Sand and Iron screwing up my AC!

My shallow well (approx 50 ft) w/jet pump (foot valve at approx 20 ft) started pumping sand through my water-to-air heat pump. I installed an in-line filter but it clogged overnight. I thought about a sand separator but that sounds like a temporary fix and it would be a real pain to put it on the suction line prior to the pump. I switched my AC water source to another driven shallow well (approx 25') but it has a lot of iron deposits and clogs the filter in about 2 days. Also, the water near the surface is not nearly as cold as my deeper well water therefore my AC is not nearly as efficient (runs 24/7). I was told that my deeper well probably has a cracked casing and is allowing sand to get to the foot valve. I replaced the foot valve about 2 years ago and while doing so I dropped a weighted string to the bottom. That's how I estimated 50 feet. I suspect the steel casing goes down 20-30 feet. Is there a way to repair a casing that has corroded through? A repair sleeve of some type? OR is my only choice a new drilled well? OR is this my problem at all?

First of all the inline filter is no help. If you want to filter the sand, you need to do it after the pump not before. You will need a real filter that can handle a larger amount of sand. A water softerer type filter would work and so would a swimming pool filter if the pressure didn't get above around 40 psi.

The ground water is the same at 20 foot as it is at 150 foot. So maybe the other well just doesn't produce enough water to cool or heat properly.

Since you really dont know where the sand is coming from, putting a sleeve in the well will probably not help. Do you even know if this is a screened or rock well?

bob...

Thanks for the response. I have no idea if it's rock or screened. Since I'm about 5 miles from the Gulf of Mexico near Panama City, Florida, I'm guessing it's screened. It performed great for 7 years (that's how long we've lived here) and only starting pumping sand about 6 months ago. I'm sure the well was put in over 20 years ago (that's when the AC was installed) so that's why I suspected a cracked or corroded casing. I'll likely spend this weekend digging down to the well cap to see if I can figure out where the sand is coming from. Putting a sand filter after the pump wouldn't be a big problem. I was just concerned about the extra wear on the internal pump parts.

It will wear the pump out eventually, but putting a filter in front of the pump can cause many problems. If the well is 20+ years old, the casing might be rusted through in the surface vein area and the sand is probably leaking in through the hole along with nasty surface water. Check your PH, if it's less than 7.2, you may have the hole I'm talking about.

bob...

If the casing is big enough you might drop a new pipe and screen inside. Whether that will work depends on the flow of the pump and the size of the existing casing.

If it is a 4" casing you can drop in a large enough pipe, screen, and foot valve to do the job with almost any jet pump.

The problem might be that you have so much sand in the well that you can't get a new pipe down. That sand would probably have to be removed.