Last week I noticed that the electric motor on my water well was running a lot. Even when we weren't using water. Then one evening last week we ran out of water. The pump had stopped running altogether. I checked out all the electrical components visually, and didn't see anything awry. So I flipped the breakers and it came back on after a few minutes. Then it happened again the next evening.

So I called out a local water well company and they took a look at it. Bad news. Very, very bad. Everything up top is OK, and the problem is down-hole. As best they can tell, I have a hole in the piping. The pump is running and running because it can't build up enough pressure to reach the shut-off point. And so it was running until the thrust bearing overheated, at which point it shut itself off and wouldn't come back on until it had cooled.

The hole in the pipe is evidenced by the fact that when you shut the pump off, it "sucks back". The water inside the well pipe is falling back down. This shouldn't happen since there is a check valve down there above the pump. The only way water would be falling back down is if it's going out the pipe somewhere.

So for the last few days we've had to go outside and manually turn the breaker on to the well pump when we want to have water in the house. And then shut it off when we're done. I have the company scheduled to come back tomorrow so they can yank all the pipe out of my well, which should take 6-8 hours. At the very least, I'm looking at having to replace all the well pipe with PVC, since the old galvanized pipe is trash. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the old pump is OK. We won't know until we pull it out. If we have to buy a new one, that's an extra $1,000 on top of what it's already costing (which may be already over $1,000 anyway).

What makes matters worse is that this is all inside a well house. And so I had to pull the roof off my well house this morning so they can get the crane over it to pull out the pipe.

This whole ordeal has been a good reminder as to how much life sucks when you don't have a ready supply of water. Even if I get my generator project completed some day so I can run my well pump without grid power, there's still the other difficulties to contend with. If I were in "survival mode" and this happened, I'd be SOL. And the thing is, I don't really know what other choice I have. I could spend tens of thousands of dollars on a new well with a windmill and elevated storage tank, but there would still be technical issues (like down-hole problems) that I'd have no way of dealing with on my own. It's quite the bummer.

Lame. Hope you get your water issues recolved. Hopefully without breaking the bank.

How old is the existing system? The use of galvanized steel for the main kind of suprises me.

Do you think you will upgrade your system, or will you try to save the funds to do it somewhere else?

I know spending the money sucks, but think of it this way, PVC won't rust, so you shouldn't have this problem again.

galvanized pipe sucks for water lines. i used to manage an old, 16 story apartment building and all the water lines were galvanized. we were constantly opening walls to repair/replace sections of the risers. it was a never-ending battle.

best of luck, tobus.

frye

Ours is galvanized due to our sumersible pump, unless I can lay my paws on a few hundred feet of stainless.

Are thy going to replace it with PVC or ABS. I wouldn't trust PVC since all of the joints would be glued. ABS comes in big rolls of up to 500' long.

You could end up with a break, just the same. PVC becomes rigid when cold and the shifting soil of Texas will eventually break a PVC or ABS line. That's one reason Galvy is used.

The only way that you can protect yourself is not to rely solely on the electric/windpowered pump. If it is mechanical, it will break down. See if you can find a way to allow for manual pumping or even a bucket system. Even if it means having to mechanically refit a handpump to the system, at least you know that you would have water available come time for a break down. Find out how. Ask the well guys how you could manually provide water and then practice doing it a couple times a year. If your system won't allow for it, then I would suggest saving up the $$$ to do it.

AA

Does it get that cold there?
I also didn't know the soil moved around that much down there. If that's the case you are correct.

Temperatures in texas range from (averages) 30 F to 110 F. Now, that isn't all that cold, but when its the range in temperatures that is the problem, not so much the temps themselves.

AA

We got it fixed yesterday. Yep, it was a hole in the pipe, about the diameter of a pencil. And it was waaaaaay down at the bottom, just a few feet above the pump itself.

