Lost pump wires down the well help

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Marcbrokehiswell

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Just by way of information if you respond to this post please give me some time to get back to you I am busy polishing my trophy case containing first place for do it wrong the first time first place 40 crap that's not how that works and now it's broken
And a few more I can't mention or lose my membership
Anyway had some kind of short circuit in Milltown on my relay switch to my well simple enough I've had to replace them before however this time when I disconnected the pump wires suddenly I was left with a handful of empty conduit as I watch the wires quickly shoot down into the well
Shouldn't have the well driller installed something to prevent this ?
I called him and he is coming out next week to fish out the wires I suppose install a new relay switch and diagnose whatever may have caused the meltdown by I would like to know what to do to prevent this in the future shouldn't there be some type of attachment for these wires to prevent them from dropping them selves and the pump to the bottom of the well ?
Thanks for any help you guys can be
 

Texas Wellman

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Uh...I don't know how to tell you this but it appears that the wires were the only thing holding the pump up. When you disconnected them the pump fell down the well, pulling the wires with it. I had it happen once to me, seeing the pump drop and sucking the wires down with it. I also seen a pump hung on 100' of steel pipe being held up by the wire nuts stuck in the conduit.

PS...your pump/wires are not lost. I know exactly where it is. That is what my Dad used to say. Hope you get it fished out. Good luck.
 

Reach4

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Anyway had some kind of short circuit in Milltown on my relay switch to my well simple enough I've had to replace them before however this time when I disconnected the pump wires suddenly I was left with a handful of empty conduit as I watch the wires quickly shoot down into the well
Shouldn't have the well driller installed something to prevent this ?

Normally the wires are taped to the down pipe . https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/how-to-secure-power-cable-to-well-pipe.62167/
 

Marcbrokehiswell

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Uh...I don't know how to tell you this but it appears that the wires were the only thing holding the pump up. When you disconnected them the pump fell down the well, pulling the wires with it. I had it happen once to me, seeing the pump drop and sucking the wires down with it. I also seen a pump hung on 100' of steel pipe being held up by the wire nuts stuck in the conduit.

PS...your pump/wires are not lost. I know exactly where it is. That is what my Dad used to say. Hope you get it fished out. Good luck.
 

Marcbrokehiswell

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Thanks pump guy
The well driller that installed the well is coming next week
Is there someway I should tell him to do something to prevent this from happening again ?
 

JRC3

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Is there someway I should tell him to do something to prevent this from happening again ?
Seems to me that if the wires were supporting the pump there was a far worse problem causing it. Wait to see what the well guy finds, you'll probably realize you don't have to worry about it again and that your "mistake" was negligible at the most.
 

Marcbrokehiswell

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Thank you I already see a couple of things that should be done differently like the relay is installed with just enough room for the water pipe to 90° up the past it if they had just Put another little piece of galvanized before that elbow I would've had room to work thanks again
 

Craigpump

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IF the pipe is broken you should up grade to better pipe.

IF a brass fitting failed due to low pH, go to stainless.

Don't combine different metals.

Bottom line, don't cheap out and use junk materials.
 

Valveman

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OR. if the pipe just came unscrewed your pump is probably cycling on/off way too much. I hate to admit I have seen that happen too many times. I have even seen the tape hold the pump for a bit. Then when I cut it about the fourth joint the whole thing went south on me.

Even had a few big ones like 1000'-1600' of 3.5" oil field type pipe and #2 wire on a 40HP sub take off on me. Some tomes just bad threads but just bounce it a little too hard on those slips and they pop right open. 1000'+ of jacketed or armored #2 wire spinning off a spool or from a huge loop on the ground is quite a show. It can pick up 36" pipe wrenches, cheaters, hammers, etc., and try to take them down the hole as well.

Needless to say you just run back and watch until things stop spinning and the dust settles, then call for some fishing tools.
:(
 

Marcbrokehiswell

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OR. if the pipe just came unscrewed your pump is probably cycling on/off way too much. I hate to admit I have seen that happen too many times. I have even seen the tape hold the pump for a bit. Then when I cut it about the fourth joint the whole thing went south on me.

Even had a few big ones like 1000'-1600' of 3.5" oil field type pipe and #2 wire on a 40HP sub take off on me. Some tomes just bad threads but just bounce it a little too hard on those slips and they pop right open. 1000'+ of jacketed or armored #2 wire spinning off a spool or from a huge loop on the ground is quite a show. It can pick up 36" pipe wrenches, cheaters, hammers, etc., and try to take them down the hole as well.

