Turning on a deep well pump without a pressure system?

[emd36]

Can a deep well pump be wired to turn on directly? We are remodeling and took out the pressure tank. Tried to wire the pump back up with original pressure switch taken off the tank but the pump does not turn on, at least no water flows. The outside freeze proof hydrant has not worked since we bought the house. Would like to turn on the pump and get enough water to get the new drains inspected.

[Porky]

Is this pump a 2 wire (or new 3 wire) or a 3 wire (or new 4 wire) pump? If it's a 3 wire it must have a control box in the line. For the pumps safety it really needs a pressure switch and at least a small tank or a Pside-kick installed. If there is no tank and pressure switch you must be sure that there is no way to cut the water off anytime the pump is running otherwise you will burn out the pump. My suggestion would be to get the pump working properly because without it I doubt that you will need the drains!

[emd36]

Ha ha, yeah, no water, no drains.
Just want to get enough water for the drain inspection and will reinstall the pressure tank etc after a new slab is poured.
It is a 2 wire pump, 240 volt. So I'm going to try direct wiring it to the circuit breaker box and use that as a switch.

If the pump does not come on when the breaker switch is connected, something has broken since the pressure tank was removed for the demolition.
Even with the pressure tank empty and disconnected, the water still flowed when the breaker was switched on, but then we removed the tank and tried to just get the pump to work with the pressure switch disconnected with no luck. I didn't try to manually join the contacts in the switch with a screwdriver, seemed too dangerous to me. But don't know why it would hurt to just wire it up directly and briefly turn on the water with the breaker switch.