water well packer stuck in deep well

briqn29001 · Mar 24, 2014

Hi. My name is Brian. I need some help or advice as soon as possible to help me get my pipe from out of my well. This is the problem that we are having. It all started last night when the water in the house started coming inside dark. It is a 2 inch galvanized well casing with single line in the well. Then the pump lost it's prime. I removed the well head and seal from the well and the casing and pipe was filled with water and the pump is operating properly as the repair shop told me. The pipe went down in the well about 1 foot but i could see it so I added pipe onto it to try to pull it up but the leathers are stopping it from coming up. Is there anything i can put into the well that is safe but will make the leathers unseal so i can pull it out and have water back into our house? I have tried everything that can to pull it by hand but it only moved about an inch but goes back in the original position. Can i use a backhoe, chain hoist, come along, or something to pull straight up on the 3/4 in pipe without breaking it off in the well? I just dont know what to do. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Brian

Craigpump · Mar 25, 2014

A back hoe won't pull straight due to the geometry of the hoe.. A tripod and chain hoist might do it, but your better off getting a pump guy with a hoist truck who knows what he is doing.

Sponsor · 2022-01-29T12:20:58-0800

briqn29001 · Mar 25, 2014

Thank you very much. Do you have any idea what are the chances of the 3/4 PCV pipe snapping off inside the well? I just went outside and tried pulling on it after someone told me to soak it in Clorox and it only move about an inch and returned to it's original position. He said the Clorox would eat away the leathers. Have you ever heard of that?

Craigpump · Mar 25, 2014

3/4 PVC, that's a different deal....

I've never heard of chlorine softening leathers, but it's possible

LLigetfa · Mar 25, 2014

craigpump said:
3/4 PVC, that's a different deal....

What about adding some length to the pipe and pushing it down to break the leather free? Maybe the PVC pipe can bear more compression force than tensile force?

briqn29001 · Mar 25, 2014

I removed the pvc pipe and want to reinstall with 1-1/4 galvanized pipe. what are the chances of me taking a chain hoist and pulling it from
out of the steel casing?

Smooky · Mar 25, 2014

You could try and if all goes bad you could connect the pump directly to the 2 inch casing and forget about the drop pipe.

briqn29001 · Mar 25, 2014

so the water pump will pump water without a drop pipe?

DonL · Mar 25, 2014

briqn29001 said:
so the water pump will pump water without a drop pipe?

How deep is your well ?

What kind of pump do you have ?

briqn29001 · Mar 25, 2014

the well is about 100 ft and the only thing i know is it's a deep well pump

LLigetfa · Mar 25, 2014

briqn29001 said:
the well is about 100 ft and the only thing i know is it's a deep well pump

It is not the depth of the well but rather the depth to the static water level. I helped my father washdown 120 feet of 2" casing and then we pumped it with a shallow well pump. Static water level was around 15 feet.

Reach4 · Mar 25, 2014

ignorant stuff deleted.

briqn29001 · Mar 25, 2014

Ok for me to check the water level i will have to take the packer out of the casing

briqn29001 · Mar 25, 2014

The pump is above ground and the pump has to connections to the well head seal but only one pipe going into the well and that was 40 ft deep.

Reach4 · Mar 25, 2014

ignorant stuff deleted.

Smooky · Mar 25, 2014

It sounds like you have a jet pump with a single pipe system. If the top of the water is greater than 25 feet from the ground surface you will not be able to use a shallow well type set up and draw directly of the casing as I suggested above. Also I think you would have to get the packer ejector out even if the water level is shallow enough. Sorry, I did not fully understand when I responded before.

LLigetfa · Mar 25, 2014

The OP described a two pipe system to the wellhead.

With the PVC pipe out of the well, he could use steel pipe to try to pull the packer.

After that he still needs to deal with whatever is the root of the original problem.

Texas Wellman · Mar 26, 2014

This is your key right here. There is probably a hole in the casing, letting in shallow water/sand/dirt, which is what made the water dirty. The sand that has entered the casing has locked the jet in place.

briqn29001 said:
Hi. My name is Brian. I need some help or advice as soon as possible to help me get my pipe from out of my well. This is the problem that we are having. It all started last night when the water in the house started coming inside dark. It is a 2 inch galvanized well casing with single line in the well. Then the pump lost it's prime. I removed the well head and seal from the well and the casing and pipe was filled with water and the pump is operating properly as the repair shop told me. The pipe went down in the well about 1 foot but i could see it so I added pipe onto it to try to pull it up but the leathers are stopping it from coming up. Is there anything i can put into the well that is safe but will make the leathers unseal so i can pull it out and have water back into our house? I have tried everything that can to pull it by hand but it only moved about an inch but goes back in the original position. Can i use a backhoe, chain hoist, come along, or something to pull straight up on the 3/4 in pipe without breaking it off in the well? I just dont know what to do. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Brian

Reach4 · Mar 26, 2014

I think that you are saying that Brian's well does indeed use a deep well jet pump, and the casing is serving as one pipe, and the smaller PVC pipe serves as the other pipe. We might say that the two pipes are coaxial.

LLigetfa · Mar 26, 2014

Texas Wellman said:
There is probably a hole in the casing, letting in shallow water/sand/dirt, which is what made the water dirty. The sand that has entered the casing has locked the jet in place.

The casing is the pressure side of a two pipe system, so wonder how a hole in the casing above the packer would play out. That's not to say that sediment didn't enter from below the packer and then settled above the leathers.

Would a downhole camera fit down a 2" casing?

water well packer stuck in deep well

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