Needless to say you just run back and watch until things stop spinning and the dust settles, then call for some fishing tools.
:(
Wow I thought smashing things in a 600 ton punch press was scary doesn't seem anything like that !
 

Boycedrilling

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I've pulled 2 or 3 that have unscrewed over 30+ years. None of them were ones I installed. Pulled one two years ago that was loose, but hadn't completely unscrewed yet. The ones that I've seen unscrew were at the pump, not at the top of the well.

Pulled a 125 hp submersible on 600 ft of 6" pipe two years ago for the local city. There were straps welded across the couplers the first 105 ft. Asked the public works superintendent why there were the straps. He said the pipe had unscrewed. I didn't tell him that was just plain laziness on the part of a pump crew. They just didn't tighten them enough. Of course it is inside of a pump house and you can't get the hydraulic cylinder or cathead rope on the chain tong.

The Frainklin AIM manual says all pipe joints need to be tightened to at least 10 lb-ft per motor horsepower. I'm sure going to torque the joints on a 1 hp pump's drop pipe more that 10 foot pounds though. Using Franklins torque requirements, the joints on that 125 hp pump need to be tightened a minimum of 1,250 ft pounds. And they DO say it may be necessary to strap pipe joints on high horsepower pumps, especially at shallower settings.
 

Valveman

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Probably can't cycle a 5-7 GPM pump enough to unscrew very often. But I see it all the time with 20-30 GPM. 1.5-2HP pumps. The worst ones are city jobs on 4" and 6" pipe. Those little cities use 10,000 gallon pressure tanks, and don't realize they only hold 1,000 gallons of water. That makes for a lot of cycling when using a 500-1000 GPM pump. This was long before I learned how to stop the cycling using a Cycle Stop Valve. But after getting the connection as tight as possible, we use to put a good tack weld on the couplings to the pipe, and it would still break the tack weld and fall in the well. Fortunately in this area we set pumps just a few feet off of bottom, so it didn't have far to fall. Still no fun fishing 4" or 6" pipe on a regular basis. One of them we fished 4 times in about a month.

Some jobs had turbine pumps cycling every 20 seconds. Turbines can take a lot more cycling than a sub. A few of those turbines got replaced with subs because the city wanted to go the cheaper route. But those big subs would cycle themselves to death in just a few weeks. Of course then they don't want to pay you because the turbine had been cycling like that for 15 years and the sub didn't last 15 days. They don't want to hear how bad cycling is for a pump, they just want to blame it on someone else.

The engineer wouldn't let us change anything so the problem just kept repeating itself. We lost some customers this way because they would just call a different pump man. And after a couple different pump men had the same problem, they were too full of pride to call me and apologize, because I was right about the cycling to begin with. Engineers rarely admit they are wrong, but they are a lot of the time.

Since we started using CSV's I like to be the second or third pump man on the job. Because now I can stop the cycling and they think I am a hero. I sure don't miss fishing jobs on those cold and snowy days. :)
 

Marcbrokehiswell

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Probably can't cycle a 5-7 GPM pump enough to unscrew very often. But I see it all the time with 20-30 GPM. 1.5-2HP pumps. The worst ones are city jobs on 4" and 6" pipe. Those little cities use 10,000 gallon pressure tanks, and don't realize they only hold 1,000 gallons of water. That makes for a lot of cycling when using a 500-1000 GPM pump. This was long before I learned how to stop the cycling using a Cycle Stop Valve. But after getting the connection as tight as possible, we use to put a good tack weld on the couplings to the pipe, and it would still break the tack weld and fall in the well. Fortunately in this area we set pumps just a few feet off of bottom, so it didn't have far to fall. Still no fun fishing 4" or 6" pipe on a regular basis. One of them we fished 4 times in about a month.

Some jobs had turbine pumps cycling every 20 seconds. Turbines can take a lot more cycling than a sub. A few of those turbines got replaced with subs because the city wanted to go the cheaper route. But those big subs would cycle themselves to death in just a few weeks. Of course then they don't want to pay you because the turbine had been cycling like that for 15 years and the sub didn't last 15 days. They don't want to hear how bad cycling is for a pump, they just want to blame it on someone else.

The engineer wouldn't let us change anything so the problem just kept repeating itself. We lost some customers this way because they would just call a different pump man. And after a couple different pump men had the same problem, they were too full of pride to call me and apologize, because I was right about the cycling to begin with. Engineers rarely admit they are wrong, but they are a lot of the time.

Since we started using CSV's I like to be the second or third pump man on the job. Because now I can stop the cycling and they think I am a hero. I sure don't miss fishing jobs on those cold and snowy days. :)
 
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