well pump help ASAP!


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Old 05-20-08, 08:35 AM
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well pump help ASAP!

We have a well pump that has gone out, it's only about 12 years old and has worked up to a couple of weeks ago. My husband and I found out it was going to cost about 3-5000.00 to fix it. So we tried to fix it ourselves-not having a clue what we were doing! When we tried to take the bolts off of the top of the well head a couple of them fell down in the well, and then we figgured out how we to pull the pipe and now it is stuck, we have been told there is nothing we can do to get out the old pump, and that we would have to drill a whole new well. We can pull the pipe out about 4 ft then it just will not budge! The pipe will go back down all the way, we have tried to pull it from diffrent angles, however we are not able to pull it from straight above.No matter what it still gets stuck in the same spot, about 4ft up. We have talked to a couple of well contractors and they refuse to come out, stating that we just need to re-drill, and this would be a waist of thier time and our money. We have been told by a neighbor that the well is about 350-400 ft. deep, we purchaced the house as a forclosure so we have no information on the well at all. We cant affored to re-drill and this problem is going to cause us to loose our house. any ideas on how to dislodge this pipe? What will happen if we just cut the wire and let the pump stay in the well, can we then put a new one in? Will this contaminate our water?
 
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Old 05-20-08, 03:20 PM
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Hi,

Back about 18 years ago when I was just a young plumber, myself and another plumber went on a routine bad pump call. Our well is NH use pitless adapters so the pipe is 4-5 feet below ground. We pulled up on the pitless and my partner thought it was ok to pull the pump by the safety rope. Unfortunately for us the well was old enough and the rope broke. We were able to get the pump to our upsy dasy (automated pump puller). We pulled the pump out about 20 feet then the pump stopped. we could not pull it any more. As a matter of fact we broke the pipe off about 3 feet into the well. we made an adapter to catch the pipe but was never able to move the pump. We left the job and I was told they needed to get a well driller in to push the pump down the well. Whether that part is true or not I do know it required a well driller.

If you did not cause the pump to get jammed in the well, maybe the well has collapsed above the pump and you may not have anything left you can do.

Have no fear yet, we have a couple great well guys that check here regularly and maybe they will have something better to tell you.
 
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Old 05-22-08, 01:35 PM
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Well, the good news is that we got the pump unstuck, the bad news is that we pulled about 60 feet of pipe and it broke off at the joint/connection. Down,down,down went the pump, pipe and electrical cord. I guess we have no hope. ?
 
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Old 05-22-08, 01:38 PM
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My advice to anyone looking to fix a well pump: HIRE THE WELL MAN! We were trying to save a few thousand dollars and now are going to have to pay about 17,000. To drill a whole new well. Learn from my mistake!
 
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Old 05-22-08, 04:11 PM
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From what you have described, It is unlikely that a professional well man would have had better luck than you did. Only difference being he would have stopped and left the job before breaking the pipe.

As mentioned ..it sounds like the casing has collapsed, and pulling a six or 8 inch pump thru a 4-1/2 inch hole ...300 feet below ground just isnt gonna happen.
 
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Old 05-23-08, 06:04 PM
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Originally Posted by btillery
My advice to anyone looking to fix a well pump: HIRE THE WELL MAN! We were trying to save a few thousand dollars and now are going to have to pay about 17,000. To drill a whole new well. Learn from my mistake!
$17,000? Wow. I would have guessed ballpark $7,000.

