sand point loosing my prime

ok i have a shallow well and i have always delt with low flow problems since i have bought the house. so i started by replacing the sand point and the pipe going down to it. i was originally 18 feet down with out the sand point its self. we put it roughly 1 or two feet lower. now the flow almost seems worse and the pump keeps loosing its prime. it runs till it starts to get hot when i shut it off let it sit for a minute and turn it back on. i do that for a few times till it takes off. what i was wondering is sicne we put it deaper is that part of my problem. or is my old pump ready to retire. i had heard of putting two sand points down and was going to try that and upgrade my pump and pressure tank. right now i have 20 feet of 1 1/4 inch pipe going to my point with a wane 1/3 horse power shallow well pump with a 30 gallon pressure tank. we did install a new check valve with the new sand point ( it has two total) i was planning on adding a 2 ince sand point and pipe beside it tapping them togather with a much larger pump and pressure tank. but this new problem with loosing its prime all the time isn't something i really want to put my new pump through. the pump i have gets really hot when it does. any suggestions?? i'm a mechanic not a plumer thanks Kelly

You need to be talking to the locals about what method of well pointing is done in your area. Sticking a point blindly into the ground and hooking a pump to it is not the approved method.

You may not need a point and you may, I don't know. There are different ways of doing these shallow wells in my area. It just depends on the underlying geology.

bob...

we measured the depth of the old sand point and went off of that. that sand point had to have been in sicne the 80's. i've lived in the house for 5 years and never ran out of water. we replaced it because the pipes and the point were full of rust chunks and after we pulled it i had no dought that it was a good idea. the water quality does seem better but still having troubles with loosing prime.

You more than likely have an air leak somewhere. It could be the joints in the well. It's real easy to beat the threads to death when driving on them.

bob...

i will check that. we did rotate the pipe while driving it in and after we were done to hopfully tighten the connections. does the pump have a valve in it that could hang up to make it act like its loosing its prime? at one point i had taken a couple plugs out of the pump and and i had to clear the crap out of the way before water would spray out of it. thats one of the reasons why i was blaming the pump. thanks for the reply Kelly

That crap is probably sulphur and could be in the impeller or jet as well.

bob...

i guess i was eventually planning on replacing the pump so i will have to move that up. i suppose its not a bad place to start. thanks for all your help. Kelly

Pounded quite a few 'points years ago, by hand. Talk about fun.

Don't spend money on a pump until you do the following:

Did you use drive couplings? Drive couplings are over-cut and look very different (internally) from a normal 1 1/4" galv coupling. Also, did you use a drive cap when pounding down the sections. A drive cap has the same taper as the drive couplings. Drive caps are easily identified by a drilled hole in the top of them.

If drive couplings and cap were not used, you've probably split the threads on the pipe. If that is the case, pull it back out and re-cut the threads, also inspect the threads on the point itself. If you didn't use drive couplings, get another point. Think about drinking a milk shake and your straw has a hole in it.

You see that old cistern pump that Speedbump has as his avatar? You want one of those to 'develop' the well. Just make sure to soak the pump in a 5 gallon bucket to get the leathers to swell. Prime the well and pump it for all its worth. A good 15 minutes of hand pumping will help to clear any clay from around the point, which in turn will provide for easier pumping and greater well capacity. The cistern pump will move much more water than your shallow well pump will, but your shoulder will get sore doing it. The amount of resistance on the handle is a good indicator of the amount of water in the area of your sandpoint, and also an indicator of whether you have a leak in your drop pipe. Resistance is good at first, as it means your drop pipe is not sucking air. Some wells I've pounded have taken all my 180# on the handle to get them to go, but, after a thorough pumping they've freed-up and produce good volume with minimal effort. Minimal resistance (with poor water volume) is almost always a bad sign, as you're sucking air. If you're able to pump water but the handpump loses its prime quickly, look at your fittings and drop pipe.

Now, before you go pulling that point, run a 25' tape down the pipe, or a string with a small weight attatched. You want to find the static level of the water table where your well is. You should have at least 4'-6' of water in the bottom of that pipe, and that's figuring a poor well.

If you've done the hand pump and checked your static level is low, find a new location for the point. Also, be as far as possible away from any drainage piping/septic tank/drainfield. Minimum 50'.

Why two check valves? You should only need one just before the pump, preferably on the well side of the union. That way, if the union were to leak, it will be on the pressure side of the check, and suction within the well could be maintained.

Good luck.

we did use drive couplers and a drive cap althought the drive cap broke almost right away. after that we used a section of pipe to drive in that wasn't going to be used worked better then the cap. at least that way we could use the post pounder and that worked better then the slege. the well is under my house so all the work we did was in the closet of one of the rooms. it was a hole lot of fun. i would loose my prime almost every day but it seams to have come out of it. its been over a week with no problems at all.
i'm not shure why there are two check valves they were in there before so i left them. i replaced the one that we removed. there is one right after the pipe out of the ground then it goes for a few feet of plastic pipe to the pump and the second check valve is less then a foot before the pump. flow is still a little slow but hasn't had any issues like it did after the sand point was replaced. thanks for the reply always looking for ideas to inprove my well.