Well Pump Trouble

[RDFF]

Taking water up to 30' higher than the well pressure system is still alot of lift... taking away around 14# of pressure... so if your pressure switch is set at 30/50, you'll end up with only around 15 PSI at that 30' access point when the pump turns back on... pretty low pressure. Is that your house? Or the cattle waterer at the yard? Or all of your primary water needs? Not many would be happy with that level of pressure.

 

[RDFF]

Install a 3000 gallon "septic tank" as a reservoir (cistern) about 100' higher up the slope (in elevation) than your primary water needs. Submersible will pump up to that cistern, and fill with a float controlled switch... it'll have to run continously to fill from say, 500 gallons up to full at say 2800 gallons or so, and then shut off. You'll have plenty of CONSTANT, continuous water pressure (about 45 PSI) naturally from gravity, with reserve capacity if/when the pump fails. NO other pumps necessary, or pressure tanks. It's just a matter of physics. If your well does go down, you can haul water in with a truck to fill the cistern to keep you going (as long as you've installed your cistern where you can have access to it with a truck!).

Maybe you'd need to lay in a "fill pipe" uphill from where your cistern is located in order to accomodate emergency filling by truck... PVC, or even a regular black poly pipe could do this (small diameters of course will be a slow fill..., but 2" could be "manageable" in a pinch). Kind of a spendy "emergency plan" though... and it'd be better if you could just back right up to the cistern and dump it in. But a pipe like this, even just laid on top of the ground, is cheaper than building a road!

 

[Travlr]

Not uncommon well depths for our area. I've got 4. Shallowest one is 390 ft with pump at 360ft. Deepest is 960ft. Pump is 880ft down.

My well in Arkansas was hand dug and 30 feet deep... and it couldn't be run dry. There was an underground river flowing through the valley.

 

[Brute 23]

Constant pressure system that is mechanical so no controllers. I have it set to hold 60-65 psi when you are continuously running water.

The 10 gallon pressure tank only holds a few gallons of water so for toilet flushing, washing your hands, etc. the pump isn't running depending on how much is left in tank when you start.

For showers the pump just keeps running and keeps the pressure the same and you can have a couple showers going at the same time and it holds pressure. I will take this system over a traditional pressure tank and pump setup everyday.


View attachment 53720

That's an interesting set up. The pump pulls off a storage tank I assume? You set the pressure with the red control valve or the pressure switch?

I'm a little confused why the control valve and pressure switch unless it's just a relief valve?

 

[Silver]

Not uncommon well depths for our area. I've got 4. Shallowest one is 390 ft with pump at 360ft. Deepest is 960ft. Pump is 880ft down.

Wow, how is the water quality from the 880' well?

 

[greybeard]

That's an interesting set up. The pump pulls off a storage tank I assume? You set the pressure with the red control valve or the pressure switch?

I'm a little confused why the control valve and pressure switch unless it's just a relief valve?

The storage tank is probably the white mass immediately right of the pump.
Pressure would be set by grey box. The red thing just looks like a pressure regulator or high pressure popoff.
This looks exactly as I had described earlier, except an air compressor would be used to lift water up to the bulk tank, with the compressor controlled by float switch in that tank. The little blue pump pictured just takes the place of a 3 stage sub pump inside the bulk tank on the units I am familiar with. It's pretty close to an on-demand type setup.

Hard to tell with only a portion of the unit pictured.

 

[chaded]

That's an interesting set up. The pump pulls off a storage tank I assume? You set the pressure with the red control valve or the pressure switch?

I'm a little confused why the control valve and pressure switch unless it's just a relief valve?

Yes it pulls from a storage tank but not the one that is in the picture. Lol.

The pressure switch that is by the pressure gauge is a 50/70 switch and controls the pump. The pressure switch on the pump is bypassed so disregard it. The red thing is where you set what you want your constant pressure to be at, typically between your cut in/out pressure.