Read this story:
http://www.byexample.com/projects/cu...ter_well_pumps
 
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Old 05-24-08, 09:31 AM
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Don't Drill Yet!!!!

i don't think you are at the end of your rope on this. you need to find a contractor with a submersible camera. if you can run the camera in the well and see where the pipe, pump, and wire are at and what condition they are in, you have a chance. if the wire is above the pump and pipe it will be fairly easy to fish out. it will require a small rod with a point on the end that you can weld small hooks onto. weld a 1" galvanized coupling on the blunt end of the rod, hooks pointing up. lower the rod into the well using galvanized pipe so that it does not break. you will have to drive the rod into the ball of wire and twist it so that it gets tangled up. then pull it out.

if the pipe is above the wire, it is going to require a little bit of ingenuity. there are a couple of tools that have been made to fish pipe out of wells. if there is not a coupling to get a hold of you will have to come up with a tool that uses compression to grab the pipe with. if there is a coupling, you can make a tool that uses gravity to your advantage. i have found that it works the best. mine is made out of a 5" piece of casing. you will need to cut a piece of fairly heavy steel to make a hinge out of. this plate has a slot cut in it just large enough to allow the pipe to slip through it. the coupling will catch on the plate so it can be pulled up.

the third option is if the water is high enough in the well you can set another pump in on top of the old one. the reason you can't find a contractor that wants to work on this is since it was hung on a well seal, it is probably in a well house. well houses are always a pain to work in. these types of jobs are also not big money makers. it is simply easier and much more profitable for a contractor to tell you to drill a new well. i would not give up yet. there has only been one pump i was not able to fish out of a well, and that was because someone through rocks in on top of it.

if they estimated $17,000 to drill a new well, i am curious what rates they were charging per foot for drilling and casing. for a 400' well, they must be pretty high.
 
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Old 05-24-08, 03:49 PM
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I was hoping one of the qualified well experts would be watching this one. I figured there may still be some hope but I am just a plumber, not a well driller.

Thanks for popping in with encouraging words.
 
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Old 05-24-08, 09:06 PM
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water well guy gave great advise, a good driller should be able to fish the pump out unless the caseing has collasped into the well, figure it up if the well is about 400 ft that would be 42.5 per foot to get to 17,000, around here the going rate is about $12 per foot. is your area granite?

murphy was an optimist
 
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Old 05-25-08, 08:55 PM
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thought of this later, is the wireing still connected to the pump? if so can you use this to pull up on the pump? I have seen the wires hold enough to pull a pump in an emergency. Also I have seen the wires be the problem in pulling the pump by bunching up between the pump and the caseing. either way a quality drilling contractor should be able to pull the pump and piping unless the caseing has collasped.

life begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies
 
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Old 06-05-08, 08:44 AM
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The guy that actualy took the time to talk to us said that he charges 38.00 per foot, plus the pump and pipe. He said that he has a camera that he charges 1000.00 for pulling up in the drive way for and 150.00 an hour to see if it is collaped.He suspects that it has. We managed to find out the name of the guy who originally drilled our well and he has not called us back in two weeks. The guy that we talked to said if he did not use steel pipe then the well has collapsed, we have black clay and that it shifts all the time. He said contractors use PVC to save money and you must use steel on wells that are over 30ft.deep. He also said that the pipe that the well pump was attached to should have had steel cuplings to hold it together, and a safety rope. On the 60ft. that we managed to pull out was all PVC, and no safety rope. He said that since it was PVC that most likley he would not be able to pull it out, because he would not be able to get a hold of the pipe, but he said there would be a 50/50 shot only of the well has not colapsed. He said that in our area, it is most likley that our well is much deeper than 400ft. He said that there is water much more shallow than that but it is not good water and that it would eat threw metal, it was so bad!
Our neighbor has been so kind as to let us tap into his well so we have water for now, but we still are not sure what we are going to do for the long run. Thanks for all the helpfull info!
 
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Old 06-05-08, 07:36 PM
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i'm with waterwellguy, i would at least check to see how much water was in the well on top of that pump. if there is enough i would put another pump a couple of feet above the one that is down there. i can think of 2 wells around here that i know have 2 subs in them because of busted fittings and hangups. if you think there is enough water it probably wont cost more than 500 to figure it out. 17000 already, whats 17500? if it doesnt work at least you'll have a pump for the new well, so long as it doesnt get hung in the wires of the old one and you cant get it out too. but like i said, whats 17500.
 
