plumbing issues and more...

[Leadfoot281]

Last week my renters lost water at the house so I called the local plumbing outfit to get it fixed. During the repairs they dropped my well. The house has a 100 feet deep, 2" diameter well with jet pump. Before they dropped it, they'd screwed a pipe plug on the end of it (instead of a coupler) making retrieval virtually impossible. :confused: :mad2:

Over the next two days they tried everything to get the well back out of the ground but couldn't. So there I sat, no water in the house and no way to get it there. They suggested I call a well service.

With my back up against the wall, I had a new well drilled in the backyard ($10,000+ so far) and should have water in the house by Saturday. In the mean time, I jury rigged a 350 gallon poly tank to the house and hooked it up so they have showers, ect.

Due to health regs, the old well pipe still needs to come out of the ground. The way this is generally done is to drop a 4" drill on the 2" well and basically hog the whole thing back out and re-cement/grout it. Very, very spendy.

I spoke with the plumbers that goofed up my first well and they said they didn't carry insurance against a dropped well because "it's expensive". :mad: They ought to carry some insurance, right?

This doesn't make any sense to me. It's be like putting hail, deer collision and theft insurance on a car but nothing else.

What's my next step? Call the lawyers?

[justbob]

As a plumber in Illinois, we have HAVE to be not only licensed, but carry all forms of insurance/bonds and have all permits pulled. Check your state law on their requirements or for an easier way out, YES contact your lawyer.

Maybe Guspech750 will chime in as he is a well digger.

[thathotrodlincn]

This is my opinion only. The dropping of the well was the fault of the plumber, not the owner. As such all expenses solely at the responsibility of the neglegent party. Insurance, or the lack thereof, merely assists in determining who shares in paying those expenses. The plumber should be forced to pay NOW. He should also pay all consequential expenses.

[martyo]

He should also pay all consequential expenses.

Does the law provide for that?

In any event, you ought to consult a lawyer sooner rather than later.

[RF Overlord]

In any event, you ought to consult a lawyer sooner rather than later.^^^Listen to Marty O, Esq. He not only plays a lawyer on TV, he actually IS one... ;)

[Vortex]

Must be nice to only have to go down 100' for good water....

[FordNut]

When I bought my house it had a well but it wasn't in use. It's a 6" well and it had a cap on the top. The house had been connected to utility water for a long time, but when I re-did my lawn I dropped a pump into the well to bring it back into operation for watering the grass. I was really paranoid of the plastic pipe coming off the pump and making it impossible to pull the pump back out (the electrical wires will just pull right out of the pump if you tug on them too hard) so I tied a nylon rope to the pump before I dropped it into the well.

[Leadfoot281]

Must be nice to only have to go down 100' for good water....


Nothing actually nice about it. I have water at 12' here. If it weren't for state regs, I'd just got pound in a sand point myself and be done with it.

Martyo. Will do, thanks. I just wish I didn't have to resort to this. An old expression comes to mind here "even a dog won't ***** in his own kennel"". This is a small town and getting tough with a local businessman doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth.

[fastblackmerc]

Nothing actually nice about it. I have water at 12' here. If it weren't for state regs, I'd just got pound in a sand point myself and be done with it.

Martyo. Will do, thanks. I just wish I didn't have to resort to this. An old expression comes to mind here "even a dog won't ***** in his own kennel"". This is a small town and getting tough with a local businessman doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth.

It's either be ***** on or ***** on someone else.......

I'd take the latter.

[Local Boy]

fastblackmerc...is correct, but left out one more option...

Refuse to get sh$t on, and never sh$t on someone else...or risk building enemies...

Just be polite and professional, but make your point...with or without insurance he is responsible to cover the fix...The hard part is if he says no...you still have to remain polite and cordial...This is how you maintain a good standing in your community, while still refusing to be stepped on...

When you live on a small island...this is your first lesson...

Start contacting your lawyer...If he doesn't have insurance he is most likely to say no, to cover the fix...

Aloha

[martyo]

Just be polite and professional, but make your point...with or without insurance he is responsible to cover the fix...The hard part is if he says no...you still have to remain polite and cordial...This is how you maintain a good standing in your community, while still refusing to be stepped on...


Sound advice.