What we did was replace all the galvanized pipe that looked "iffy". The top 100 feet or so looked fine. Hell, it looked almost brand new. The bottom 120 feet were nasty. That's because the static water level in my well is at about 100 feet below the surface. So all the galvanized pipe that is constantly sitting in water started to rust. So the bottom 120 feet of pipe got replaced with PVC and we kept the top 100 feet. That was the cheapest way out of this mess.


The system is only 6-7 years old. As for upgrading, I am choosing just to do the minimal amount to keep it going for now. This turned out not to be as expensive as I thought it would, since my well is only about 220 feet deep. That's pretty shallow for this area, but it makes sense because I'm not too far from the river. So I figured I'd do what I absolutely HAD to do this time, and hopefully that will buy me another 5-10 years on it. I don't know if I will still be on this property by then or not. Hopefully I will have relocated to a larger (and more remote) chunk of land by then. If not, then I can do some upgrading then.


They don't glue the joints. The PVC pipe they use comes in 20' sections and is pre-threaded on the ends. They connect them with brass couplers. Although some companies do use glued joints, as I understand. I know one guy whose well has been working for 15+ years now, with glued joints.


Some areas of Texas do indeed have very expansive clay soils. Down here, though, we're on solid limestone. Only the top few inches are soil. And even then, the pipe is inside a casing so it's not seeing soil pressure. There really isn't any reason for using galvanized pipe down in the ground.

You're right, though, about PVC being brittle in cold weather. I have some exposed PVC at my horse troughs, and it seems like every winter I have to replace them. The cold weather makes them brittle and then either the horses break them or they crack in a freeze. I can't seem to keep the pipes wrapped against freezes, because my horses like to pull off the wrapping. I need to figure out a better system for it, I suppose. But so far it hasn't been that big of a deal. The great thing about PVC is that it's easy to work with and cheap. It takes all of 10 minutes to replace a damaged section when it's above ground.

That's true, but that also means that it would be a consumable resource if there is ever a shtf problem. I think that galvy would be the answer then.

Do you now have an alternative means of getting water if your system breaks down?

AA

Not really. There is no such thing as municipal water out here. The only alternatives would be rainwater collection (which is pretty inconsistent) or hauling water from somewhere else.

Is your well wide enough to support use of a bucket? Or could you out fit the well with a manual pump?

AA

If it came down to that, sure, I could rig up something. I'd have to pull the pipe out first, though. And without a crane, that would be a hell of a chore. That's a lot of weight hanging in there. A couple hundred feet of pipe, the pump, and the wiring. I'd have to devise a scaffold or tower to rig up a block & tackle system. And since the pipe is in 20' lengths, I'd either have to make the tower 20' high, or just cut the pipe off in small sections, piece by piece, until I got it all out. Assuming that could be done, then I'd have an open well. I think the casing is about 6" or 8" diameter. Not large enough for a regular bucket, but I could probably come up with a makeshift device. I'd need about 120 feet of rope to get it down to the static water level. And it would really suck, having to pull up the bucket 120 feet each time just for a small bit of water. But if that were the only means of getting water, I suppose it would have to do.

A hand pump would be an option, I suppose, if I could lay my hands on the equipment for it. But I don't see myself buying the pump and associated piping just to lay aside for that possibility.

If I could get enough suction pressure, it might be possible to rig up a hose system that lays alongside my well piping, inside the casing. The hose would go down to the water level and have a hand-pump on top. If I knew of a hand-pump system that could draw water up at least 120 feet, and a hose that wouldn't collapse from the suction, that would be an option. I see no reason why it couldn't be put in there side-by-side with the 1-1/4" piping. There's plenty of room in there.

Storage tanks. Go ahead and buy some water tanks, fill 'em, and you'll have a back up.
I don't know if they make a hand pump that can draw that far, most are around 20-50 feet.

17 years now I have had my pump hanging on sch 40 PVC. It still seems to work fine.

The temperature of the water in my well stays a pretty constant 51 degrees F all year.

Yessir How High