Well Pumped Sand

[Jay Vining]

In the giving spirit. My new house keeps letting me down.

Saturday early morning when the katalox went to regen. The well pumped sand and hit the big blue pre filter so hard it blew the bottom out starting to flood the basement. I whipped it on bypass(raw water) in the heat of the moment probably destroying my tankless and all the cartridges in the house.


Made an emergency service call 1 day later after I realize it was in fact the well and not some weird equipment failure on my filter stuffs. Emergency service showed up today at 8am ( musta been a busy weekend I guess ). They came out.... saw what was going on...hooked up the truck, raised the well pump 80' and let it run into the yard for about 40 mins....gave me a bill @ 175/hr and away they went. I know the pipes in the house are plugged badly, but I was flushing and flushing still getting sand right at the pressure tank hose bib (about 50' from the well head). Never had a well before. Pretty much beyond annoyed with this situation really since homeowners won't touch it. And an 18mo well is shot more than likely as well as about everything that uses water.


Is this a normal occurrence with Wells? Is my pump basically untrustable now? Anything I can do?

The guys were saying " there's other stuff we can do if this doesn't work but one of them is a new well". I am fortunate in life but im not looking forward to another 15k in this little time. Hey, at least they left the 80' of well pipe they took out for my trouble..... considering I paid for all that extra depth lol.




Info: ~250ish' originally, now ~170'. Clean clear water 40gpm? Might be 20 idk. Rougly 18mos old, working family of 2 so not huge water users minus backwashing filters.. Lined a decent way since it was making sand and clay when they were drilling. Grundfos constant pressure pump.

Sorry its long. But thanks!!

 

[Valveman]

In the giving spirit. My new house keeps letting me down.

Saturday early morning when the katalox went to regen. The well pumped sand and hit the big blue pre filter so hard it blew the bottom out starting to flood the basement. I whipped it on bypass(raw water) in the heat of the moment probably destroying my tankless and all the cartridges in the house.


Made an emergency service call 1 day later after I realize it was in fact the well and not some weird equipment failure on my filter stuffs. Emergency service showed up today at 8am ( musta been a busy weekend I guess ). They came out.... saw what was going on...hooked up the truck, raised the well pump 80' and let it run into the yard for about 40 mins....gave me a bill @ 175/hr and away they went. I know the pipes in the house are plugged badly, but I was flushing and flushing still getting sand right at the pressure tank hose bib (about 50' from the well head). Never had a well before. Pretty much beyond annoyed with this situation really since homeowners won't touch it. And an 18mo well is shot more than likely as well as about everything that uses water.


Is this a normal occurrence with Wells? Is my pump basically untrustable now? Anything I can do?

The guys were saying " there's other stuff we can do if this doesn't work but one of them is a new well". I am fortunate in life but im not looking forward to another 15k in this little time. Hey, at least they left the 80' of well pipe they took out for my trouble..... considering I paid for all that extra depth lol.




Info: ~250ish' originally, now ~170'. Clean clear water 40gpm? Might be 20 idk. Rougly 18mos old, working family of 2 so not huge water users minus backwashing filters.. Lined a decent way since it was making sand and clay when they were drilling. Grundfos constant pressure pump.

Sorry its long. But thanks!!

Well (pun intended)? You can't start educating yourself on this any sooner than now. You have several concerns we can help yoy with.

The good news is, once you figure all this out and get the right things installed correctly you shouldn't have to worry how/if water will come out of your faucets for 30-40 years. But nobody else is going to make sure it is right except you. As a matter of fact most professionals hope you don't educate yourself so they can charge you lots in the next 30 years.

First get the well working without sand. Try pumping long and at high flow and see what happens.

 

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[Jay Vining]

Roger that!

I ran the well through a couple spots in the house with a hose to the outside. I think my hose isn't really allowing enough flow. Once the hose goes clear ill go with a bucket and really let it rip and it will be caked in the bottom again. Couldn't do too too much, cause of work tonight, but I have the next two off. Im going to keep at it. Hopefully I can make some headway. Going to try at the pressure tank getting that clear and progressing to the farthest spot.....hopefully then being able to clear the tankless.

