Well overhaul, need advice

[DStyduhar]

Hi guys/gals,

Greetings from the northern most part of NC, the land where almost no one has a pitless yet it's cold enough to freeze well heads.... as I understand NC was back and forth on pitless requirements throughout the years.

We bought a house here two years back and the owner has informed us that it has the original pump/wiring/etc. House built and well drilled in 1987 so I would say that is doing pretty good. After spending some time inspecting the well, piping, wiring, etc. it all looks pretty tired. Insulation on wiring is cracked, galvanized fittings are really corroded, etc. Water tastes decently good and we get minimal (???) silt in the filter....maybe a good 2" every 6 months.

I found the original driller and they gave me the info about our well:

Total depth - 175ft
Yield of 25gpm
50' of 6" pvc casing
Static was 70' when drilled
125' pumping level

The pump is still a mystery as the driller didn't have any info on that. County only started requiring permits beginning in 2000, so that's a dead end too. The driller is going to look again and call me back tomorrow. What I DO know is the pump is 2 wire 220v, draws about 8.5A and if I do the old drain system into buckets and time how long it takes the pump to recharge system, it works out to a little over 10gpm. House has two full baths (6), kitchen sink (1), hose bibs (2), clothes (1) and dish washer (1) for a total of 11 fixtures. 1" black poly pipe and well is 120 feet from pressure tank. No real elevation change.

A few questions for you all:

1. Based on info above, is there a way to determine which pump I have without pulling it? Well guys said my bucket test was BS, haha.

2. Any advice on a good pump brand? It seems like everything gets a bad rap, even the almighty Grundfos. I don't want to break the bank but I would be ok spending $700-800 if it's something that will last another 30 years.

3. The well was drilled in Feb 1987 and I checked the static about 3 months back in May of this year. I measured the static water level to be ~49 feet, a good 20 or so feet higher than what they original recorded. Is this sort fluctuation typical? If not, does it indicate a change in the health of the aquifer?

I have some more questions but I'll leave it here. Thanks in advance!

Drew

 

[Reach4]

1. Based on info above, is there a way to determine which pump I have without pulling it? Well guys said my bucket test was BS, haha.

Do you have a control box? If so, that could identify the HP.

Get a clamp-around ammeter, clamp around one power wire, and measure the current after 5 or 10 seconds. Also, is this powered thru a single pole breaker (12o volts) or two?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[DStyduhar]

- No control box...do some setups have control boxes for 2 wire pumps?

- I did measure the current with my clamp...~8.5Amps after inrush settles out.

- Two pole breaker, 20A.

thanks!!

Drew

 

[Reach4]

No control box...do some setups have control boxes for 2 wire pumps?

The term control box is normally used for 3-wire pumps.

Probably 3/4 HP, maybe 10 gpm. See this table? It has characteristics for some pumps including a 3/4 HP 10 gallon pump. There are tables like this for other pumps, and you could deduce from that.

 

[Boycedrilling]

You’ve either got a 3/4 hp or a 1 hp pump. Let’s just assume that your Pump has a Franklin motor. The following information comes from the Franklin AIM manual.

A 2 wire 3/4 hp motor’s full load amps are 6.8 and service factor amps are 8.0. A 3/4 hp motor should be on a 20 amp 2 pole circuit breaker.

A 2 wire 1 hp motor’s full load amps are 8.2. The service factor amps are 10.4. A 1 hp motor should be on a 25 amp 2 pole circuit breaker.

So far I’m leaning towards it being a 3/4 hp motor.

The last test takes a little more work. We need to determine the resistance in ohms between the two current carrying conductors. To do this you need to do the following;
1. Turn the breaker to the pump off.
2. Remove the cover to the pressure switch.
3. Verify no power on the incoming conductors at the pressure switch.
4. Remove the two conductors going to the pump from the pressure switch terminals.
5. Measure with your multimeter, the resistance in ohms between the two conductors.

A 3/4 hp motor should have resistance of 3.0-3.6 ohms.
A 1 hp motor should have resistance of 2.2-2.7 ohms.

I mostly install Grundfos pumps. I also install Berkeley and Flowise pumps.

 

[Valveman]

From the amps, I am guessing a 1HP, 10 GPM pump. The bucket test works very well as long as you open enough faucets to keep the pump running and the pressure low. Otherwise you are just testing how much comes out of a faucet.

 

[DStyduhar]

Reach4 - Based on the current and pump depth ( I assume it's likely ~20'-25' above the bottom of well?), the 3/4 would make more sense for a 50psi pressure setup like mine. I don't understand the shutoff pressure row in that chart though?

Boyce Drilling - I measured the resistance tonight and got 4.9ohms and leads had 1.1ohms so we are looking ~3.8 or so. I also checked the wire and it is 12-2 UF

Valveman - I think the bucket test you are talking about might be different than what I did but maybe I'm misunderstanding what you said.

Here is what I did:

1. Turn on faucet until pressure gets low enough to trip pump
2. Once pump turns on, I quicky close faucet and let system fill completely.
3. Using a hose bib next to the pressure tank and a short 3' hose, I fully opened the hose bib and filled as many 5 gallon buckets as possible.
4. Once the pressure got low enough to trip the pump, I quickly turned the hose bib off and my wife timed how long it took for the entire system to fill again.

I guess it may NOT be an accurate test since we weren't right at the well but I don't know.

On another note, does that 20ft fluctuation in static water sound off? I guess I would have expected the water level to go down over the years but not sure. I would expect the water level to be higher during rainy season and vice versa during heat of summer but I'm just curious how much they vary. I guess higher static is better than lower static, eh?

thanks again.

Drew

 

[DStyduhar]

Been thinking more about the change in static. Need to call the well company back but maybe they measured 70 feet static before the pump was in and it raised to higher level with pump and everything put in. Might explain why they didn't have any info on the pump. Just a guess though.

 

[Reach4]

Been thinking more about the change in static. Need to call the well company back but maybe they measured 70 feet static before the pump was in and it raised to higher level with pump and everything put in. Might explain why they didn't have any info on the pump. Just a guess though.

It doesn't work that way. I expect the water level in the aquifer changed. Some go up and down a fair amount. Some don't.

 

[Boycedrilling]

Changes in static water level;

It sounds like you pretty accurately measured your SWL earlier this year. You don’t know how accurately the static was measured when the well was drilled in 1987. Some drillers are very contentious about accurately measuring. Some, not so much. I was visiting with a driller a year or so ago. He said “yeah, I drop a pebble in the well and count how many seconds it take before I hear it hit the water”.

It is also possible that your local water table has changed by that much in the he last 28 years. I have wells that haven’t changed 1 feet in that time span. I have others that have changed 100’s of feet up or down in the same time frame.

 

[DStyduhar]

Thanks for the info guys. Seems like an increase in static is a good thing though, no?