[guspech750]

[QUOTE=Leadfoot281;941008]Last week my renters lost water at the house so I called the local plumbing outfit to get it fixed. During the repairs they dropped my well. The house has a 100 feet deep, 2" diameter well with jet pump. Before they dropped it, they'd screwed a pipe plug on the end of it (instead of a coupler) making retrieval virtually impossible. :confused: :mad2:QUOTE]


I am guessing they dropped your pump down the hole. If so. That should be fairly easy to get out. Even if the pump was capped of. The pump still has an electrical wire that can be snagged and twisted around a retrieving tool. I have gotten pumps out that others have dropped down the well quite easily. I just snag and twist the wire and gently pull it out. Granted I also had the use of a down the hole camera to see what is down there first.

But like Justbob had said. I am licensed and our company always gets the proper insurrance, bonds and permits. I hope you can get this solved without going to court as I am in a 4 year battle that we won. But is still on going. But please do contact a Lawyer to find out your rights and the contractors responsibilities are and always be nice. Good luck.

[Leadfoot281]

[QUOTE=Leadfoot281;941008]Last week my renters lost water at the house so I called the local plumbing outfit to get it fixed. During the repairs they dropped my well. The house has a 100 feet deep, 2" diameter well with jet pump. Before they dropped it, they'd screwed a pipe plug on the end of it (instead of a coupler) making retrieval virtually impossible. :confused: :mad2:QUOTE]


I am guessing they dropped your pump down the hole. If so. That should be fairly easy to get out. Even if the pump was capped of. The pump still has an electrical wire that can be snagged and twisted around a retrieving tool. I have gotten pumps out that others have dropped down the well quite easily. I just snag and twist the wire and gently pull it out. Granted I also had the use of a down the hole camera to see what is down there first.

But like Justbob had said. I am licensed and our company always gets the proper insurrance, bonds and permits. I hope you can get this solved without going to court as I am in a 4 year battle that we won. But is still on going. But please do contact a Lawyer to find out your rights and the contractors responsibilities are and always be nice. Good luck.

Thanks for the advice. Just to clarify a bit though, there was no pump in the well. The pump was located in the basement. This well is just 2" in diameter.

[guspech750]

[QUOTE=guspech750;941603]

Thanks for the advice. Just to clarify a bit though, there was no pump in the well. The pump was located in the basement. This well is just 2" in diameter.

Why would they even pull a well up? When you pull a well, the sand pack that we install around the screen gets all messed up. But if you already have a new well drilled then the old well would have to be overdrilled and grouted to prevent any possible contamination going down the old well and into your water table and messing up any other well or wells in the area.

I have fished out tremmi pipe and pumps out of 2 inch wells.

[guspech750]

There are drilling retrieving tools that are designed to overlap well pipe or broken drill rods. As you lower the tool down and reach the pipe you push down hard and turn counter clockwise so you dont possibly unscrew any threaded well pipe or drill rods that are down in the hole.

[Leadfoot281]

[QUOTE=Leadfoot281;941676]

Why would they even pull a well up? When you pull a well, the sand pack that we install around the screen gets all messed up. But if you already have a new well drilled then the old well would have to be overdrilled and grouted to prevent any possible contamination going down the old well and into your water table and messing up any other well or wells in the area.

I have fished out tremmi pipe and pumps out of 2 inch wells.

The problem began when the jet pump, located in the basement, began clicking on/off every five minutes one night two weeks ago. My renters shut it off and called me the next day. After talking it over for about 5 seconds I called the local plumbers.

The plumbers took a look at the whole thing a replaced the pressure tank and then pulled the well. Somewhere along the line, they put a pipe cap on the end of the well pipe and accidentally dropped the whole thing.

If you've got any pictures of the tools you used to pull a 2" well, I'd love to see 'em. Maybe I can fab something up for it in my shop.

If I can get that pipe out of there, I shouldn't have to over drill it, correct?

[guspech750]

I will take a few pictures Monday when I go to work. As far as overdrilling. No you would not have to. Each state had different laws regarding abandoning wells. In reallity though. Depending on how much pipe is in the ground and as long as you can pump a bentonite grout or portland cement as deep as you can then all would be fine.

How much well pipe is in the ground?

[Leadfoot281]

I really have no idea how much pipe is in the ground right now. There's water at 14' and the well is about 100' deep.

[FordNut]

Oh, so this is not a submersible pump like mine. Sheds a bit more light on it, but I'm no help at all since I have zero experience with the type of pump you're using...

