No water at all...

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patriarchz

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Hey all,

I have a submersible pump on a well system, and the last couple weeks I've been having air coming out of my faucets. The water would kinda sputter and cough with air, and then flow fine. Yesterday the water shut off completely. No hot water, no cold water; nothing.

I thought maybe the pump had lost its prime, so I took off the elbow pipe and poured five gallons of water down there, but it didn't help. Apparently someone who knows what they are doing would know that a submersible pump doesn't lose its prime, but I didn't know that.

I checked the power to and from my pressure gauge/switch on my tank, and they are fine.

I'm at a loss... Any ideas?
 
It sounds like the well is dry but, it should recover in a few minutes and then you'd have water again SO... the pump probably died due to overheating which could be because it doesn't have a thermal overload or it does and the motor died due to frequent overheating. If the water level in the well fell below the pump inlet, that will kill a pump real quick evewn if the thermal overload works.

Next time pay attention to the clues. Air spitting, dirty water etc. is the expensive well and or pump hollerin' PAY ATTENTION TO ME, HELP HELP! and find and fix the cause of the problem or pay the well or pump guy to maybe replace the pump. It's kinda like when it hurts to raise your arm, not raising it isn't a cure, the bullet should be removed. :)
 
patriarchz said:
Apparently someone who knows what they are doing would know that a submersible pump doesn't lose its prime, but I didn't know that.
Click to expand...
No but that should have given you 5 more gallons to pump back out.

Rancher
 
Thanks

Just FYI, I had a hole in my drop pipe. Apparently who ever serviced my well last didn't put compression fitting in between the joints, they just used an unthreaded cupling and glued it together. So at the joints it was leaking. The well guy said he had never seen anything so stupid.

What would happen is the pump would try to pump water up the pipe, but a lot would leak out, letting air in. Eventually the leak was so bad that the pump couldn't even push any water up the well without it all leaking out. That's why when I put the 5 gallons of water down there, nothing happened.

He replaced the drop pipe and used the proper fitting. It cost me $500. $93 for parts, and $400 for labor. They were there for about 90 minutes, so that's a pretty nice hourly rate.

Thanks for your help.
 
He replaced the drop pipe and used the proper fitting. It cost me $500. $93 for parts, and $400 for labor. They were there for about 90 minutes, so that's a pretty nice hourly rate.
Click to expand...

You don't suppose some of that money went toward the rig payment, insurance on the rig, health insurance, life insurance, (well drilling is dangerous) gas, fittings, pipe dope, license fees, permits, or workmans comp to name a few; do you?

bob...
 
patriarchz said:
He replaced the drop pipe and used the proper fitting. It cost me $500. $93 for parts, and $400 for labor. They were there for about 90 minutes, so that's a pretty nice hourly rate.
Click to expand...

Probably more to the point of $93 for parts, $200 for fixing the problem and $200 for having the experience and knowledge to fix it right in 90 minutes...
Heck of a good deal I would say...

The danger is the guy who does not know what he is doing and charges you $200 for parts and $150 for labor... three times....
 
patriarchz said:
He replaced the drop pipe and used the proper fitting. It cost me $500. $93 for parts, and $400 for labor. They were there for about 90 minutes, so that's a pretty nice hourly rate.
Click to expand...
Or you can think of it as $93 parts, $120 labor and $280 for stocking the correct repair parts, or knowing where to get them quickly...

How deep was the drop pipe?

Rancher
 
I once heard a story about an electrical engineer who had designed and built Henry Ford's power plant. Some time had passed and something had gone awry, and when Henry's own electricians could not get things straighted out, Henry called his engineer friend. The man came out and spent an hour or so getting everything properly adjusted once again, then he sent Henry a bill for something like $10,000.00. Henry was shocked, and he called his friend to remind him he had only been there for about an hour. The man said he would review his invoice, then sent Henry a new one detailing $10.00 for an hour of tweaking and $9,990.00 for knowing where to tweak.
 
Gary Slusser said:
I've never heard of any compression fittings in a well.
Click to expand...
Gary, sure... the well guy found it. "Apparently who ever serviced my well last didn't put compression fitting in between the joints, they just used an unthreaded cupling and glued it together. So at the joints it was leaking. The well guy said he had never seen anything so stupid. " Not only no compression fittings but glued couplings, which might have been used if they used (edited) SCH 80.

We'll probably never know for sure. Oh Well !!!

Rancher
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yeah Rancher it sounds like the new guy added compression fittings instead of using glued couplers. Glued couplers are used on water lines everyday all over the world and many are used on drop pipe to submersible pumps but to my knowledge, no compression fittings are.

I think he may be referring to the pitless adapter o-ring was leaking and the new guy excused his replacing the drop pipe with this story.
 
Well you only use compression fittings on Poly, and that's really called a hose clamp or two, sometimes it's hard to second guess these questions when they don't tell the entire story, or tell us where they are located, like is it cold enough to require a pitless adapter.

Rancher
 
Sorry just a little confused with the polly and hose clamps. Maybe its some new stuff out there but I have never heard of using hose clamps with a compression fitting. A compression fitting consists of a compression nut,compression ring, and a compression seat.As far as well equipment, I have seen them used on pressure switch lines and they are aslo used with water treatment components.A union would be considered a compression fitting.

SAM
 
Sammy yes that is a typical compression fitting, have you ever used on on the drop pipe to a sumbersible pump?

Rancher
 
I have used compression fittings but not on each joint to hang a submersible pump. The only fittings that i have used hose clamps with are barbed insert fittings.

SAM
 
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