The setup functions similarly to a traditional setup in that the pump fills the pressure tank and is controlled by the pressure switch. There are only a few gallons of water in that pressure tank.

When you use up that water and reach your cut in pressure the pump kicks on just like a traditional setup but if you keep running water at 1 gpm it will hold your pressure (60 psi in my case) as long as you are running water and the pump keeps running and it bypasses filling the tank up.

Once you shut the water off it will fill pressure tank and reach your cut out pressure and the pump will shut off.

 

[greybeard]

Yes it pulls from a storage tank but not the one that is in the picture. Lol.

What fills the "storage tank" and how does that "what" know to turn on, keep running or turn off?

 

[Mark Reynolds]

NRCS are the ones that paid for this system 20+ years ago. Had a guy out in 2019 from NRCS and he said it was the wrong setup for the place. Indeed it should be a gravity fed system. They had me signed up and prices went thru the roof and they wouldn't adjust for me, so I opted out.

Probably ought to talk to them again and see if their numbers are more accurate. That said, I need water now so should probably get this one working the cheapest way possible and fix it right this summer, whether I pay for it or NRCS wants to contribute.

I will say it worked fine for 15 years. As soon as I fixed all the leaky Ritchie valves it started giving me trouble. lol. Makes no sense.

It's good you opted out. It is very possible you could get another contract for the same thing if you try. I don't know what you have there. IF you apply and DO get a contract, complete the practices ASAP. As you have experience at, the cost share (if you want to call it that) does NOT increase as the contract gets older. However, inflation/cost increases keep moving forward. If you do the practice immediately, the cost share is great. If you wait 7 or 8 years, not so much.

 

[chaded]

What fills the "storage tank" and how does that "what" know to turn on, keep running or turn off?

We get water from the county that is pressurized. I live quite ways from the road and up a good size hill so it doesn't have enough pressure for the house functions, especially the upstairs. It is enough to fill a storage tank and it has a float valve on it.

 

[ClinchValley86]

A connection at the motor had somehow shorted. Pulled the well and found it, fixed it, and he put it back. Water is back on. Yay!

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Call it a good ways up NRCS map showed it's around 200 feet difference between house and top water spot, it is a long way back there too though. It doesnt happen all at once. Runs downhill part of the way back there and shoots up again, does that two or three times. It's enough that there's just a trickle. Pipe friction is part of it. But the push up isn't helping.

I'll be calling nrcs here pretty soon to try doing thr whole thing again. I figure its gonna be 1500 to 2 grand when they leave today. Hope it's the motor and I don't have to replace all that wire.

I figured it was a gradual increase of 200 over a few thousand feet in distance. They typically are. That said, my 180 ft increase in elevation wasn't gradual. It was over about 20-30 ft in distance. So yup, mine was straight up. The engineering technician that got to look at/work on my set up wasn't thrilled with what I was asking him to design.

 

[kenny thomas]

A connection at the motor had somehow shorted. Pulled the well and found it, fixed it, and he put it back. Water is back on. Yay!

So now you saved enough money to buy some cows Saturday. Lol

 

[sstterry]

Wow, how is the water quality from the 880' well?

My well is 830' and my pump sits at about 750' (It used to be 800 but we raised it when I replaced the pipe and pump several years ago). My water quality is excellent and in fact I have had visitors wanting to take jugs of it home with them.

Edit to add that I am about 35 miles from @Hogfarmer10. I also live on a big hill.

 

[Silver]

My well is 830' and my pump sits at about 750' (It used to be 800 but we raised it when I replaced the pipe and pump several years ago). My water quality is excellent and in fact I have had visitors wanting to take jugs of it home with them.

Edit to add that I am about 35 miles from @Hogfarmer10. I also live on a big hill.

Wow. Seems like around here if you drill that deep you get very hard, foul smelling stuff. Actually I don't know of any that deep, much over 400' here it usually turns for the worse. I thing we have gas wells at 800' lol

 

[greybeard]

At the old place, mine was around 200' TD, with the pump just a little higher and I had excellent water and plenty of it.