 

[Bannerman]

As posted in the thread in the Tankless Forum, since this blowout occurred during the night while you were asleep, why was any hot water being used? If water was not flowing through the WH at the time, no sand should have entered the heat exchanger.

 

[Valveman]

You can't really get high enough flow rate through a faucet to develop the well. The size of the opening in the faucet usually limits the hose to about 3-5 GPM max. You need to run multiple faucets at the same time to get the flow rate to 10+ GPM. Or remove one of the faucets and add a 3/4 ball valve with a pipe to hose connector, which will let 20+ gallons come out of a hose.

Once you get the well flowing clean, then you have clean water to work with to flush everything else out.

On to Bannermans concerns. He may not have been using any water when the filter exploded. Even though the Grundfos SQE is one of the best of the constant pressure variable speed type pumps, it still has many problems. One of which is high pressure. Watch the pressure gauge peg out in the following video. This was just a normal failure of the SQE pump (no sand). This type of failure could have also been caused by sand blocking the pressure transducer. But either way pegging on high pressure has always been one of the flaws of the SQE.

Second, all filters should be installed after the pressure switch/transducer, and pressure tank. And the pressure tank should be fitted with a pressure relief valve set at about 75 PSI to help when there is a malfunction.

 

[Bannerman]

On to Bannermans concerns.

I understand your comments regarding the problems with that pump and the likelihood of filter failure as a result.

In his other thread, the OP was mostly concerned with damage to his tankless WH heat exchanger caused by the sand that entered from the well. My comment was to point out that sand should not have entered the WH unless hot water was being used at the time of the incident which seems unlikely as the incident occurred during the night while they were sleeping.

As long as no hot water was drawn while sand remained within the plumbing lines, then no sand should have entered the WH heat exchanger.

 

[Jay Vining]

The amount of sand at the site of the explosion was around 45lbs. When I slung the raw to bypass the tankless is the first thing. I did take apart my navien to my level of comfort it was too bad but definitely evidence of sand around and about.

Also my navien is in well mode and recirc. Everytime the header pressure drops or changes it fires.

The popoff valve never opened but I am not convinced that the transducer wasn't fouled. I have most of the header cleared by blasting it through the pre filter without the sump into a bucket.

So no luck getting any flow in the water heater for longer than 2 or 3 minutes. Its possible my bucket pump is junk. Will update here in a bit if I have any success.

 

[Reach4]

The amount of sand at the site of the explosion was around 45lbs. When I slung the raw to bypass the tankless is the first thing. I did take apart my navien to my level of comfort it was too bad but definitely evidence of sand around and about.

Also my navien is in well mode and recirc. Everytime the header pressure drops or changes it fires.

You really should have a whole house cartridge filter before your WH and other indoor water use.

 

[Valveman]

The popoff valve never opened but I am not convinced that the transducer wasn't fouled.

Pressure relief valves can't work either when they are packed full of sand. Again, fix the sand in the well problem first and go from there.

 

[Jay Vining]

I do have a cartridge before and after the treatment train. However it exploded when it got loaded with sand and like a bone head i swung it to bypass and wh is first off that header and it all settled in the low point. Upgraded to the blue sump vs the clear that was on there. Going to upgrade the other next weekend.

I ran hoses off both bibs until it froze, real cold here this time of year. Dumped bucket after bucket and finally got no sand. Also well co owner said dont worry about the invoice. Took apart the wh and got that clear too. Works well again but the check valve on the recirc might be buggered since in get CWS now in the shower and read some stuff that the check valve could be bad. No problem there.

Just need to work on clearing the cold water header to the kitchen. It works well, there is just a noticeable pressure/flow difference vs the hot. Another project for next weekend. But we are back up and running.

Just so weird that it happened. But now I know what it is when it does it again. I just hope my pump is trustable. They did say its drawing a consistent current, which for them is usually a good indicator it is "OK".