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Old 06-05-08, 09:42 PM
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Just curious but what part of the country are you in? if the clay shifts all of the time you must be either in the mountains or a seismically active zone. either way schedule 80 PVC should work unless a major ground shift and that would break even steel piping. we are working on a old (40-50 Yrs) well and the steel is rusted all the way through in several places and we will probably have to plug it.

Murphy was an optimist.
 
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Old 06-05-08, 11:08 PM
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$38.00 per foot!!! here in southwest mo we are lucky if we can get $5.00 per foot to drill.
 

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Old 06-06-08, 10:39 AM
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no joke!, we need to be working where you are. the most i've ever gotten out of a well was 10-11,000 and that was for a 6x4 artesian well 700' and freeflowed around 300 gal. per minute.
 
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Old 06-07-08, 06:28 AM
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Originally Posted by waterwellguy
$38.00 per foot!!! here in southwest mo we are lucky if we can get $5.00 per foot to drill.
Had a cousin move to MO. His reasoning was that even though they don't pay much there , they can't pay less than the national minimum wage. Whatever he did make stretched lot further, too. Haven't heard from him in a long time, so I don't know if he stayed there.
 
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Old 06-09-08, 07:10 AM
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Well any of you guys are more than welcome to come stay in my house and drill a new well for 5.00 per foot! i'll even make you a steak dinner! I live in Celina Texas. which is about 50 miles north of Dallas. We live out in the corn fields. Only flat wide open space.
 
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Old 06-09-08, 10:12 AM
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Our neighbors well pump has now gone out and a guy has come to look at it. he charges 1294.00 for the new well pump. does that sound right? We saw one at Home Depot and it was 300.00. He says he wont use that because it will go out in one year and that it is plastic and it will crack, is that true?
 
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Old 06-09-08, 06:25 PM
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I'm in the wrong business. I should move to TX, get my well drillers license and charge people this high. I would be rich in 10 years.

Are you sure there isn't someone else you can call?
 
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Old 06-11-08, 11:42 PM
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$1294.00 doesn't sound too awful bad. i charge $1395.00 for a 1 1/2 hp 10 gpm pump and motor. remember, we have to make a profit on what we sell, or else there would be no reason to be in business. the first reaction most people have to that is that we don't have to make that much profit! well, consider all the expense there is in a business:
1- diesel is $4.87 per gallon
2- a pump truck will run you anywhere from $60,000 to $100,000 depending on the model and truck.
3- workmans comp. insurance is through the roof. (workmans comp. is based on total hours worked)
4- employees have to make an honest living to support their own families

so yes, there is a huge profit on pumps. this price is a list price that the manufacturer suggests we sell pumps for. the pumps you get at the hardware store are not as good a quality as what we can buy from a supply house, but to say that it will go out in a year is absurd! no one can say that with any certainty.
 
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Old 06-12-08, 04:49 AM
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Last time I checked with my pump store, a Sta-Rite horse-and-a-half irrigation pump was around $300(?). Something like that. That was sevarl years ago, so they are probably up to $400 or more by now.

Knowing that, I would sure laugh like hell if someone quoted me a thousand dollars to mount it.
 
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Old 06-12-08, 05:30 AM
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This is what an average price in NH would be using pump cost of $300.00


Pump - $300 plus 20% mark-up = $360
Labor - $80 per hour(AVERAGE) x 2 men = $160 per hour x 4 hours = $640
Misc. parts(fittings, tape, heat shrink kits, etc) = $50

Sub total - $1,050


Extras - Pump insurance - $75, Pump puller charge - $50

Total - $1.175
 
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Old 06-12-08, 05:41 AM
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Two experienced men 4 hours to replace an existing pump? WoW!
 
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Old 06-12-08, 05:57 AM
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That is figuring worst case and travel time. Not everyone is SUPER PUMP PULLER like you ! I am also talking about plumbers, not just pump installers. We don't do them everyday blindfolded like some people. This price was also based on an average plumber. MOST plumbers in my area are charging over $100 per hour and if you use a flat rate shop, they hide the fact that they are making about $225+ per hour. So if you use a flat rate shop, expect to pay a lot more.
I was being conservative , including moonlighters, etc.

