jimheem
New Member
So let me start from the beginning and get out everything I can tell you about this. Sorry if it gets long but I want to be complete as possible.
So I have a 200 year old house. The well is probably nearly as old, hand dug, and rock lined. I wish I could tell you exactly how deep it is, and I will try to get the exact number, but I can say for sure it's pushing the limits of 25 feet. I'd guess it's 30 to 35 feet to the current waterline.
A pump (half horsepower, shallow well style) sits in the basement and one copper line goes under a part of the house and then in the well about 5 feet down, it connects to a black plastic hose which connects to a foot valve. My neighbor and I installed that about 5 years ago.
From there, I go into a 20 gallon bladder style pressure tank with a 30/50 pressure switch. Tank is about 2 years old and Pump less than one year. I also have a Symcom Pump Saver Plus that I just installed a few months back.
I live in Connecticut. We are under drought conditions. There's no doubt that theres much less water down there than there used to be, but there is water, I can see it.
Problems started over the summer, but were as simple as there just being some air in the system. I would pressurize to 50 PSI easily and we'd have water. The only time there would be a major problem is if we used too much water at once ( multiple laundry loads) - to which I'd have to turn the pump off manually for an hour or so, and then it would pressurize again.
Now, The system will not pressurize at all. if I turn the pump on, most of the time I can get a toilet flush out of it, but the pump will just run run run and not go over 20 PSI. If we flush again, most of the time it will continue to bring water up - some days, not though. Often re-priming fixes that.
Oh, I did not mention that there is a one-way check valve also in the basement that I put in when I suspected the problem may be the foot valve. it's about 3 feet from the pump.
A couple "DIY" problems that I will admit to - The black hose going to the bottom of the well still has some curl to it from it being stored in a roll at the hardware store. Also, when we put that tube in, we were about a foot higher than the old copper pipe that went down the well previously.
So, I don't want to start speculating on what my issues might be in order not to cloud the expert opinions on this site. I make no qualms that I'm anything more than a hack DIY-er.
As for climbing down the well, my fat ass could never do it, and I really don't want to ask my tall skinny neighbor to do it again, I was really nervous him just scaling his way down there.
Any thoughts, or discussion starters... please.
So I have a 200 year old house. The well is probably nearly as old, hand dug, and rock lined. I wish I could tell you exactly how deep it is, and I will try to get the exact number, but I can say for sure it's pushing the limits of 25 feet. I'd guess it's 30 to 35 feet to the current waterline.
A pump (half horsepower, shallow well style) sits in the basement and one copper line goes under a part of the house and then in the well about 5 feet down, it connects to a black plastic hose which connects to a foot valve. My neighbor and I installed that about 5 years ago.
From there, I go into a 20 gallon bladder style pressure tank with a 30/50 pressure switch. Tank is about 2 years old and Pump less than one year. I also have a Symcom Pump Saver Plus that I just installed a few months back.
I live in Connecticut. We are under drought conditions. There's no doubt that theres much less water down there than there used to be, but there is water, I can see it.
Problems started over the summer, but were as simple as there just being some air in the system. I would pressurize to 50 PSI easily and we'd have water. The only time there would be a major problem is if we used too much water at once ( multiple laundry loads) - to which I'd have to turn the pump off manually for an hour or so, and then it would pressurize again.
Now, The system will not pressurize at all. if I turn the pump on, most of the time I can get a toilet flush out of it, but the pump will just run run run and not go over 20 PSI. If we flush again, most of the time it will continue to bring water up - some days, not though. Often re-priming fixes that.
Oh, I did not mention that there is a one-way check valve also in the basement that I put in when I suspected the problem may be the foot valve. it's about 3 feet from the pump.
A couple "DIY" problems that I will admit to - The black hose going to the bottom of the well still has some curl to it from it being stored in a roll at the hardware store. Also, when we put that tube in, we were about a foot higher than the old copper pipe that went down the well previously.
So, I don't want to start speculating on what my issues might be in order not to cloud the expert opinions on this site. I make no qualms that I'm anything more than a hack DIY-er.
As for climbing down the well, my fat ass could never do it, and I really don't want to ask my tall skinny neighbor to do it again, I was really nervous him just scaling his way down there.
Any thoughts, or discussion starters... please.