get an anchor bolt with an eyelet with a complete circle. Get a threaded cap the size of your casing and drill a hole through the center of it a little bit bigger than the diameter of the anchor bolt. Thread a nut on the end of the anchor bolt once it is in the cap and now you have a pull plug. That pull plug will allow you to pull that well straight up without pulling on an angle. I would get a come along and crank it out. Maybe you can get some kind of tri pod from a rental shop or strap some kind of cross brace to the ceiling. With some luck the whole well will come back but it all depends on how bad that joint is and how hard it was to drive the point in the ground. They make retrieval tools but i doubt any local rental shops or hardware stores have any. You could try calling a local well guy or a test boring company for one of theses devices but they are expensive and because of that they will be hesitant to lend them out.

SAM
 
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