Pump not pumping

I wouldn't worry about it a bit. of course anything is possible.. but aside from popular belief, there are honest people in this business too. you trusted them, and it sounds like they made good on the mishap.

Like someone said earlier.. If you've never made a mistake here or there.. you haven't ever done much.

colinml said:

Well, not sure what to say. Of course it's possible my contractor ripped me off. Of course it's possible that they are lazy, sloppy, and incompetent. It's possible that the pump they put in is 10 years old and they bought it off an on line auction site. It's possible monkeys might fly out of my butt. But we'll never know. I've been burned a few times. I am a big advocate of consumer education, combined with a healthy dose of skepticism, but there is no evidence of fraud here, so I see no reason to assume fraud. These guys called me back first thing Monday morning, and they had a crew at my house within two hours. They were professional. They didn't track mud through my house. When I called to tell them something was wrong, right after they left, they were back at my house within a few minutes, very apologetic, and quickly discovered and admitted their mistake. I used to be a cabinet maker. I consider myself to be honest and I was always very careful in my work. I did not manage to make it through my entire career without ever making a mistake. So I think what we have here is a glass half full vs half empty deal.

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Cabinetmakers are sticklers for details, and a loose wire nut equates with 5 stripped screws in a 100# drawer slide. You get the point, I am sure.

Did'nt mean to make you loose sleep over the ethics of the well guy. Maybe he did a good job and someone that put that nut on was the new kid on the block. But if it was a component that was NOT touched during the repair, you might have a faux pau on the part of all involved.

Often the simplest solutions are the last to be investigated.

If monkeys really fly out of your butt, you can get your pump installl cost recovered by calling some TV show that does oddities as topics.

Texas Wellman said:

I've had em come loose, and they usually do within the first few cycles. Put a few thousand on like I have and you're bound to have one or two not make a good connection. Putting in a pump, splicing the wire together correctly, hoisting up several hundred feet of pipe, dealing with crawlspaces and well houses, setting the wellhead/pitless, hands get a little dirty and fingers get a little loose. The wire nut is usually the last thing to get installed, easy to get a bad connection.

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Speaking of experience etc., my work experience has been very detail oriented. With many hundreds of wire nuts on well systems over 18 yrs, not counting others in other applications, I was very attentive to details that could lead to future failure.

I think that's because when I started doing well/pump work, I already had 5 yrs in field preventative and operational maintenance of nuclear weapons (including a yr of solid propellant rocket motor inspections of fairly large rockets that were being shot with dummy warheads within hours for aircrew training) and lots of working with high explosives. Along with that there was 3+ yrs as an electric utility ground hand and lineman, plus some time in a nuclear power/generation plant plus 5+ yrs as an electronics troubleshooter with GE. I also was a private pilot for a few years.

Around explosives and transmission/service electrical line work, you don't have the luxury of having some loose connections so you learn how to do it right the first time or you usually don't survive or have the job very long.

In a couple of those fields we had a statement we lived by; familiarity breeds contempt. That leads to sloppy work habits and not paying attention to detail. If you allow that you have loose wire nuts.

As far as I know, I've never had a loose wire nut. Maybe because I insisted on not having one by replacing old ones after taking them off. And I inspected the connection for corrosion and cleaned the wire before putting new ones on and then I usually taped them with new water proof electrical tape like safety wiring so they couldn't come loose. For years I did a lot of thin SS wire safety wiring of precisely torqued nuts and bolts and hermetic sealing using hand applied lead seam sealing tape that absolutely could not allow any air infiltration. I also was a certified welder for a number of years with about 50% of my welds being magnafluxed or x-rayed. Details details details... or you get to give excuses if you are able.

Probably the only way to get loose wires in a nut is if it was not twisted at all or if it was the wrong size to begin with.