Water pump failed...

[375supermag]

Hi...
Well my water pump failed yesterday morning.
It is the original well pump from when we built the house back in 1994.
Plumber says it will be several hours to replace it and about $1000-1200.
The well is over 400ft deep so it is going to be quite a task.
We just had about 6" of snow melt off the last couple days so the yard is a muddy disaster.

Not a good day here at The Estate...

[metricmonkeywrench]

Yep, pay the man and be done... in the late 80's my Dad and I pulled ours. It was the exploratory well for the neighborhood in upstate NY and they bored past where water was initially found, I believe it was somewhere between 300-400 ft. What made it most memorable was that the well is run with steel pipe 20 ft long. We built a 4x4 tripod and pulled each length up with a block and tackle and unthreaded each section at the unions. Dad put together a rope wedge that kept the remaining sections from dropping back into the well head. Installation was just the reverse. At any point we could have lost the whole thing and been in deep do-do.

Yep, Pay the man and replace the water bladder tank as they only have about a 10 year life on them as well while the water is off.

[375supermag]

Hi...
I hear you about the pressure tank.
We are on our third or fourth one since 1994.
The current one has only been in use for a couple of years, so I am not replacing it now.
This water pump is enough of an impact on my disposable income at this point.

[Petrol & Powder]

Been there, done that. It's not fun but you need water so you just do it.

The guys that do that type of work all the time are pretty good at finding little tricks to make it go smoother. There's some labor involved but the job is pretty straight forward. The hardest part is getting the first 20' of so out of well casing. A lot of guys have a wheel that they slip into the casing so that they can bend the plastic pipe as it comes out of the well an just drag the pipe out with a vehicle. Of course that only works if you have plastic pipe and enough room to stretch out the entire length of pipe.

If the well has sections of steel pipe like metricmonkeywrench was writing about - the job really sucks.

Put a high quality pump in, you don't want to pull those things out very often.

[375supermag]

Hi...
Once they were able to get the threaded end of their tool on the line, the line came out pretty quickly.
They set a motor driven unit with three wheels on it to pull the line out.
No way to use a vehicle to pull it out.
About 40O' of line spread out in the side yard right now while they hook the new pump up to the line
Then they have to feed the pump and line back into the well, so we are getting there.
Plumber says that he examined the pump and it just plain wore out.
New pump is a Lancaster Pump, 3/4 HP.
If it lasts over 24 years like the last one, it will likely outlive me considering I am nearly 65 years old.

[mattw]

The farm I grew up on had a well that was over 800 feet deep. We never ran out of water in the summer months, all of our neighbors did. It was a steel pipe well, had to replace the pump 1 time. Should have seen the gear they came in with to pull that one!

[375supermag]

Hi...
Plumber just finished up.
$1515 and change...
Ouch!!!
At least we have water again.
Could have done without this little drama though.

Wife is happy.
Labrador Retrievers don't seem to care now that they have scared the plumber off their turf.

[osteodoc08]

Ouch is right! Hopefully you won’t have to worry about it for a while. Out of curiosity, which pump brand did they replace the old one with.

[lightman]

I've watched my well drilling buddy pull wells. These are mostly irrigation wells. Everything from 6" plastic with 15hp pumps to steel wells with 150-200hp pumps and going down 600 feet. Its quite an operation. Unscrewing those sections of steel pipe is a nasty job!

Sorry to hear that you were out this expense.

[CastingFool]

I can't remember how much I paid when we had our pump replaced. The pump was only like 60 ft down, only one guy to replace it. I replaced my own pressure tank later, when I installed an iron filter and a softener, three years ago last fall.

[375supermag]

Ouch is right! Hopefully you won’t have to worry about it for a while. Out of curiosity, which pump brand did they replace the old one with.

Lancaster Pump, 3/4 hp

[nseries]

I've got a well that's over 600' deep. A couple years ago (4 or 5) the start capacitor in the control box died. Couldn't find a replacement control box locally. Found replacement start and run capacitors on Amazon for less than $10 a piece. Then a little over a week ago, no water again. Figured this time the pump went. Well, Monday morning, just before the professionals arrived, I figured I'd better try to troubleshoot it. Turns out, the wiring between the house and the wellhead shorted somewhere along the way. Ran out to Lowe's and picked up 250' of 8/3 UF wire and temporarily ran it above ground to restore the flow of water. Gonna have to rent a ditch witch at some point this year to tidy it all up. Got out of it pretty cheaply for now. Hopefully the pump lasts a few more years.

[Handloader109]

I paid over $1200 for two guys to find a leak in my quarter mile water line. Summer and water would not come to surface, was going down rather than up. Hated to pay, but they found it.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

[largom]

Have pulled several well pumps in my life but not 400 feet deep. Would not be able to pull a 100 foot well now.
Sorry for your expense but you have water again.

[375supermag]

Have pulled several well pumps in my life but not 400 feet deep. Would not be able to pull a 100 foot well now.
Sorry for your expense but you have water again.

Thanks for the concern and interest, gentleman.
Not very happy about the expense myself but it was a necessary expense.
One never realizes how attached we get to luxuries like running water until you don't have it.

[lightman]

I've got a well that's over 600' deep. A couple years ago (4 or 5) the start capacitor in the control box died. Couldn't find a replacement control box locally. Found replacement start and run capacitors on Amazon for less than $10 a piece. Then a little over a week ago, no water again. Figured this time the pump went. Well, Monday morning, just before the professionals arrived, I figured I'd better try to troubleshoot it. Turns out, the wiring between the house and the wellhead shorted somewhere along the way. Ran out to Lowe's and picked up 250' of 8/3 UF wire and temporarily ran it above ground to restore the flow of water. Gonna have to rent a ditch witch at some point this year to tidy it all up. Got out of it pretty cheaply for now. Hopefully the pump lasts a few more years.

Do yourself a favor and put that wire in conduit when you bury it. Go 1 size bigger than recommended too!

[samari46]

We have a well but since the original owners of the house got regular water from the utility company has been unused for better than 25 years. Would hate to have to pull the pump today. Still have the well head and a stub of pipe down there. I don't even know how deep it is. Had a cousin in Pennsylvania who worked with a guy who did wells,drilling, setting up the casings the whole deal. Up there is a lotta rock,shale you name it. One day they hit a bad section and the owner decides to stick some dynamite down the hole to try a fracture the rock. After setting the explosives, they dumped a few hundred pounds of sand. Everybody gets in a safe place them boom. My cousin said it rained sand and rock for a good while. And no problem finishing drilling. Down here mostly dirt, loam and sand and clay. Frank

[David2011]

Our well is about 250 feet deep. Due to an idiot running over the above ground pipe it went out after some time. The electrical portion was damaged and fixed but we didn't realize that the piping was damaged underground. The pump is 1.5 hp and it was almost $2000 to fix but everything is more expensive in the area where we live in New Mexico; always has been. I was born there and prices were "special" for the area even when I was a kid.

[Lloyd Smale]

mine died a couple weeks ago too. Had to be on a below zero day. thankfully mines a shallow water pump and 200 bucks and a couple hours work and I was back in business.

[mold maker]

Is there a better way to eliminate pepper sand?

[jimlj]

I've installed hundreds of well pumps. $1500 for a 3/4 HP pump set at 400' is not completely out of line. I've replaced pumps that were 30+ years old, and I have seen a few that only lasted a year or two. Hope yours goes to the longer end of the pump life.