Trash pump (and well) advice please?

Mickey Feldman · 2006-12-30T18:31:13+00:00

I've seen both centrifugal and diaphragm pumps described as 'trashpumps'. I'm not sure if either is appropriate in my case. Here's thesituation - perhaps those with experience/expertise couldadvise/suggest. I had a well dug last summer on our place on Texada Island. The areait's in is almost pure sand, and naturally the excavation was cavingin and widening as the digging proceeded. At about 12 ft. down we hitan obvious spring, and the excavator operator decided it would bedifficult and pointless to go any deeper. Now, at this point he shouldhave perhaps dumped in a bucket of rock before placing the plasticcasing, but he was anxious about the hole filling in, and didn't takethe time. After placing the casing he did surround it with lots ofrock, and we put a plastic ground water barrier around it a few feetfrom the top (He'd never heard of bentonite).The water is good, the recovery rate is not bad but not nearly as goodas I would have expected given the size of the flow we hit. Sticking a10 ft 2x4 down the well I discovered that apparently several feet ofsand has migrated into the bottom of the well, so that its effectivedepth is more like 8 feet than 12.I'm thinking of pumping out the entire well, including the severalfeet of sand in the bottom. While I"m at it, I'd go down there anddrill some holes in the sides of the plastic casing. Of course thisshould have been done before the thing was put in. Right now water canonly enter via the bottom, and must perc through all that sand.So my questions are:1) What type of pump is best used to pump (submerged, quick) sand? Iexpect there to be no rocks, sticks, etc, just sand.2) Is the well liable to just fill back in quickly anyway?3) If I do get it pumped out, would dumping a couple of feet of rockinto the casing help prevent sand entry, or would the sand just fillin between the rocks and then be even harder to remove than just sand?There's a Chinese importer here in B.C. who sells what appears to be aHonda clone centrifugal...

Dec 30, 2006 20 Replies

Rate this thread:

pccruiser 19 years ago

I won't even bother tring to take the sand out because it will just fill back in again. The easier solution as I see it would be to go to your local tool rental and rent a well driving rig for the day. Just drive a well head with the right screen size and your in business. I've done several shallow wells this way and never had to excavate. If your just going into sand then this ashould be quite easy and would be a permanent solution.

Vote