Fun With Sump Pumps

While reading the otherwise lackluster News Gazette this morning, I encountered this "eerily similar to my life" column : And Not A Drop To Drink. It recounts the author's recent sump pump failure in her well pit.

Here's my version...in two parts

In March, shortly after buying Mudpies 'n' Fireflies, my mom was visiting to help out for the weekend. While I was doing the lunch dishes, the water pressure dropped momentarily, but then came back. The city boy in me said "Hmmm. No big deal." The logical engineer and experienced country boy in me said "That's not right."

So, after lunch I went out to check on the well. Lo and behold, there was a good three feet of water in our well pit -- above the pressure switch and the pedestal sump pump. The electrical engineer in me was surprised to find the open-motor sump pump happily pumping while fully immersed. The rubber check valve had blown off the plumbing, so the pump was pumping right back into the pit. After shutting off the power (220V + 3ft H2O + Jonathan = bad things), I set to work.

Once the water was pumped down (spare utility pump for just such events), I replaced the pressure switch (also had a spare) so that the family would have water again (Ethan tends to freak out when the toilet doesn't work). Shockingly, when I plugged the sump back in, it started pumping (with a little smoke). Problem solved.

About 9:30 in the evening, I thought I would check on things before bed. Good thing I did because the pump had tipped in the other direction and was stuck on. So, in a blowing snow storm and in the dark, I managed to anchor the pump to the concrete wall. Problem solved (again).

Fast forward three months... After mowing on Saturday, I was spreading the sump hose out when I heard the unmistakable sound of a running motor in the well pit. I pulled off the top and some smoke drifted out. I quickly got the ladder, climbed down, and found the sump had finally given out. Fortunately, I bought a new submersible pump in March in preparation for this day. It seemed straightforward to swap pumps, even in the impending dark. Of course, the fittings didn't match and the new pump didn't fit right in the hole. I composed a short-term solution, but will be down there later in the week after visiting Lowes.

Thanks for the inspiration to write this Mary.

Here's a picture of the well pit (full top off) from when we had our well flushed a couple of years ago (I don't ever get to work down there on a sunny day or even during the day...usually only cold wet or snowy evenings):

From Well Flush

Well Enema

This last fall we had our well run dry three times. Usually, this happens about once a year. We're not real sure what happened, but it was probably the confluence of a dry fall and Owen learning to use the toilet, hourly. We also ran out of water Christmas week. That time, we might have just had a frozen pipe. Needless to say, we've been real conservative with our water usage since then. However, we didn't move out here to use less water. So...

My grandfather had mentioned that the last time he pulled the pump out of the well, there was 6-8 feet of gunk in the bottom and the pump wouldn't go all the way back in. So, we thought maybe the well needed to be cleaned out to have a little more capacity, and maybe open the bottom back up, where the water's supposed to come in from the limestone.

It's taken 2 months to find someone who provides this service, get our schedules to match up with the weather, and get the health department to clear him to work on our well that has a well pit (which is no longer kosher with health code). He came out today to flush the well out for the first time in the 60 years since it was put in.

Well pit. I put in the red tank and associated newer plumbing in during a snow storm a couple of years ago after the original pressure tank (lower left) sprung a leak.

After pulling the top off the pit and pulling my pump (>15 years old) out of the well, he did some tedious measurements and pumping with his own pump to measure the well levels. Most of the water seemed to be coming out of the soil, rather than out of the limestone. Then, he put some massive 6" PVC together and stuck it onto the top of the casing (top right in the picture). Then, he fed some 2" rigid PVC all the way to the bottom and pumped ~1200 gallons down in there to loosen up and float out all the gunk. Mostly what came out was gray shale drill cuttings that have washed into the well over the years. Some rust came up as well.

Our well pump and it's 60 feet of pipe.

This rust stuff flushed out first. This is why our filters clog up so fast.

Mostly, this stuff came out. It's all tiny little pieces of clay-like shale that had washed into the well over the years. The water eventually became clear, for those who have drunk water at our house.

Next came more tedious measurements that seemed to indicate that we had revived some of the limestone supply. The well seemed to be constantly producing ~5 1/2 gallons per minute, after pumping several hundred gallons to dissipate the water in the soil. The well guy thought that was an impressive number for our well and is probably about as much as our plumbing can handle anyway.

Finally, he put our pump back in, and we cleaned up the untidy wiring that was in the pit. Now, we should be able to "pump the hell out of it."