| Author | Message | ||
     Ratbuell |
Any plumber-types here on badweb? I've lived in houses with wells for the last 20 years and while replacing 3 pumps (at two houses) in that amount of time isn't hateful...watching them do it yesterday (and writing a check I didn't really want to write) has kinda cemented my resolve to get the tools to do it myself. I can make the collar / pulling wheel for rolling the pipe up and out of the well without damage. My question is, are the t-handles a universal "thing"? Or are there choices and/or different "styles" of connectors? I have some time - the pump they put in yesterday is a 1hp with a 5 year warranty, and in my experience I tend to get 7-10 years out of a pump (average)...but I want to get the tools while its still fresh in my head, so they're here when I need 'em. And once I'm employed again, I'll get a pump to keep on the shelf as well. All in all it doesn't look terribly complex...just have to have a couple specialty tools. And for yesterday's learning experience...my well has a water line about 50' below grade...but the pump is 350' deep. As with all the details in this house, the builder (Herb) went way into the "overkill" category when he built the place. I love it! | ||
| Etennuly |
Well, my well is 510 feet deep. I had the pump replaced a year and a half ago. I feel your pain. It lasted 16 years. It would likely still be going but the air bladder in the tank went bad and the pump was a high quality unit that would keep a steady flow even though it was kicking on and off every two seconds to keep the pressure steady. The man said it likely did that for a year or more before it died. Watching them put it in originally I figured when the day came I could pull it my self to do the deed. Mine has twenty feet sections of screw-end plastic pipe. Pull up twenty, clamp, unscrew section, repeat 25 times. I could easily have rigged my scissor lift to pull the pipe and pump. BUT slip one time and you are screwed if you drop it. If it fell far enough the wires would possibly break. Well, I did not feel like doing it anyways. So I watched. We decided to replace the wire also due to it's age, and there were a few small abraded areas that wrapping with tape did not seem a good idea. It is an under water A/C power device after all. I felt that with the new deep well pump, air bladder tank, fittings, 500 feet of wire and labor I got a fair deal at $2600. They guarantee it for five years labor and all. There must be different style connectors, because I don't know of a T Handle that was used. They had a derrick truck that had a hydraulic clamp that grabbed the pipe, ran it up 20+ feet then a bottom clamp gripped the pipe. He had a power screw thing that looked like a sawsall with a pipe thread attachment that wrapped around and gripped then unscrewed the pipe sections in seconds. All said and done, if I were in my thirties again I would take it on for the adventure. I don't need that in my life anymore. | ||
| Ourdee |
My question is; What can you invest the price of the pump in that will yield the total bill over the 7 year term? | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
It baffles me to think that anything can survive in that environment for that amount of time. Could someone snap a picture of what one of these monsters look like? I've always had town water so I am "deprived" | ||
| Ratbuell |
My replacement yesterday was $1700 and change; the majority of that being the $1100 pump. One hp rating, about 4' tall and 5" around. Kinda like this:  My pump is connected to a single piece of flex pipe/hose, so they grabbed it with the t-handle, pulled it up by hand, hooked the t-handle to their truck...and drove slowly till the pump came out. Not rocket science as long as you have the right tools - a wheel that clamps to the top of the well pipe so you don't abrade the pipe or wires as you pull, and the t-handle. The rest was standard stuff - crimp connectors for the wiring, waterproof heat shrink, a single fitting that threaded into the pump and nipples into the pipe, and a pair of hose clamps to hold the nipple in. All of which I have here. Just need the wheel (an overturned wheelbarrow with no tire would work just fine for that, so the pipe centered itself in the rim); and the t-handle. I know I can purchase the pump itself for a few hundred $ less, to have sitting on a shelf. I'm fully aware the plumbers know you're over the proverbial barrel when they're here...and it doesn't help that my house is admittedly very NICE, so I know they see dollar signs soon as they drive up. If past experience holds (and they're not building •••••• pumps now), and I get 10 years out of it? That's $170 a year, or about $15 a month, to cover this replacement. Cheaper than city water by a long shot, and it tastes a whole lot better too! When I'm working, my bank accounts are set up to auto-transfer $250/month from checking to savings on the first of every month, so even if I don't actively put money into savings...that account grows for me, and it's what paid this bill yesterday. Once I'm working again, and have money going INTO checking...I'll toggle that back on again. But if I can do it myself for half the money? Yeah...I'll buy a tool and pick up a decrepit old wheelbarrow at a yard sale, just to be ready. | ||
