Well Pumps Dry in 5 minutes...

[Egon]

There should probably be a much smaller pump installed with a controller of this nature attached.

Powers Electric Products Company Water Well Pump Control - Model 250

 

[ultrarunner]

There should probably be a much smaller pump installed with a controller of this nature attached.

Powers Electric Products Company Water Well Pump Control - Model 250

I think my neighbors Dad must have been thinking of something like this 40 years ago?

In addition to the 3 wire pump cable there are also 2 wires that connect to what look like probes? One wire has a silver tip in a bracket 10 feet above the pump and the other is the same 40 feet above the pump.

Don't know how it works and there's nothing inside the pump house...

Thanks for the link!

 

[Highbeam]

Whoa, hold on for a minute. There is a method to set up a well that you are not following. You need to add a restrictor to the pressure line at or just after it leaves the casing. These restrictors are available is several flow rates and are a very common item since the typical well pump is way oversized for the well's proper flow rate. Pumping dry is bad and only happens when the well isn't set up right or when the water table drops out.

So this is how I've done it. You'll want to figure out the actual sustainable flow rate that the well can support. The way this is done with minimal instrumentation is to cut in a ball or gate valve on the line after the pump. The pump is centrifugal and if you shut the valve it will simply spin there. So you open the valve partially to a point where it is making say 10 gallons per minute based on timing the rate to fill a 5 gallon bucket. If the water stops flowing within an hour then throttle the valve down to say 8 GPM and try again. You will eventually reach the flow rate that can be sustained without running the well out.

Smarter people actually measure the draw down and make sure that there are still 10 or so feet above the pump after an hour at the max flow rate.

Now go and buy an 8, 10, or 15 gpm flow restrictor and put it on.

 

[Egon]

Use a globe valve for flow control.

 

[WarrenF]

Why don't you do the first obvious thing.....like was suggested earlier.....have the well blown first and foremost. In my area, a well that has set for that long without being used, would be blown first. If you don't know what that is.....you get a big compressor that pumps gobs of air with a long air hose. Put the hose down the well and turn the air on......it will blow all sorts of crap out of the well and clean the casing as shiny as a babies butt. Then try your pump and see if the well will produce the amount of water your looking for.

I just know one thing, which isn't much, wells that are not used for a long time tend to silt in and do not produce.