How to Recover a Lost Submersible Well Pump

[bdhsfz6]

How far is it from the house to the barn? A roll of 3/4" black poly pipe is about $.50 per foot, PEX is slightly cheaper. It might be easier to run a temporary pipe from the house and wait a month.

I thought about this but the barn is almost 1/4 mile from the house. It's also 80' higher in elevation and on the other side of a private road.

Right now, I'm using a 50 gal poly tank mounted on a pallet. I keep it on the forks and run it up the hill with the tractor once or twice a day. Not really a big problem.

 

[MossRoad]

What sucks about the whole things is this…

After much contemplation, thinking the whole thing through, and finally deciding to let the pros do it, they’ll show up, walk over, look down in the pipe, walk back to the truck, pull something out, walk back to the pipe, and have it coming out in 5 minutes.

It’ll look surprisingly easy to you and you’ll always wonder for the rest of your life if you could have done it yourself.

But that’s why they’re pros.

When our well pump went out on a Friday night on a holiday weekend, I knew it was the well pump. I knew there was some sort of special connector down 6’ in the hole. I knew it could be done myself. But I just didn’t want to wait around and see if I could do it myself while the wife and kids are wanting to take showers, flush the toilet, etc. So I called the well company. They showed up, had the old pump out, new pump in and everything done in about an hour! $300 call out fee on holiday weekend, plus $$ for new pump. When I saw how they did it, I just shook my head and paid the money. Yes, I could have done it myself. But yes, I’d probably have messed a few things up and made multiple trips to the store and it might have taken me a couple days to get it done.

All in all, I’d have had to purchase a new pump anyway, so all it cost me was the $300 call out fee + labor. It’s one of those times where it’s nice to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it, watch them do it so you know how next time, then realize if it happens again, you’re still going to call them out.

 

[stumblinhorse]

What sucks about the whole things is this…

After much contemplation, thinking the whole thing through, and finally deciding to let the pros do it, they’ll show up, walk over, look down in the pipe, walk back to the truck, pull something out, walk back to the pipe, and have it coming out in 5 minutes.

It’ll look surprisingly easy to you and you’ll always wonder for the rest of your life if you could have done it yourself.

But that’s why they’re pros.

When our well pump went out on a Friday night on a holiday weekend, I knew it was the well pump. I knew there was some sort of special connector down 6’ in the hole. I knew it could be done myself. But I just didn’t want to wait around and see if I could do it myself while the wife and kids are wanting to take showers, flush the toilet, etc. So I called the well company. They showed up, had the old pump out, new pump in and everything done in about an hour! $300 call out fee on holiday weekend, plus $$ for new pump. When I saw how they did it, I just shook my head and paid the money. Yes, I could have done it myself. But yes, I’d probably have messed a few things up and made multiple trips to the store and it might have taken me a couple days to get it done.

All in all, I’d have had to purchase a new pump anyway, so all it cost me was the $300 call out fee + labor. It’s one of those times where it’s nice to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it, watch them do it so you know how next time, then realize if it happens again, you’re still going to call them out.

wow. That is an amazing story. If that happened here the call would go unanswered. I would call over 2 or 3 days and maybe get someone. They would say maybe next month they could do it for $3-5k. Last plumbing thing I had quoted was a new hot water heater put in on my hydronic heating system. I had already bought the water tank. Estimate was $900/hr 4 hours for $3600. I did it myself obviously in about 4 hours…

I do absolutely everything myself. The “pro” people don’t ever do a better job than you do on your own property. I truly can’t remember for the last 20 years a single thing I paid someone to do that I was happy with or they did a good job. Different area of the country I guess. No specific industry is different, auto, plumbing, electrical, painting.

I hope the OP has someone they can call to make this mishap fix easy for a few hundred bucks. My neighbor just paid the local person to do his as preventative maintenance, 10 years old. He paid $8k.