[guspech750]

If you have a 50 or 100 foot tape measure with a heavy weight on the end, you can measure to see how far the pipe fell down then you can either try to get the well pipe out or you can put together some 1 inch pvc pipe and lower it down mix up some portland cemment or bentonite grout and pump it down from the bottom on up. That way you get rid of all the water and gunk down there and have a solid hole. Sometime regulations will let you just leave the pipe in the hole as long as the hole and usually the inside of the well pipe is pupmed with the cemment or grout.

If it were my well. I would just find the top of the well. Hopefully its about 40' or more down the hole. Mix up portland cemment since you can buy it at hardware stores, rent a gas pump, suction hose and a 1" discharge hose that you can attch to the 1" pipe, buy "X" amount of 1" pvc pipe make an adaptor to attach the 1" discharge hose to hook up to the 1" pvc pipe. Put it down the hole untill it stops. Mix up the cemment in a 55gallon drum or garbage can. Pump it down the hole and while you pump it push and pull the 1" pipe up and down to make sure you get the cemment as deep as possible. once the hole is filled with cemment let it sit over night to settle and top it off with some clay and top soil backfill. and be done with it.

[CBT]

Pump it down the hole and while you pump it push and pull the 1" pipe up and down to make sure you get the cemment as deep as possible. once the hole is filled with cemment let it sit over night to settle and top it off with some clay and top soil backfill. and be done with it.

Gonna have some Hulk arms by the time you get done settling cement a hundred feet down, with a pvc pipe also filled with cement.

[guspech750]

Oh gosh. Sorry I did not take those pictures today. I was running around our shop and equipment rental companies getting ready to drill a bunch of wells at an oil refinery that I do a lot of work for.

[Leadfoot281]

No sweat. I really appreciate the help BTW! I am interested in what this rig looks like though. The well people got water to the house today and I got everything wired up. That side of the job is done and my renters are happy...and probably taking a long shower right now.

I also got a number to an attourney that handles these sort of issues (specializes in contractor and building issues) from a member of my local Jeep forum. I don't think I'll need my usual attourneys for this one. "Always bring too much" but at the same time, "never hire a brain surgeon to paint a fence" is my plan here.

I'm still on excellent terms with the guys that messed it up but don't know how this will all pan out in the end. Since they're the only plumbers in town, I depend on them from time to time. Suing them might make life difficult for me in the future.

I've already got a large cement mixer so if need be, I can grout in the well myself.

[martyo]

I've already got a large cement mixer so if need be, I can grout in the well myself.

Talk to your lawyer before resorting to seld-remediation, especially since you have running water now. Please.

[Leadfoot281]

Done deal!!! We got the pipe out!

I'll try and get a couple pics posted tomorrow. Too tired right now.

What we ended up doing was taking a 1/2" drill bit and welding it inside a pipe that just barely fit over the pipe cap. This pipe was about 1 3/4" across and maybe 18" long. (imagine a Pringles potato chip can with a drill bit at the bottom with the cutting edge facing the lid).

Once this thing-ama-jig was lowered into the well, it fit tightly over the pipe and the drill bit sat dead-center on the cap plug where it couldn't possibly wobble off.

All that had to be done now was to apply pressure to the pipe on the surface and start turning the whole deal with a pipe wrench.

Eventually the drill bit bore into the pipe cap. The custom made "drill" was pulled out and then he dropped in the, (dang, I forget the name of it!), but it looked like a cone shaped thread tap. With more pressure asd twisting, that was threaded into the hole left by the drill. Now all we had to do was lift everything back out with the boom truck. Done deal!

We succesfully drilled a hole, dead f'n center, in a pipe cap plug, 55' under ground. Absolutely. Amazing.

That's the good news. Now the bad news...

We dropped the camera back down the well after we got everything out of it. It really was bad. I don't see any way to go after the original plumbers for making me drill a new well in the backyard. That HAD to be done. Good bye $10,000...

The bottom of the well casing was partially collapsed. That's why the pump (inside the house) kept turning on and off. The well was loosing water (below the thimble) because the actual well casing was shot. This also made lifting the pipe out almost impossible. Aside from being impossible to grab because of the cap plug, it was just plain jammed in there.

I will ask the plumbers to pay for the cost of removing the guts from the original well though. If they had used a coupler instead of a pipe cap, none of this would have happened.

The best news though is this: After today, I don't have to drop a very expensive 4" hole on top of the 2" well to get it cleaned out so it can be properly (and legally) grouted shut. BTW, I'm NOT going to do this Marty so I can bill the local plumbers for it. ;)