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OT - Sizing a water well submersible pump

personal opinion I dont like poly, BUT its not used much out here. you need to have a roller system to install, definitely to remove or you will kink it. people forget how much the water being held by the check valves weighs. as a professional the threaded pvc is the way to go. But I have done 300' on poly and that was a job.. it kind of needs a safety cable between the pump and well head as a back up, its just 2 or 4 hose clamps holding all that water weight. its also sold in different psi ratings get the heaviest one think its either 250 or 300 psi. so yes i have used it wouldn't use it again past about 50'
but there also one model of it can't find it right now that has the drop wire built in to the poly which would save a large amount of frustration. trying to get the wire taped tight without being to tight when it stretches and lower in.
 
I used 1” pex and sharkbites on my new well about 4 years ago and would do it again. I never trusted poly pipe with barbed nipple fittings.
 
It's very difficult to find potable poly in any rating besides 160PSI. You can buy it @ 250PSI but then it is CTS spec dimensioned and fitting become hard to find.

Threaded PVC? What is that...just regular Sch 40 PVC with threaded ends? It seem if one side is glued then the other might as well also - what is the benefit of threading? As I mentioned, PVC gets me concerned over its tendency to shatter.

I could use galv steel pipe, I just don't like the weight of it. Plus, I have been hand threading it and that's a lot of work to do 220' worth.

Weight....a column of water 220' long x 1.38 diameter is 142 lbs. Add the 32 lbs pump/motor and it's 174lbs. Then add the weight of the drop pipe....if it's steel, then the whole affair is about 725lbs. With poly pipe, it's about 285lbs.
 
My well at the previous place was a 6" pvc cased well with a 1" pvc pipe in it for water. They were threaded pvc ends and both the 6" and 1" were sch 160 pvc. Well was a franklin 3 phase pump. Drilled well to 220 and hung the motor around 160 i believe. Had a franklin vfd and pressure sensor to keep constant 60PSI in the pressure tank.
 
A 1" pipe won't flow enough for most deeper wells and/or wells with over about 10GPM flow. I've never heard of Sch 160 PVC.

So...I looked at PEX and it's really a product that exists 1" and smaller. They do make it larger but it's hard to get, expensive, and the fittings look very short and not meant to hang weight from. And all of it I see is rated the same PSI (160 @ 73F) as poly pipe.
 
steel hasn't been used out here for years unless its 2.5 " or larger or very deep like 600 foot sets with 7 horse pumps on the end, because of the corrosion issues. I have seen galvy corroded to holes through it in 6 years. also try pulling 285 lbs by hand for 220' you will understand why poly is not used unless very shallow. thats this area though but they do make tools for pulling that work very well Pump Pulling Unit
 
Thanks, that catalog is very useful.


The issue I find is there are a lot of products listed on websites and catalogs but when you actually try to buy them.... no one knows what they are and they tell you they don't really sell them. I've called several businesses and asked for price/availability for a product on their own site and they have no idea what I'm talking about.

Then,on places like Home Depot the information is so poor you quickly get lost. For example, on some of their pipe, they show the OD as 1.38" and the ID as 1.38".

As for fittings....another nightmare. Even for basic fittings, it's very hard to find what you want. I have (1) place that sells good, SS, long barb fittings....but only for SIDR dimensioned pipe. If you use CTS dimensioned pipe, like the ADS stuff sold at HD, you can't find any proper fittings.


Finally, there's the geographical issue...I can find good products in the Northeast but shipping is a killer. No one here in Houston (or Texas) seems to have anything similar.
 
There are no 'real' plumbing supply stores in Houston?
Damn

Try Mcmaster for stainless fittings, brass would also be pretty much lifetime. They have cad drawings on the site so you could compare them to what is in your hand. I think I might use barb and crimp, belt and suspenders

I would think that you would hang a cable to winch up rather than rely on fittings to pull weight they are not designed for.

I think I would spend a lot of time fishing for the end of that broken pipe before I dug a new well
 
Houston has lots of plumbing stores, but not a lot of wells. No one here deals in it much. I have found some outlying stores who normally sell it but they're all sold out. And, they sell a very limited selection.

I've done some learning both from this thread and other places. That video I posted above is very good. There is actually a 'well drop pipe' PVC that is Sch 120 and comes with threaded ends....so that is what to use. If I can find any. I'm moving away from the idea of poly pipe as the PVC will be easier to manage and find fittings for. The key here is to use the term 'well drop pipe'....if you call it PVC no one recognizes it.