| Adrenaline_junkie |
If you are talking about the Peerless fitting that you can screw a handle into to pull it out then it is just a normal NPT fitting. I forget if it is 1" or 1-1/4". I just went to Lowes, picked up a Peerless fitting off the shelf, walked over to the pipe fittings to find the size that fit then picked out enough fittings to build me a 4' tall tee with 1' handles. Then I put the Peerless fitting back on the shelf. I think I got out for less than 20 bucks. | ||
| Adrenaline_junkie |
Whoops, Pitless adapter, not Peerless. And according to the Lowes website it is 1" NPT. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
Jeeze that looks like something a person would shoot into space to measure gamma waves or something  Are they rebuildable? | ||
| Hootowl |
It's amazing what they can stuff down a hole. Some of the down hole tools the oil industry uses are pretty cool too. If those engineers pointed their brains at the medical industry, they could probably figure out how to do a heart transplant by stuffing something up your arse. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
My boss has developed hardened crystal oscillators that can withstand 180C without drifting off frequency. They were developed for oil drills. As you say, there is a lot of stuff on the business end of an oil drill. Brains and guidance so it can be steered all over. Jed Clampett had it easy!  | ||
| Hootowl |
Ooh. Maybe aliens have reached the pinnacle of medical technology, and have realized that anal probes are the best way to go. Might explain a few things.  | ||
| Hootowl |
Hey, I pay to post on this site...I'm using it! | ||
| Figorvonbuellingham |
Are they rebuildable? YouTube is your friend. $1100 seems ridiculously high. The last time my dad bought one for his well it was $280 but that was in 1996 so... | ||
| Ratbuell |
There's well pumps...and there's "deep submersible well pumps". Being over 100' deep, I need the biggun. My old house had a 50' well and the last replacement there was the sum total of $500 parts and labor. And as long as manufacturing hasn't gone TOTALLY to shit, experience says I'll probably get ten years out of this one, which I can live with both for time, and for annual average costs. The full one-horsepower, deep-submersion setup...is pricey. Even online they run 800+. 350' is the absolute limit for a 1/2 hp pump, so for margin of error Herb built the place with a 1-hp pump. I'd have done the same. I'd have to see if they're rebuildable. I'd imagine they are...but to what price? I can rebuild the alternator in my car...but I can also use it as a core to buy a reman for $45. And an alternator is a whole lot easier to swap than a submerged pump that's 350' underground. I'm a little more inclined to take a chance with only 3 bolts and a belt in the way of another swap-out...350' down, its worth it to me to put in a new one with a 5 year warranty. I did note my water tastes better now - amazing what the lack of fried electronics can do for flavor! I'm picturing something similar to the fried stator smell in the primary case of an aircooled Buell... | ||
| Etennuly |
Mine was a $1100 1 hp unit also. When it is pushing water up five hundred feet then over 80 feet to the house, then pressurizing a ten gallon tank to 80 psi to supply my house, then 500 feet away to my son's house, 100 feet to my shop, the barn, 500 feet to the pool and still maintain good pressure, I am not going to argue over a couple hundred bucks. Several times over the years I have filled our 26,000 gallon pool by running hoses from two 3/4 supply pipes, running non stop for about 36 hours to fill it with clean drinking water. Awesome IMHO. My well is 8" in diameter 510 feet deep and the standing water level in the pipe is up to 430 feet. I am lucky that that is the spot we picked when we had it drilled 17 1/2 years ago.  It was drilled during a five year drought. The drill operator was unimpressed until we hit 480 feet. He went 30 more for debris room under the pump. He also said that if we were as much as thirty feet either way it could have missed and been a dry well. Total cost including parts and drilling was $6,000.00 that works out to about $350 a year. The other option I had on our undeveloped land was to run city water nearly a mile involving three property owners for rights of way. Best estimate was $17,000. Then start a monthly use and maintenance water bill from that point for chlorinated city water. I will not argue with the expense of a new pump now and again. | ||