 

[bdhsfz6]

What sucks about the whole things is this…

After much contemplation, thinking the whole thing through, and finally deciding to let the pros do it, they’ll show up, walk over, look down in the pipe, walk back to the truck, pull something out, walk back to the pipe, and have it coming out in 5 minutes.

It’ll look surprisingly easy to you and you’ll always wonder for the rest of your life if you could have done it yourself.

But that’s why they’re pros.

When our well pump went out on a Friday night on a holiday weekend, I knew it was the well pump. I knew there was some sort of special connector down 6’ in the hole. I knew it could be done myself. But I just didn’t want to wait around and see if I could do it myself while the wife and kids are wanting to take showers, flush the toilet, etc. So I called the well company. They showed up, had the old pump out, new pump in and everything done in about an hour! $300 call out fee on holiday weekend, plus $$ for new pump. When I saw how they did it, I just shook my head and paid the money. Yes, I could have done it myself. But yes, I’d probably have messed a few things up and made multiple trips to the store and it might have taken me a couple days to get it done.

All in all, I’d have had to purchase a new pump anyway, so all it cost me was the $300 call out fee + labor. It’s one of those times where it’s nice to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it, watch them do it so you know how next time, then realize if it happens again, you’re still going to call them out.

The older you get, you also have to decide what your time is really worth!

 

[bdhsfz6]

wow. That is an amazing story. If that happened here the call would go unanswered. I would call over 2 or 3 days and maybe get someone. They would say maybe next month they could do it for $3-5k. Last plumbing thing I had quoted was a new hot water heater put in on my hydronic heating system. I had already bought the water tank. Estimate was $900/hr 4 hours for $3600. I did it myself obviously in about 4 hours…

I do absolutely everything myself. The “pro” people don’t ever do a better job than you do on your own property. I truly can’t remember for the last 20 years a single thing I paid someone to do that I was happy with or they did a good job. Different area of the country I guess. No specific industry is different, auto, plumbing, electrical, painting.

I hope the OP has someone they can call to make this mishap fix easy for a few hundred bucks. My neighbor just paid the local person to do his as preventative maintenance, 10 years old. He paid $8k.

I've been a DIY'er most of my life. I built the house I live in from the ground up. While I agree with what you say about contractors in general, the well company I deal with has always been fair with me. They put in the house well 40 years ago and have replaced the pump twice since then. The last time was a weekend in mid December of 2019 (My birthday actually). The temp was -5F and they were here within 2 hours of my call. Charged me a total of $2100 to pull 500' of pipe and replace the pump. Took them around 3 hours, including warm up time next to the coal stove. Unfortunately, the pandemic hit them hard and they lost half their work force. Hence the 1 month wait.

Sure, I could have done it myself but at what cost to me AND my wallet. Others aren't so lucky with contractors though, so it all depends on where you live and who you know.

 

[MossRoad]

The older you get, you also have to decide what your time is really worth!

That’s true.

I heat mostly with firewood in the winter. The amount of time I spend producing that firewood heat could be spent working a part time job that would pay more than the cost of the natural gas bill that I’m saving by burning wood.

However, I enjoy the activity and like the feel of wood heat VS forced air.

 

[Egon]

Deep hole, lots of weight to pull up, need pulling tools(lots of different types), need tubing for the pulling tools, may need rotation of the tubing and then there’s the rig to hoist and turn.

Call a service company! They have the tools you are missing.

 

[MossRoad]

wow. That is an amazing story. If that happened here the call would go unanswered. I would call over 2 or 3 days and maybe get someone. They would say maybe next month they could do it for $3-5k. Last plumbing thing I had quoted was a new hot water heater put in on my hydronic heating system. I had already bought the water tank. Estimate was $900/hr 4 hours for $3600. I did it myself obviously in about 4 hours…

I do absolutely everything myself. The “pro” people don’t ever do a better job than you do on your own property. I truly can’t remember for the last 20 years a single thing I paid someone to do that I was happy with or they did a good job. Different area of the country I guess. No specific industry is different, auto, plumbing, electrical, painting.

