What do I have and what should I do??

I know NOTHING about wells or pumps. This well is on a piece of propery we bought a few years ago and tore down the house that had been badly damaged by Hurricane Ivan. We use the empty lot for gardening. I have wondered, off and on, about this well since we bought it. I'm sure it has not been used in many, many years since the house was connected to a community water supply. How long ago that was, I'm not sure. I would love to be able to use this well for watering the gardens. But, I don't even know what type of well it is -- shallow, deep, etc., or what type of pump I would need to install. I don't even know for sure that well is still any good????

The only info I found on the pump:
cast into the housing: FAIRBANKS MORSE
on a tag that is about to disintegrate: H_W331-00 (don't know what the _ is but an reasonably sure of the other characters)

Any help would be most appreciated.

Here are some links to photos:
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2703.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2702.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2701.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2700.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2691.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2692.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2693.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2694.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2695.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2696.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2697.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2698.JPG
http://www.bramblett.com/Pump/IMG_2699.JPG

Oh well, I guess it is all moot. mI pulled the motor off the pump housing to find the pump is one large piece of rust. You can see the outline of the impeller but it is rusted to the housing. So, I figure, OK, I'll think about one of the pumps that Harbor Freight sells. So, I set about trying to pull out the 1" pipe that was down into the 1 1/2 or 2" casing. Loaded up my trusty engine hoist and drove it over to the lot where the pump is -- 2 houses away from me. Drilled a couple holes thru the 1" galvanized pipe, ran a heavy hardened bolt/nut thru and hooked up the hoist. First 5" were really tuff. Had to pound it back down and pull it back about 10 times and then it started to come. Got out 4' of pipe and drilled more holes near the casing so I could lower the hoist back down and pull some more. Pulled tight and it stopped moving so I got the sledge hammer out and banged on the 1" pipe as I had done all along to try and free it up. Suddenly something gave a section of pipe flew about 5' away and thankfully didn't hit me or anything else!!! It broke at the connection. I can tell that only about 3 threads were used on this side of the coupling and it looks like I just pulled the pipe right off the threads. The coupling is about 1" down inside the casing so I guess I am done with this project. I ran a water hose down the pipe and can get down about 22' before hitting some obstruction. Well, I'm no worse off than I was before and now the pump is gone and I'll be able to bust up that ugly concrete pad.......

If the water is less than 20', you might use less effort driving a well point for a new well than trying to get the old one unstuck. You can pump water for pennies on the dollar compared to buying city water.

How do I go about doing that??? Thanks for the response....

Tried to edit my above post but am only able to get the Quick Reply button to work....
Anyway, I was just doing some reading on driving a well point. I have a couple of questions -- With my current well, how can I tell how deep it is?? As I mentioned above, I was able to run a garden hose down about 22' before hitting "something". Is that something the original well point?? How can I tell if I have a shallow well or deep well pump?? If it is a shallow well pump wouldn't that tell me that the existing well is less that 26 or so feet?? And lastly, with the existing well is it is now, how can I tell if there is water down there still?? The inner pipe is still full of the water I put in it via the hose.

Thanks!
Mike

Did you loosen the well seal before trying to pull the pipe? That thing on top has a rubber grommet etc. that holds the pipe pressure tight and needs to be removed before pulling. If that well seal (casing adapter) is still tight I can see why you're having so much trouble. On that particular set-up (old fairbanks morse) you can pull the suction pipe up through the casing adapter (with great effort). Try removing or loosening the well seal.

mbramble said:

How can I tell if I have a shallow well or deep well pump??

Click to expand...

A shallow well pump has only one pipe connected to the well side and another to the house side. Your pump is/was a deep well pump with a packer ejector down in the well.

Texas Wellman -- I did loosen the seal. All I have left, basically, is the casing and the suction pipe which is broken, at a joint, about 3/4" below the top of the casing.

LLigetfa -- Thanks for the info. I was hoping it was a shallow well pump which would have given me a limit on the depth of the well. Now, I guess I don't know. Is there an obstruction at 22', or is that the bottom????

Oh well, it was just a Saturday morning lark after tripping over this pump for the past couple years.

I am interested in valveman's comments about driving a new wellpoint. The water table around here is obviously pretty low. There are not many places on my property that I can dig more than 4' without hitting water. I will look into what I need and would welcome any suggestions form folks experienced in this area.

Thanks!!

I believe that is a shallow well pump. The casing adapter is the jet assembly because it is not a convertable pump. Means there is only one pipe down the well, which means shallow well pump. I would drive a sand point and see what you get.

There is definitely only one pipe down the well/connected to the pump. There is some sort of an adapter that the 2 pipes from the pump housing connect to but the larger pipe is the one that goes into the well. I will get some pics of the adapter in a while, just for grins....

I have added a couple photos. One shows the adapter -- with a red line drawn in to show where the larger pipe originally connected to it. One is the 4' (I thought it was 5) section I pulled out before it broke at the first connection point. Another just shows the adapter with the flange that held it in place to the well casing. There is a matching flange slid over the casing....

Yep, looks like a deep well casing adapter to these eyes. Which would mean that the well is probably deeper than you think, which is why they had to use a deep well jet.

Texas Well. Thanks for the info. How does this setup work when both the pipes coming from the pump to this adapter, feed down a single hole in the well?? Again, I know NOTHING about pumps and/or wells and this is my first time ever looking at one. I'm assuming that the larger of the 2 pipes going into the pump (the top pipe that I cut) is the input to the pump. What does the other pipe do??

Here's one more photo of the bottom of that adapter that sits on the well casing. The suction pipe came right out of the casing, thru that adapter and connected to a 90 (that I cut off) and on into the pump. The other pipe from the pump ends in a hole in the adapter that seems to go nowhere. That hole can be seen in the photo in that really rusted area of the adapter, towards the top of the adapter in the photo. You know that, but just for others who have may never seen this.

Or, are you saying that the "shallow well" was deeper than they had maybe planned on so they used a deep well pump and the adapter was to adapt the stronger deep well pump's 2 'inputs' to the single pipe of the 'shallow well'???? If that's the case, why not just plug the second hole in the pump instead of this adapter??

Thanks for your patience

Mike

THe way it works is that it uses the casing for one of the two pipes. There is a packer ejector down the well that seals to the casing with leathers. Those can be a real bear to get out sometimes as you found out.

OK, I now see how that other pipe on the adapter/pump is used. I thought the suction pipe fit tightly in both holes in the bottom of the adapter. But I just went back out and looked and now see that the top one fits tightly to the suction pipe but the one underneath (where the adapter sits on the case) is larger so there is space for water to come down between the suction pipe and the case. Was thinking both holes were the same size but they aren't. That clears up a lot...

Thanks!!