One sand, (at 50 thru 70') was nasty. We persevered onward and downward...

 

[sstterry]

Wow. Seems like around here if you drill that deep you get very hard, foul smelling stuff. Actually I don't know of any that deep, much over 400' here it usually turns for the worse. I thing we have gas wells at 800' lol

There are some pockets of sulfur water here, in fact, my cousin who is less than a mile from me hit it with his well.
As I understand the geology around here, there are streams of water running through the cracks in the limestone base rock. When you drill, you are hoping to hit a good stream relatively shallow, but that is not always the case.

 

[ClinchValley86]

So now you saved enough money to buy some cows Saturday. Lol

Bill was still $1040 . Charged to pull and out back. But yes, looking for some cows this weekend. Need 2 ready to go.

 

[ClinchValley86]

Your well might be 580 feet deep, but your static water level is only 60' down? Can't imagine then that they would have set your pump 580' down in the hole. Regardless of that though, you're pump will still only be lifting the water with the pump the distance above the "static water level"... so around 60'. Pretty much any submersible won't have any trouble doing that. The 200' rise to your furthest waterer potentially "could" create enough "back pressure" to never allow the pressure switch to turn on (because with 200' of rise in a pipe full of water beyond the pressure switch, the pressure at the pressure tank ought to be measuring around 92#.... .46#/foot of rise)! So the pressure switch probably wouldn't be expected to ever kick in to turn on the submersible, if you actually did get water up to that waterer. I'm surprised you ever had water at the waterer at all, without a secondary lift pump to get it there.

But of course, you've indicated that you have disconnected that now. Does that mean that you've closed a valve where that line leaves the pump house/pressure system, or that you've shut it off up by the waterer at the top of the hill? If you've not closed a valve where that line leaves the pressure tank system, the weight of the water in that line is still pressing down against it, and it will likely act as a "mini-pressure tank" (albeit with limited volume capacity) on the system. At the very least, it will generate significant pressure against the pump when it needs to run.

It'll be interesting to hear what the well guy has to say about it.

At the bottom of the big hill I installed a 90 degree shutoff valve. Then drained the water past it.

Well guy said they are don't install them on new wells anymore. He's been with em for 16 years and said they were big before he got started.

He suggested an entirely new well drilled back there on top.

 

[ClinchValley86]

Your well might be 580 feet deep, but your static water level is only 60' down? Can't imagine then that they would have set your pump 580' down in the hole. Regardless of that though, you're pump will still only be lifting the water with the pump the distance above the "static water level"... so around 60'. Pretty much any submersible won't have any trouble doing that. The 200' rise to your furthest waterer potentially "could" create enough "back pressure" to never allow the pressure switch to turn on (because with 200' of rise in a pipe full of water beyond the pressure switch, the pressure at the pressure tank ought to be measuring around 92#.... .46#/foot of rise)! So the pressure switch probably wouldn't be expected to ever kick in to turn on the submersible, if you actually did get water up to that waterer. I'm surprised you ever had water at the waterer at all, without a secondary lift pump to get it there.

But of course, you've indicated that you have disconnected that now. Does that mean that you've closed a valve where that line leaves the pump house/pressure system, or that you've shut it off up by the waterer at the top of the hill? If you've not closed a valve where that line leaves the pressure tank system, the weight of the water in that line is still pressing down against it, and it will likely act as a "mini-pressure tank" (albeit with limited volume capacity) on the system. At the very least, it will generate significant pressure against the pump when it needs to run.

It'll be interesting to hear what the well guy has to say about it.

At the bottom of the big hill I installed a 90 degree shutoff valve. Then drained the water past it.

Well guy said they are don't install them on new wells anymore. He's been with em for 16 years and said they were big before he got started.

He suggested an entirely new well drilled back there He was telling me about his, his pump sits at 640 feet.