On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 12:44:01 -0500, Jeff wrote:
I looked
at the pump head and thought about disassembling it... but disassembly
(well, disassembly without breaking anything) doesn't appear overtly simple.
It's not overly complicated either. I watched carefully when the repair was
done on mine.
My pump head consists of 8"? round PVC, capped with a flat top, there is
also a 1" PVC with standard cap sticking out the top, four nuts positioned
symetrically around the top, the water feed (with faucet attached) comes
directly out of the center of the 8" cap and the electical conduit runs in
Sounds like mine, but mine is 6". Mine also has a 3/4 inch dia. vent which
screws into the cap a little way from the center. It's about 3" tall and has
tiny slits in it. A convenient place to pour the bleach when it was time to
sterilize the well for the county required E. coli test - they require it
after drilling potable water wells.
via a hole in the top. I loosened the 4 nuts, but this did not seem to free
up the top assembly... Possibly I have to dig down to get at the base, but
Nope, you're working against the weight of the pump and piping as it's all
supported by that top. Takes a bit of energy to get the top up and pull up
the piping and pump. Mine's 180' and is fairly heavy - you have to remember
that the pipe is full of water unless the foot valve is bad. The nuts
compress a rubber gasket to seal the top to the casing.
the unit appeared fairly solid when I tried to move it back in forth. Short
of disassembly, I'm not sure how else to test. I've placed the call into
the installers... arggg....
Probably the best bet anyway. If the insulation is worn, you need special
heat shrink coverings to seal the connection when it's fixed. You can
probably find these if you hunt around - never have tried. Also, you can
watch to see if you want to handle such problems (or possibly replace the
pump when it wears out) in the future. The procedure isn't too terribly
complicated, but requires more than one person and a certain amount of
strength.
The fella that drilled my well did the repair. He used an old auto wheel
attached so that it can spin to a homemade stand as a roller to pull the pipe
(pipe is black flexible poly) and wire over after he got the top up. The
setup had the pipe and wire coming straight up out of the hole, passing over
the top of the wheel and then horizontally across the yard. A specialized
setup, but it could be done by pulling hand over hand - imagine it would be a
lot more exercise though...
Someone has to be at the wellhead to work spacers around the wheel and to
pull the pump straight up when it gets to the top - the wheel wasn't high
enough off the ground for that, only about a foot or so. Another person has
to pull the top of the well out across the yard as the pump is raised. Thus a
requirement of at least 2 people - mebbe more for your situation due to the
probable length of the pipe.
Let me know how it comes out. I'm still learning about wells and repairs
myself (have made an attempt to learn all I could in the 7 years we've been
on a well), so I'd be interested in what the actual problem is and it's
solution. Could you please use the address below and email the solution to
me? My daughter is going to rebuild my computer for Christmas and I expect
that I'll be limited to email at work for at least the next couple of weeks
since she's gonna be doing the rebuild in her spare time. That being the
case, any posting here will probably be gone before I can get it. TIA.
Good luck.
Later, Mike
(substitute strickland in the obvious location to reply directly)
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