I live the country in SC near Charlotte, NC and have a 240 ft deep well with 6" casing that goes 52 ft deep and a submersible pump. 7 years ago the first pump went dead and had a well co. replace the 1/2 hp with a 1/2 hp pump and the water pressure was not always stable. Now that one went dead. Prior to it going dead the filter was getting clogged with mud type dirt. We would have to change it in less than 30 days. Knowing that the well was 240 ft deep we replaced it with a 1 hp pump as a 1/2 hp was only for 150 ft well max. hopping this would help with the pressure. From the time we changed it 3 weeks ago we have been getting heavy amounts of dirt like mud. I have to change the filter daily so I was told to raise the pump as when it was replaced it could have made mud fall to the bottom of well. I raised it 1 to 2 ft and it did not change the water color. So I pulled the well and found out that the bottom of the pump was only 140 ft deep and the top of the water is 20 to 30 ft from the top of the casing. I dropped a string with a weight to see just how beep the well was which was 90 to 100 ft deeper than the pump motor so the motor is not on the bottom. I installed a sediment filter after replacing the pump in the well. Now I have to drain it after 10 min. of water use and the hole house filter has to be changed after a shower use of water. PLEASE HELP WHAT IS GOING ON? WHAT CAN I DO? I AM ALL OUT OF THINGS I CAN THINK OF.

 

Welcome to the forums.

Is that correct......you have a 240' deep well but only a 52' deep casing ?

It sounds like your well is collapsing. Why wasn't the casing set deeper ?

 

Is your well casing steel or plastic? If it's steel I would have it inspected to see if it has rusted through which would allow surface water & dirt to enter the well. If it has rusted through you need to have the casing sleeved with plastic. Basically they just insert a plastic pipe down inside the steel one.

It is also common in my area for the well casing to only go as deep as bedrock. I think the casing on my well is something less than 60 feet as well.

 

It is PVC. Some say the pump is to large. And some say pull it up. I only pulled it up say 2 feet should I try more as I have the depth?

 

Well a lady that works at a local BIG BLUE BOX hardware store said that I need to put 1 or 2 cups of bleach in my well casing using the air hole in the top. I turned off the pump so not to stir up the water. It was off for 3 hours than I ran the water thru a hose I installed at the well head until the bleach smell was gone. So fare with luck it has cleared up and only a small amount of minerals in the filter but so fare the water has cleared up.

 

"dirt like mud" is actually a iron bacteria. It's red, it's slimy and it sticks to everything, but it isn't mud. That's why the bleach worked. It killed the bacteria.

Local knowledge beats internet knowledge every time.

Two things come to my mind:
1. You need to bone up on iron oxide bacteria since it seems to be so common there.
Start here: Iron bacteria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and here Iron in Well Water - EH: Minnesota Department of Health

Somehow, your well was contaminated, which caused the iron bacteria to florish and you need to ponder how that happened. If a pump is pulled, it needs to be washed in chlorine before dropping it back in (for example) only you know how it was contaminated.

2. By putting such a more powerful pump in there (doubling the HP) you may be in danger of overpumping your well. That means taking out more water than it can produce. Overpumping will eventually ruin the well. So keep an eye on what comes out of the tap. Sand, here in FL is what we see when a well is being over pumped.

You might be able get away with it. Nobody knows until you try it. We get people here all the time who subscribe to the bigger is better theory even though the smaller pump was working just fine. They are not here because everything is still working fine. Sometimes, just a little innocent bump from 1/2 to 3/4 HP causes a lot of trouble.

 

Let us know how it goes. I recently replaced the submersible pump, but the company didn't leave the previous one, not sure if it is more powerful. We have intermittent problems with muddy water. It comes and goes. Our well is deep at 420 ft with pump set at 375 and water table at 233ft. We have raised the pump, but problem persists. Well company wants to drill a new well, seems like overkill as water volume is good. Looking for other ideas other than "drill a new well".

 

@pocketsound

You might want to start a new thread. How long has it been since you got the new pump and how often do you have trouble? What does this "muddy" water look like? Do the particles settle in a glass? Could a filter be what you need?