Packer Well Help; dropped pipe

[Joshua Sturm]

Hi All,

During Hurricane Harvey my home flooded, and the pressure tank on my water well floated, and broke the well head, casing, etc. I have a packer well system, with a 3/4 hp horizontal pump, that has a 2" casing, and a 1 1/4" inner pipe. I repaired the broken casing with a 2" coupler and some pipe. On the inner pipe I ordered an "inside coupling" which glues up inside of the pipe instead of slipping around it. I wasn't ready for the water since the house was still being repaired, so I let the glue sit for about 2 weeks before trying to make sure it all worked.

Yesterday, (Saturday 2/10/2018), I primed the pump, turned the pump on, and was getting water pumping into my pressure tank. I noticed the pressure was "jumpy", only hovering around 10 psi. I messed with it for while until I ran out of daylight and came back today to try again. This is when my trouble started. Today I had no water going in my tank, so I tried to prime again, but it kept taking water, so I finally stopped after 4 gallon jugs. I took the adapter that converts it from a 2 pipe to a packer system off, and found that where I used the inner coupling, it blew off the rest of the inner pipe inside the casing. 2 feet from the coupling up to where it is threaded into the adapter is still there, but the inner pipe is somewhere inside my well casing.

This well is an 86 foot well, with PVC casing and PVC inner pipe. I can see down the well about 8 feet or so until the water level, but no pipe. I had a 15' steel pole I used to see if I could feel the PVC, but no luck.

I have 2 questions for y'all on this,

1st) Is there anyway to fish the pipe out, or try to push it further down the well to get it cleared out of the bottom of the well?

2) Could I just use the the casing as the suction for the pump, and not worry about the inner pipe?
2a) If I can do this, would the adapter I have now work? Or would I need another type?

I have included pics of adapter and well type. The 2nd pic is not my system but it shows the adapter and inner pipe better than what I could, ( since my inner pipe is somewhere between here and 86 feet down lol)

Thanks in advance for any help on this issue

 

[ThirdGenPump]

It is possible to fish the inner pipe back out, but it may be challenging for even a professional. You are in a position where if things go poorly you could be looking at re-drilling or drilling a new well. Your best bet is to get someone with experience and the right equipment.

With the water level at 8ft you could pull water up with solely suction. The fact they used a packer jet to begin with implies the well will not produce sufficient yield above what is available to a shallow well pump(30ft). As you pump/pull water out of the well the water level lowers. You can only pull water as long as the level stays shallower than 30ft. Your pump is a deep well pump, without a jet it can't make pressure. A shallow well jet has the jet on the pump, a deep well jet pump has the jet in the well.

A deep well jet pump functions by having a jet at a deeper level in the well allowing you to effective change the depth at which suction occurs. The packer jet incorporates both the casing and the drop pipe to perform that task.

So yes you could use some of what you got to pull water on suction, but you don't have the parts and even if you did you may run out of water with the set up.

 

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[Texas Wellman]

Sorry for your trouble. We were also affected by Harvey. One of our rent houses went under 12' and the well tank floated.

You probably have 1" pipe going down in the well. They make a deep-socket coupling that will work if you get the old pipe fished out. There is an adapter that converts the 1" pipe to 1.25" for the well head. It's called a special reducing adapter (SRA).

When a jet becomes stuck in the well such as yours the water level that is apparent is "false". The jet/leathers hold the water up higher than it would naturally be. Are you sure your well is only 86' deep? A well that shallow in these parts would be fairly bad water, full of iron and hardness. Plus with a well that shallow you would not need a packer style jet and could just use a shallow well pump with foot valve. It's more likely that your jet line (or suction line) goes down 86' but the well may be hundreds of feet deep.

You can put a new jet on top of the old one. The water will flow through the old jet/jet line up to the new one. It will reduce how much your pump can pull by a few GPM but will work.

I have fished many lines out using a taper tap. Because the space in the casing is so tight they usually stab the pipe on the first try.