| Ducbsa |
In the summer before senior year in HS, I worked for a plumber that did pump work. We had a boom on a truck to pull 20' sections of steel pipe up and a clamp that secured the string before we unscrewed the coupling. One time, we were pulling a string at a greenhouse for a plunger type pump to replace the leather washers at the bottom. This was in 1965, so my memory is a bit hazy, but it was in a pump house that was tall enough that the boom was too short to lift the 20' 2" sch 40 sections clear of the roof. So, the plumber and I took turns lifting the string with a pipe wrench, with the other unscrewing the sections, keeping them under control, and laying them on the roof. How we put it back together by aligning the balanced section with the coupling threads to start it, I just can't remember, it seems impossible now. I think a handy person could do it themselves with dependable helpers and some planning ahead of time. Here are some clamps like I mentioned: https://www.google.com/search?q=water+well+pipe+li fting+clamp&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X &ved=0ahUKEwi5ndaluoDTAhXGOiYKHdnXCGUQsAQILw&biw=1 920&bih=950 | ||
| Britchri10 |
....and people ask why I still read this site every day.... I'm in the process of buying property in N. Florida that will more than likely come with a well. I've only ever had city water before. Information like this is invaluable. I've asked our realtor but he was somewhat evasive about maintenance costs, replacement intervals, size of pump required etc'. Thanks guys Chris C Thanks | ||
| Ratbuell |
As I said, I have a non-segmented pipe - one continuous piece of tubing from the grade coupling to the pump, 350' below. Here's a visual for how they pulled it - their rig was different, it had a collar that clamped to the top of the well tube, and the wheel was mounted to a frame attached to the collar so it didn't scoot away from the tube. The pipe simply rides along the wheel, rolling out so it doesn't crimp or bend on the bare well tube housing:  I suspect I'll just get an old wheelbarrow, turn it upside-down, tether it to the tube, and pull the pipe along the bare wheel for a DIY setup. Chris - don't let the well stop you, but definitely make sure you get it inspected. "Water" is easy to find, especially in FL...but true, clean ground water is further down. If you've smelled the sulfur coming out of lawn or golf course sprinklers down there, that's an example of shallow water and you don't want that coming out of your tap! Have an inspection done on the well, it should include well depth, there should be a flow rating for the water supply (gallons per hour capacity), a date of the dig, and probably a size rating (i.e. single family home, 2 bathrooms, 4 people...something that says "this is how big a building you can hook this to"). There's really no maintenance to speak of, since you can't get to it. Make sure the well head is clean and unobstructed and capped so no debris falls in...and keep in mind that every 5-10 years you'll be buying a new pump. Amortize the expense over the timeframe and it's still cheaper than a monthly city water bill...and it tastes SO much better! City water, to me, tastes like a swimming pool. Ugh. Another bit of research you can do is check with neighbors to the property you're looking at, and see what their experience is if they have wells also. Depth, water quality, are they affected by drought, stuff like that. | ||
| Britchri10 |
Thanks Joe. It'll have to be a "deep" well for us, although deep is relative in Florida. We'll take your advice and check it out thoroughly. Chris C | ||
| Etennuly |
Joe is right on. Florida geology is quite different than the high hard ground of the more Northern areas. I lived near Tampa for many years on •••••• water. Whoops!, I meant city water. The geography difference between there and North Fla is quite a bit. There is a reason central Fla homes don't have basements. My neighbor had a well for watering his yard and washing his cars etc. his well was like 25 feet deep. Lots of minerals in the water, it would have been costly to try to filter it. Two miles away a sink hole swallowed some homes. 60 feet down was dry. Fifteen miles away were some of the best natural spring waters in the country just flowing up into small lakes. See if you can find a local well driller who has spent his life in the area. I found an elder retired driller with nothing to gain to ask about it. He was retired and seemed to love talking about his life's work. A total wealth of local knowledge. |
