well point questions

Hello everyone I have a few questions regarding well points.

I purchased a 1/2HP shallow well jet pump to put in a shallow well, it will be used for hand watering, and at the price I got it I could not turn it down.

Now what I'm trying to figure out is how many points and how far to put them down. I live in Tampa Florida where pretty much everyone around me has jet pumps on shallow wells, they don't know the depths of them however.

My current plan is 2 1 1/4 points with a 3 or 4 foot sand screen but I'm just not sure the depth to put them at, I plan on using a water hose with house water to jet them down. Should I wait untill the well drinks water then put the point 3 to 4 feet below that?

Appreciate any advice anyone can give!

Where in Tampa? I'm in Riverview. I can tell you that everywhere you go in this county, the levels are different and so are the sands. There is no set way to put one in. If you want to try to wash one in, stand up 1-1/4" or 2" pipe and jet down through it with 1/2" pipe cut on an angle to make a chisel point. Hook two hoses up to the top of the 1/2" so you have good flow and go for it. If your doing this near the house, you can stand on the roof and do 20 footers or use 10 footers from the ground with a ladder. You will get wet and sandy, but that's part of the fun. Use good screens. No big box junk. There is a man in St. Pete that makes PVC well points that allow more flow than anything I have ever seen. If you like, I'll get you his number. He has done this for years over on that side of the pond and is very helpful.

bob...

North end of Tampa.

Yeah, I've heard that no wells the same in this area, I've been trying to get a general idea how deep I'll have to go and it seems to be around 14-19 feet. I've heard theres a hardpan around 25-30 that you cant break through without a driller, not sure how true this is.

My plan was similar to what you describe, I'm planning on using a 1-1/4" point, washing getting it down to around 20ish feet, pull it, put a sand point on it and put it back down, sounds like this would work. Do you think it's wise doing 2 points, or would one 4 or 5 foot point be fine for a 1/2 HP jet pump?

If it wouldn't be too much trouble I would like the number, I know the sand points they sell at home depot don't look all that great.

You need to wash in a larger pipe than the point, then once into the sand real good, throw the point with pipe on it long enough to get out above ground, then pull the larger pipe back.

I can't find Carlos's phone number. I'll keep looking.

bob...

Well I ended up picking up a brady 4 foot sand point.

I decided to only try putting 1 point in first and hooking the well up. I managed to get 22 feet down and thats as far as I could go, and I thought this would be good since I hit the white sand and the well was drinking a fair ammount of water. Getting to this depth was a job in its self, I hit the hardpan at about 8feet, clay at around 11, what felt like another hardpan at 15ish, and then white fine sand at 18. The static water level is about 7 feet from the top of the point.

However I'm having 2 problems, first of all the pump cycles constantly when it builds pressure and the pressure switch turns it off. Secondly it loses prime when you turn it off, so I guess my check valve is no good. theres very little pipe from the check valve to the pump, and I cant find any leaks in it.

Secondly the well is producing very little water, in terms of 1-2GPM and after running for some time will start to get some air bubbles in the hose, so I think that I did not go deep enough. I backflushed the point once I pulled the casing, but when I started to pump the water was coming up with almost a white tint to it, but it did not seem like sand.

Any advice would be appreciated.

The brady screens are junk. The white sounds like limerock or clay.

Remember we are in a draught so it may work better after some rain. These are shallow wells and they are very dependent on local rainfall. This shallow water mostly ends up in the deeper aquifer sooner or later, so the level of water in this not so deep vein can go down fast.

In St. Pete there are many 5' and 10 foot wells that produce all kinds of water. I'm not familiar with your area, so I can't help you much there.

bob...

I hear you about them being junk, I'm going to check around to see if I can find anything better.

maybe I should pull the point out some, between when I hit the hardpan at 8 and clay at 11 there was absolutly no water erupting from the casing, maybe I should have put my point here instead of going deeper.

It's also funny that you mention limerock, I had my 1/2 inch line get lime rocks stuck in it twice.

I think I'm going to talk to someone local before I try this again, and find a decent well point.

I'm going to check around to see if I can find anything better.

Click to expand...

You won't. The only place you will find them is big box and hardwares.

The screens I told you about are made by Carlos LeClair in St. Pete. His number is 727-391-1435. I just got off the phone with him. He normally doesn't sell to homeowners but he said he would sell to you because I called him about you. These screens are amazing, that's all I can say. And he is a wealth of information.

Carlos might show up here before long, so watch for him.

bob...

Thanks speedbump, I'll probably give him a call in the next week or two when I get back at this project. Too rainy at the moment.

I did speak to someone who said his well was down 28 feet with 2 sand points stacked. He said that sometimes you will have layers off minerals and clay between the water and that I was probably in between water and minerals. I went ahead and pulled my point out and after looking at it, there was what looked to be clay stuck on parts of it. I also managed to goof up the measurements a bit, my total length from the end of the point to the top of the ground was 18 feet.

He also said the reason the pump was cycling was because I was not using a pressure tank with the check valve and that you need one. I'm not sure if this is true or the fact that my pump was cavitating would also cause the short cycling. I checked the check valve and it seems to have no problem holding water.

He's right that you need a check valve. If your pump is cycling, your not using enough water and it's building pressure and shutting off by the pressure switch. Or, you have the wrong voltage applied and it's going back into start. That would happen if you had the pump wired for 230 volts and was only feeding it 115V. If you had it the other way around, it would already be too late for the motor.