I also intend to use a rope or cable tie-in to pull the pump if I ever need to. I've had several well guys tell me it's not necessary but then...they don't own the well 10 years from now. One issue with using a rope/cable is you need to leave it slack in order for it to pass the torque arrester.....you really can't use it to suspend the pump. But, a Sch 120 pipe really should be strong enough to hold the weight.

With the threaded PVC and metal couplings, there will be no glued fittings. I'd like to use 1-1/2" pipe for less restriction but I've pretty much accepted it's all but impossible to actually buy.


As for the broken well next door...I saw they had fished out several sections of PVC, and it was obvious the PVC had seen a lot of trauma given the scratches on it and fragmentation. They tried. But not being able to get a pole truck back there didn't help, and let's be honest ....when a guy in a million-plus dollar house has a need for water, no well company is gonna get too concerned if they tell him he needs a new $18K well. It's an example of how the rich get discriminated against....
 
its not the rich getting discriminated against, its the dumb ass putting buildings to close to the well to get equipment to. I tell all my clients who are trying to decide were to put a well plan on the pump going out on christmas eve with a foot of snow on the ground, if a pump truck cant get in there when it goes out its your poor planning, not my problem, I will charge accordingly. of course I say it nicer than that. i would rather be at home on christmas eve lol. but try Fergusons plumbing supply there in Houston I think they sell to walk ins or Preferred pump they are in houston also. but they are wholesale only but you might know someone that has an account or they might sell to walk ins depends on managers. two places to get you started. I buy through Preferred.
 
I worked for a pump company for years.

Seen domestic units with both plastic and steel pipe.

If flow & pressure is an issue, refigure your consumption.

Was your well sized before all the extra load requirements?

Extra pressure tanks or a larger tank might be a solution, but until the entire capacity is figured it’s a guess....
 
I found a place out in the countryside that had 17,000 feet of 1-1/4 well drop PVC...so I ran out and bought 240 feet of it. The added benefit was he charged me $1.20 per foot which is old prices...now even the local shops who didn't have any are telling me it is $3.05 per foot. I told the guy and he said he didn't care....he was glad to sell what he had at the normal price.


As for the dropped pump next door, the previous owner of the place is to blame, I suppose...they added about 6,000 sq. ft. of buildings after the well had been in place. The new owner had no say in the matter by the time he bought it. They water like crazy...the pump was something like 5HP...and I could see no sign that they had a retrieval rope/cable in place. I keep my well head insulated and with heat lamps....they had done none of that.

They had been dipping water out of the pool to flush their toilets for about 4 days before I knew any of this...they asked me to run a garden hose over so I did. We connected it and the guy went in and said he still had no water pressure. I told him I couldn't answer to that but I promised him I was giving him 60PSI....he told me he would investigate and call me in 30 minutes. 4 hours later he called back and said it turned out his upstairs pipes had cracked in the freeze and he had been dumping water into his walls...I think I must have seen 12 plumbing trucks there over the next week. Anyway, he ran off my garden hose for 2 weeks until the new well/pump were up and running. My old Red Jacket pump - 23 years old - had no troubles and is still running perfectly.

I'm considering just letting it run to see how long it will last, now that I have everything I need to swap it out when it does break. I'm going to run 2 safety cables, or ropes and find a good way to ensure they won't fail.
 
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We have a 200 foot deep well over here in Brookshire, 1 HP we moved to this property in 2009 & as far as I
know it the original pump so it's over 15 years old.

On another note our aerobic septic tank pump was pulled yesterday and it's manufacture date is 06/99 so the water
well pump is probably 20 something years old also.
 
..they asked me to run a garden hose over so I did. We connected it and the guy went in and said he still had no water pressure. I told him I couldn't answer to that but I promised him I was giving him 60PSI...

I used to live in a 200 year old house and it had crappy water pressure, took 5 minutes to fill a 5 gallon bucket for coolant. Then it got worse. The city owned the front step, so the pipe to the house was theirs. They came out to run a new one and didn't finish that day. We ran a hose next door

Best water pressure we ever had.

It is like the boiling frog thing, you get used to it and don't notice.


I would be ticked at my neighbors if it took them four days to ask for water.
 
It was odd they waited to ask...but I don't know them that well as they moved in right at the peak of Covid and that made me not run over with a tuna casserole. Maybe since they had no electricity they figured why have water lol.

I'll say this much..nice people but like a lot modern people, 110% clueless as to anything related to electricity, plumbing etc. A million-plus dollar house and not a single screwdriver or hammer on the premises.
 








 
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