I live in the Houston area and we have ground water with a head around 20' or so. My buddy and I have been working to drill our own wells and I have been finding some good help on this forum so I wanted to post a few questions here before I get everything finished up on it. First, some details:
We hand augured a 6" hole down 15' and put in a 6" thin well PVC pipe as our outer casing. Then we water jetted a 4" pipe down 40'. We removed the 4" and installed 20' of 4" .010 PVC well screen and 4" casing down to 40". The water head is around 23' at the moment. After installing the screen, we put a 2" pipe down to the bottom and used a trash/mud pump to flush the well clear. I am installing a 1/2 hp submersible pump with a 1" ploy pipe riser. It will be hooked to a 20 gal diaphragm tank. I will be hooking the tank to my irrigation system and also pulling a 3/4" hose bib off of the tank for a water hose. We will not be hooking up to the house. This will strictly be for irrigation, which is why 40' was deep enough.
For washing the 4" screen in, we used a 4"x2" reducer bushing with 2" pipe threaded in hooked to the mud pump. When complete, we unscrewed the 2" and pulled it out. Then we poured a small amount of gravel down to semi-seal the hole.
I've killed 2 pumps at this point. After installing each one, I have been able to run for as long as I like - 20-50 gallons at 10 gallons/minute. Initially, the water has been dirty and sandy then clears up around the 5 gallon mark. Then, I've turned the pump off and then the pump gets frozen and won't come on. I've been able to remove the pump, and manually rotate the impeller shaft to get it free, then run in a tank without issue. However, it freezes back up the next time down. Upon further inspection, it appears that the impellers may be getting chewed up since I'm seeing some white plastic shavings.
So, I have a third pump on order as well as some stainless screen to wrap the pump in to prevent larger particles from getting in. I'm just trying to figure out if I'm doing something wrong here.
Am I getting gravel in the pumps (doubt it since I haven't had it come out when manually reversing the impeller and can't hear it when shaking)?
Is it just the sand that's killing them?
Is my well screen not fine enough?
At this point, I've got a decent amount of time and money in this effort, but this is the most critical part I guess. Any advice, pointers, or even gentle criticism is welcome. I'm sure I've done some things incorrectly at this point, but I just want to get this working...
Thanks in advance!
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