I have a 'second' well we use for external water about 80' from the house. It's a simple 2" shallow (180'), PVC pipe with no internal plumbing. The water level is about 22' from the surface. I have been [I]fiddling[/I] with this well for maybe the last 6yrs.. I started with a Gould I took out of my shop and put a new Gould at the shop. I had all sorts of trouble: Air. I re-did the head of the well three times. I was [I]never[/I] really happy with the output, then over the winter, the heater I used to defrost it - failed. Split housing. I got a Chinese pump from Harbor Freight. Pretty stainless housing, really great wiring with a nice switch, bladder tank built in, and [B]cheap[/B]. I could not get it to stay lit. It would loose prime. Once I finally thought I got it to work OK, it did not - and ran for maybe two days straight 'till I heard it driving out our lane. I took it out. Just to, try something different, I got this Flotec from Home Depot. Drive the 12mi home .. to discover I needed an extra nose piece to use with a shallow well - Jezuz?! Two days later, discover the nose piece box must have been returned as there were no instructions and it leaked once installed. Two days later, I get another nose piece. [I]It has too many parts[/I]?! ..no instructions again. I rig it and it works -sort of- I get <40psi but the pump keeps running. S__t! I call Flotec tech line; All these extra parts are used for different sized pumps. (no FM to read!) A day later, it works. It's 1 full HP, no more farting around. This sucker throws some volume. I cycled it about 8 times ..and it kept working...! I have my fingers crossed. Jim

I have a variety of water related problems going on, so to start...our home was built in 1974, I don't know what kind of well we have or if it was ever replaced. When we first moved in (four years ago), the water would come out gray and sputtering but would quickly come out clear and smoothly. The inspector told us that it was normal because no one had lived in the house for almost a year. Since then we have occasional bouts of this sputtering gray water and is smells foul and metallic. We also have thick orange sludge in our pipes (probably iron we know, because we have severely bad water) and we are concerned that we are basically sucking the bottom of our well. We don't know anything about our well and we were told we would have to pay around $200 just to have someone come and troubleshoot. Secondly, we recently developed a standing water problem under our deck (we have a walk out basement), we have had a leaky downspout/gutter for years but the water problem is new. Is this something we can troubleshoot before calling a pro or do we need a new well?