Time to call a pro well company..


  #1  
Old 07-05-20, 05:17 AM
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Time to call a pro well company..

My apologies for the wordiness here.

Noticed recently the sediment screen in my system needing to be cleaned much more often than it should, so I tried a little DIY troubleshooting. This is a shallow well in SW Fla, with a two pump setup, one for the well that supplies an aeration/settling tank, and second pump to pressurize the house. Also has a water softener and twin filters [sediment and charcoal] in addition to the sediment screen.

My first thought was maybe sediment had gotten to the level of the foot valve. Well is ~26 years old. I cut the pvc pipe at the well head and popped off the cap. My thought was to possibly pull the pipe up a couple of feet and reattach to see if that would solve it. First thing I discovered was the pipe was stuck fast at the bottom of the well. Side note, I dropped a weighted line down the casing and it measures 30' to bottom with ~25 feet of water. Okay, so figured my initial guess may have been correct. Scratched my head for a while and decided I would try dropping a new suction line down the casing, it's 4", so room for a second pipe. Got materials and ran the pipe down to what should have been about 4' from bottom. Hooked everything back up and then removed the sediment screen housing [it sits between well pump and aeration tank] so I could just pump without pumping to house supply. Initially got some nasty color coming out so I let it pump for a few minutes. Didn't get any better and when I caught some in a container it was just about unrecognizable as water. Had a late thought that it MIGHT be the underground horizontal run from the well to the pump, about 40', sucking crap through a small break. To see, I pulled the new suction line back up out of the well in sections and when I got the last section up, I spilled the water in it into a container - dirty. Next tried only putting one section into the well, only about 5' into the standing water, 25' above bottom. Ran pump and still pumping crap. Gave up on the new line idea and reconnected the original line so we at least have reasonably good usable water for the time being.

SO, I assume I'm having a serious collapse of some kind and obviously I need a well pro.

Questions:
(1) I'm guessing the foot valve being buried under who knows how much stuff at the bottom of the well is actually helping for the time being by able to draw water through the stuff it's stuck in, your basic sand filter?
(2) What options will a well company have to remedy the problem(s)?
(3) I know it'll vary by area and procedures used, etc, but ball park figures on what the various options could run me $$$-wise? This is kind of a mid-cost area.

Thanks, guys.






 
  #2  
Old 07-05-20, 06:34 AM
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I had a well collapse in central fla and the fix was to punch in a new well. Do you know how deep your well is supposed to be? Are there multiple well companies in your area?
 
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Old 07-05-20, 08:07 AM
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In my area everything is a drilled well. We are permitted to repair or replace the well casing but can't actually send a drill down the same hole so existing wells can't be cleaned out or deepened. A new well must be drilled.
 
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Old 07-05-20, 09:08 AM
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Well, I thought I remembered it being deeper than 30' from when I pulled the pipe about 10-12 years ago because I thought I had a foot valve problem. Not a LOT deeper, but maybe 40'. We're about 15' above sea level. Should be plenty of well companies around here; even though this is a medium-size city, much of it is on well & septic. Not sure how we would get a new well done, the existing location is off back corner of lot. We have houses to the rear and the side that the well is now on (also the side of the house - garage actually - where the plumbing components are) is a wooded lot, so certainly can't get one of the truck-mounted rigs in there. About probably 15 years ago the city did a survey on extending water, but haven't heard from them since on that. At the time we said "no, thanks", but I would probably vote "yea" now. Our neighborhood is actually surrounded by city lines; the cross streets at the end of our streets and the parallel streets to ours that are two blocks over in both directions have water.
 
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Old 07-06-20, 05:41 AM
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Just curious but, assuming I needed to have a new well drilled, how do they poke the new hole when the location is inaccessible to a full-size truck rig? Different location would not be allowed due to the septic field in front yard. Some kind of portable or compact drilling equipment?
 
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Old 07-06-20, 09:11 AM
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Many shallow wells in sand can be done with minimal equipment. I've seen it done by just driving a pointed pipe into the ground. I've also seen them hook the well casing up to a water supply and as they pump water out the well pipe it just magically sinks into the sand. I put a irrigation well in at the coast in a difficult location and they just ran hoses over to the well area and were done in 15 minutes.
 
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Old 07-06-20, 09:13 AM
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40 years ago when I lived in Fl. we used to drill a well with a tripod, hose and hammer. Only went 10 to 20 feet with 2 inch pipe tho.
 
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Old 07-06-20, 11:23 AM
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Yeah, I've seen the hose and pipe method for something like a simple sprinkler supply. Looking for well service guys now to get all the answers.
 
 

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