I hope the OP has someone they can call to make this mishap fix easy for a few hundred bucks. My neighbor just paid the local person to do his as preventative maintenance, 10 years old. He paid $8k.

I do most of my own work myself as well. Plumbing, heating, carpenter, electric, flooring, carpet, concrete, most of my own car work until recently when electronics make it unaffordable to diagnose, etc.

Between my father, 2 grandfathers, and myself, there are 18 women and no other men. They passed on the wisdom to me that there are times when it’s better for everyone involved to hire a professional.

Having my wife and daughters without a toilet or shower for a few days is one of those times.

 

[stumblinhorse]

I do most of my own work myself as well. Plumbing, heating, carpenter, electric, flooring, carpet, concrete, most of my own car work until recently when electronics make it unaffordable to diagnose, etc.

Between my father, 2 grandfathers, and myself, there are 18 women and no other men. They passed on the wisdom to me that there are times when it’s better for everyone involved to hire a professional.

Having my wife and daughters without a toilet or shower for a few days is one of those times.

2 years ago my pump died. For fun I called, soonest appt was 6 weeks out. I paid $900 to rent a boom truck so my livestock would have water. Trucking in water from 10 miles away was no fun for only 1 day.

 

[bdhsfz6]

That’s true.

I heat mostly with firewood in the winter. The amount of time I spend producing that firewood heat could be spent working a part time job that would pay more than the cost of the natural gas bill that I’m saving by burning wood.

However, I enjoy the activity and like the feel of wood heat VS forced air.

I hear you. There's nothing better than the feeling of a hot stove on a cold day. I switched from wood to coal 25 years ago but still enjoy the work required to handle the coal & ash.

 

[stumblinhorse]

I hear you. There's nothing better than the feeling of a hot stove on a cold day. I switched from wood to coal 25 years ago but still enjoy the work required to handle the coal & ash.

Different parts of the country same thing. But I still burn only wood. Cutting wood early this morning. I burn 15 cords a year. Me and my wife are the workforce. 12 cords done only 3 more to go!

 

[MossRoad]

Different parts of the country same thing. But I still burn only wood. Cutting wood early this morning. I burn 15 cords a year. Me and my wife are the workforce. 12 cords done only 3 more to go!

Yikes! In the worst winter we’ve had, we only burned 6 cords. Lit the fire October 1 and it burned darn near continuous until the end of March. Only used 4 matches that year!

I like to keep two years worth ready to burn, but the last few years have been so mild that I haven’t had to split anything.

 

[ponytug]

This is all fresh in mind for me as well, as I noticed a little turbidity getting pump into our storage tanks a year ago last fall, which lead me to investigate, and I realized that the footer (check valve) was leaking in the pump. I called the local well drillers, well not so local, as I later found out that they cover the entire state, 500 mile radius. They had drilled the well and installed the original pump thirty odd years ago. They said it was the longest lived pump that they had in their service area.

It was a fiasco on many levels not in the least because they fluffed their original paperwork for our well that they put in. So when they pulled the pump, they had the wrong size pump on the truck. I begged them to come back that same day as rain was in the forecast, but they decided not to. Due to the rain making everything ice like slick, it was a week or ten days before they came back, (yes, no water, other than what we had stored) and they couldn't get their boom truck to the well, because it was still slick, and they don't believe in 4WD trucks. I did ask. So, the new pump and pipe was lowered by hand by a guy standing on my pump house walls. When they got down a hundred feet, I took pity on the guy doing the lowering, and used my tractor as anchor for the safety rope. Then they fluffed the wellhead installation, both on the plumbing side and the electrical side, requiring another trip. I would only recommend their clean up guy. He was good. The rest of them literally had trouble looking in the truck to find a matching size fitting, so yes, it was me rooting around until I found the right fitting. Don't get me started on their mastery of dielectric isolation.

Still, I was impressed at the number of use specific tools in their tool box. I would have needed to buy more than a few of them, and the 30' boom assembly to do the job, and it would have taken me days to do it.