You get what you pay for.

On average I would say 4 hours is not an unreasonable time. Travel to job, diagnostics, set-up, pitless problems, pull pump(average 400"), change pump, replace down well, rewire, tear down-clean up, and billing.
 
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Old 06-12-08, 07:33 AM
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Most contractors that I know won't install a pump that they don't sell, and I don't blame them.
I had a lady call me one day and ask me to install a pump that she had bought at a big box store (I won't use any initials, but the store was Home Depot). I explained that I didn't install these pumps, as they had a high failure rate. I could, however, sell her a good pump. She declined and hung up. She called me back later and begged me to install the pump because no one would do it for her. I told her I would, but that there were no guarantees. Well, needless to say the pump failed in about 3 months and she called me up and told me that I needed to replace it because I must have done something wrong when I installed it. I gently reminded her that I didn't guarantee the pump. I told her to take it back to H.D. and talk to the inhouse pump expert to get his take on the situation. I honestly don't know what happened after that. She never called me back!!
I've also had people who thought they knew more about pumps and installations than I do (I will admit that I don't know everything). I've installed pumps only to have the home owner decide to start tweaking things until he had damaged the pump, and then want me to warranty the pump and installation. It doesn't take long to figure out what they did to cause the problem, despite the fact that they tell you that they didn't touch anything.
Contractors have to cover themselves when they do work for people, because people expect the contractor to eat losses for something the contractor had nothing to do with.
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Old 06-13-08, 07:50 AM
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vey:

speed is not everything. i would rather take all day to do a job and it be right never hearing from the customer again than to do a job i record time, but having to return for minor details that were overlooked. this is how reputations are built. customers don't generally care how long you are there the first time, because they probably had to take the day off of work to be there when you are. when they have to take time off again for some minor glitch that was overlooked. they will remember this and tell all of their friends. also, if you are selling a pump to a customer at the same price you are paying for it, you are losing money faster than you can make it. any smart business man can tell you that you HAVE to make a profit on everything. if not, your overhead expenses will eat you alive. i suppose you could get away with it if you paid your help minimum wage and never gave them any perks, benefits, bonuses, or anything of the sort. you could probably not afford to replace equipment when needed without having to figure out how to pay for it. a good business should be able to pay cash to replace a pump truck if it were to be wrecked or something happened to it. this is not always possible, but should be the goal. selling parts for only what you have in them and only making money on labor will not be very profitable at all.

i will install a pump that someone has already purchased, but charge double labor to do it. people generally understand that you have a markup on your products and that is where you make your money. i always write on the bill that i cannot honor any warranty given by the manufacturer, and that if it failed and had to be pulled, the same labor rates applied.
 
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Old 06-14-08, 03:08 AM
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i dont change a sub with one of my own for less than $1100 (generally more), no matter what, no matter how deep. whether it takes 45 minutes or 4 hours, and normally do it by myself. we've been in business 25 years, and as much money as we have in our business, trucks, and cost of living, we're in this to turn a profit, period.
 
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Old 06-15-08, 09:01 PM
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Question shallow well pump blues

I have a shallow well that is down 18ft the water is within 8 ft from the top of the top of the pipe when the pump is on I only get 3 gallons of water per minute once in a while it will burp itself and I will see air bubles in the flex line between the well pipe and the pump What causes this? the pump dosen't loose prime I just cannot get a good draw of water surely if there was a air leak I would loose prime right?or is the well not into a good water vein would it help to go deeper thanks albert
 
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Old 06-16-08, 07:08 PM
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halbert, start a new post with your question. this post is about worn out. start a new one. Vey would probably be the one to help you with this question though.
 
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Old 07-02-08, 10:50 AM
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The well guy came out and got his equipment stuck in the casing! The casing was cracked vertically and came up through itself! The well guy said he has never seen anything like this happen, it now has been discovered that tree roots cracked the casing had have grown through it. Then.... the dirt caved in.The well is gone!
 
 

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