Well Pump Relocation

glassman

Woke up this morning to frozen pipes once again in the well house, heat strips plugged in, heat lamps on,etc.
Is it possible to relocate pump to the mud room where water enters house anyway? The extra 100' of water run, would that strain the pump as far as pulling water vs pushing? Thanks for replying

Williams Ex Co

Why not put in a submersible? Even on some of the smaller casings (down to 3'' I think) it do-able... Put a pitless adapter on your casing below frost level along with an extension of the casing to ground level. Pressure tank goes in the house now. No more freezing! Yay!!!

Aggie67

I may not have the answer you want to hear, but I'm familiar enough with well systems to try and help.

(Just to qualify what I'm about to say/ask in this thread, part of what I do to put food on the table is perform the well technical capacity calc portion of TMF's, and distribution design, for public non-community transient and non-transient well water systems. I'm the engineer-type that puts together the 2-part well pump test requirements, for the drillers out there that are familiar with NJ.)

Is it an exposed well head, or a buried well head, also can you explain your "well house". How big, slab, no slab, heated, construction, etc. Also, why does it come up to a pump house, and not run underground directly to the structure? Is it the underground section that is freezing, and if so, how far below the surface is the line running from the well house to the structure? When it gets to the structure, does it enter into a conditioned space or unconditioned space? Where is the line heat traced, and is there insulation on the line as well? Am I right in reading you: your pump is in the ground, pressure line comes up into some sort of pump house, then dives back in the ground and over to your slab/foundation?

I can't ever remember running across a commercial site that had its well line freeze up, but then everything we deal with is run underground or through conditioned spaces. Also, regardless if you have the pump in the ground or in your mud room, if the line itself is exposed, it's going to freeze unless freeze protection is properly addressed. You can run outdoor water lines 30 feet over head in pipe racks exposed to the weather that traverse a thousand feet, and as long as you have the correct freeze protection and it's installed and insulated properly, it won't freeze.

I think the quick-hit, low hanging fruit option here is to take a hard look at your existing freeze protection scheme, and try to address that before changing the system. It could be as simple as not having the tracing properly affixed to the pipe, or gaps in the insulation.

Can you take a picture of the area that is freezing?

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piercekiltoff

Based on it being a 'suction pump' - jet/centrifugal pump - you could in theory get away with 100 more linear feet of horizontal pull. However, there's a maximum suction lift that any pump of this type is capable of delivering, and that maximum also is affected by friction loss (so don't expect this to work with 3/4" pipe). If you're only increasing horizontal run and you have a large enough pipe, the only potential problem I really see you running into is that you now have a lot of room for air leaks to lose prime with.

Now, if you can relocate the pump, and you can keep the old lines in the well house from freezing, why bother? Do what the guy above says - install a submersible pump. In fact, if you've got a 4-1/2" diameter well or larger, you can pretty much stuff all the plumbing in the well these days. Even the tanks!

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Pierce Kiltoff, CWD/PI, JKA Well Drilling and Well Pumps & Filter Supply - Map Facebook
Monroe, Washington, (360)-794-7300
Serving the Entire Seattle Area, including King, Snohomish, & Pierce Counties, WA

Williams Ex Co

Piercekiltoff.... That 'No-Tank' seems to be a pretty cool step forward. Do you have much experience with them? If so what is your opinion? Thanks!

piercekiltoff

I've installed about 10 to 15 over the last couple of years. There was one series where the pressure fill port was mounted to the outside of the tank and appears to bleed off fairly quickly. The rest have the fill port mounted in line - so you have to raise it, unscrew the tank, and the port is inside the pipe end. Those ones are holding pressure and doing really well.

All in all, I like them a lot. You do have to install either a Constant Pressure system or a Cycle Stop Valve, or similar arrangement to control flow rates.

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Pierce Kiltoff, CWD/PI, JKA Well Drilling and Well Pumps & Filter Supply - Map Facebook
Monroe, Washington, (360)-794-7300
Serving the Entire Seattle Area, including King, Snohomish, & Pierce Counties, WA

Kgmz

As Pierce mentioned, constant pressure is the only way to go. Thats all we have been installing for a few years now. The installs we do are not exactly tankless, but use a very small 5 gallon tanks or so. And the nice thing is the pressure stays constant as the name says, no more 20 lb swings up and down with a normal pump and pressure switch.