All the best,

Peter

 

[LouNY]

Makes me appreciate our shallower wells mine is 150'.
I'd have a bit of difficulty doing mine today, but 25 years ago one of my brothers and I did my install ourselfs,
Heavy wall poly pipe, barbed pipe adapters, pitless adapter, under water splice kit to terminate the pump (actually used two kits as the well was artesianing ). It was interesting boring the hole in the casing with water flowing over and down the pipe while running a heavy duty drill motor and hole saw, at least I didn't need to lubricate the hole saw. After I finished the pump we had arranged to borrow to pump the water level down in the casing showed up.
But we connected the poly pipe to the pump lowered it down taping the wires to the pipe on the way in and spacing out the centering supports,
connected the pitless adapter, we also installed a check valve at the pitless adapter and lowered it down and set it in place. Had already run the lines to the house and yard hydrant. Connected them up fished the pump wiring through another pipe into the basement, wired up the control box and had water flowing in less then half a day. Used a 135 ft of poly pipe to get the pump about 10 ft above the bottom of the well.

 

[stumblinhorse]

Yikes! In the worst winter we’ve had, we only burned 6 cords. Lit the fire October 1 and it burned darn near continuous until the end of March. Only used 4 matches that year!

I like to keep two years worth ready to burn, but the last few years have been so mild that I haven’t had to split anything.

You are a lot warmer than here! Fire runs from mid October to late May. Last year was the coldest we had in a long time. Had 8-10 days reach -35 to -40 and we had a couple of stretches that we didn’t get above 0 for a couple weeks and didn’t get above freezing for over a month. I wish I could do 2 years of wood. But that is a lot and I like to keep it close to grab 2x a day!

 

[not2old]

That’s true.

I heat mostly with firewood in the winter. The amount of time I spend producing that firewood heat could be spent working a part time job that would pay more than the cost of the natural gas bill that I’m saving by burning wood.

However, I enjoy the activity and like the feel of wood heat VS forced air.

Before I retired, I did almost everything DIY. Mostly because if I spent the time earning the money, the government would confiscate 53% of my last dollar earned and that made a big difference in the actual cost.

 

[PILOON]

Wouldn’t the only additional water weight be the amount of water in the pipe that’s above the water level in the well? Anything below the water level in the well can be discounted. So now it only weighs…. A lot more than I can lift safely.

yep, right.
We got caught rising 300 ft setup but lucked out as a delivery guy just arrived on time.
300 ft of water gets rather heavy.

 

[Valveman]

Depending on how far it fell, the bottom of the motor could look like a hollow point bullet all mushroomed out. The pipe can also look like a cork screw sometimes. But maybe it didn't fall far or hard. Even so, it will be stuck in the muck and take probably twice as much pull as you have weight. The power wires and cable can be a big problem. If you don't pull them out at the same time and rate as the pipe comes out, they could wedge between the pump and casing and stick the pump. That is the good thing about only having casing at the surface. The bad thing about no casing to the bottom is that the pipe will be laying on one side, and maybe even dug in a bit.

I would use a cone as was described with a wall hook cut out of one side. Turning the wall hook will drag the pipe away from the side. The cone will center the pipe once it is drug from the side. Then above the cone I use an overshot. Fingers sticking up on the inside slide over a coupling on the pipe and spring in under the coupling to get a grip. Hopefully the wire and cable will be attached to the pipe and come above surface. If not, I use a spear with multiple hooks out the side to twirl in the wire and cable until it snags to a hook. Pull the wire and cable first or at the same time as the pipe.

Not going to be an easy job even with the right tools. And if break anything or drop ANYTHING else in on top of that rats nest it will make it much worse. I like to help people DIY, but even the experts may have their hands full with this one.

Oh, and I am old enough that cameras were not available to me and we just went fishing by the feel. A camera will save you BUNCHES to know what you are needing to attach to and where.

 

[/pine]

Maybe Lassie could help?...!

 

[bdhsfz6]

Maybe Lassie could help?...!