Mounting a Well Pump in the Basement

[CampFireJack]

Quick note: This wood mount quickly rotted away due to all of the moisture in the basement. I had to rip it all out. I now have the pump mounted on some cement blocks. If I were going to do this project again, I would certainly use pressure treated lumber.

PS - Be sure to share your own photos below. I'd like to see some other basement well pump mounting solutions. Thanks!

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There are a few things that I really love about this house. Two of them are, 1. We have a shallow well and, 2. The well pump is in the basement.

When we lived in Connecticut, we had a deep well. Who knows how deep it was. I’m sure it was very deep. There were nights I would lay in bed wondering when the pump was going to go. Either the pump or some other catastrophic event having to do with the well. And in that part of town, when something did eventually go wrong with the well, I’m sure it would have cost thousands just to get someone out there to look at it. I’ve pulled up well pumps. Believe me, those people earn their money.

When we arrived at this house, I was delighted to learn that the well was shallow. I believe I was told that it’s about 18 feet deep. There aren’t many houses out here, so shallow wells are common. Usually people lean towards deep wells due to pollution and septic, but there isn’t that issue here.

Upon inspecting the basement, I was even more delighted to learn that I had extraordinarily easy access to the well pump because it was located right there – in the basement. It was sitting on three cement blocks. Sitting there ready for repair or replacement. Oh what a joy.

There was something I wasn’t too fond of though. And I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because I’ve decided to skip laying gravel in the first part of the crawl space as a water buffer covered by plastic and decided to go with the hundreds of free pavers we have stored out back, or just because it looks more tidy, but what I didn’t like was how the well pump was mounted. Well, actually, it wasn’t. It was laying on top of those three cement blocks I just told you about. Here they are. I just pulled them out of their resting place.



Basically, if I was going to start prepping the basement for gravel and a plastic vapor barrier, I would need to get everything out of the way. And that included elevating the well pump off the ground and getting rid of the cement blocks. I would need to create some sort of a shelf. I began thinking of this last night and throughout the evening, I devised a plan.

I spent about two hours this morning cutting plywood and extra boards I found laying around and put together something mighty fine indeed. While it doesn’t look like it could make it down a modeling runway, it serves its purpose. And it’s strong. I drilled right into the concrete, so I know it’s strong.







When I was finished putting up the very strong shelf, I thought I’d better mount the pump to the shelf. The way it was, it was flopping all over the place from the rigidity of the attached hoses. They basically controlled which way the pump was going to sit, not the other way around. To solve this small issue, I looked through my bin of odds and ends and found a few old toilet tank mounting bolts. I drilled some holes and used the bolts to hold down the pump.





What do you think? Is this not the best mounted well pump in the basement ever?

 

[JodyBuchanan]

Where are most pumps placed? At the bottom of the well? What is the reasoning behind that since it seems much more difficult to fix/replace?

 

[CampFireJack]

Most pumps in deep wells are placed at the bottom of the well piping. And honestly, I have no idea why they do that when external pumps are way easier to manage. I’m going to have to look into this and get back to you. I’ll ask around.

Update: I found that there is a limitation to the shallow well “jet” pumps. They are only good for pumping wells no deeper than 18 feet.

 

[EmeraldHike]

I have an open well, like a foot in diameter that the A/C unit condenser run off drips into. Every once in a while we get an under flow whihc causes the well to back up into the basement, no standing water, but it could worse. The water is 11 feet down in the well, about 18 feet below the surface. This is from the Aquilia Acquifer in the mid-west. Since I can’t get a pump to the bottom of the well, what kind of pump could I hand from the top of the well for when there is another underflow? I happens when there is heavy rain.

 

[CampFireJack]

Shallow Well Jet Pump Low Pressure​

I had a doozy of a night last night. It all began when dark brown, very dirty and sandy water began coming out of my kitchen sink faucet. I was trying to wash some dishes and I was astounded by what I saw. I knew something had gone terribly wrong, so I started things off by investigating inside my well. I have a shallow well (dug well) that's only about 12 feet deep. I'd say I've got about eight feet of water in it. It's a great well that's never run dry. Probably because we have a high water table in my area and the well is situated approximately 50 feet from a stream.

Right after the water ran brown, I noticed that my well pump wouldn't shut off. It's in my basement and I can hear it through the floor. I found that odd. I went downstairs and flipped the circuit breaker to the off position. I came to the conclusion that the jet pump issue had something to do with the muddy water it was sucking up from the well.

I went outside and pulled the concrete cap off the well. Apparently, the end of the plastic water pipe that was once being held about a foot from the bottom of the well had broken and the foot valve was touching the ground. I had looking into the well a few months prior and actually thought the bottom of the well was concrete because it was grey like concrete. Not so. The floor of the well is mucky dirt and my pump was sucking it up.

I used a pole saw (tree pruning saw), blade end down, to pull the bottom of the pipe up off the ground and then I tied two new ropes to a stainless steel hose clamp. I fished the clamp down towards the bottom of the pipe and somehow (very luckily) managed to get the clamp around the end of the pipe. There were other clamps on the pipe as well (securing the foot valve) and they wouldn't let the new clamp pass them. I was able to keep the end of the pipe lifted from the bottom of the well and I tied the ropes off up top. Problem solved.

I went back inside and flushed out my pressure tank and the house pipes. I have a sediment filter installed with ball valves on either side, so this was pretty easy to do. I just removed the filter element and let the water pour out into the basement crawl space. I then connected everything back together and turned the pump back on by flipping the circuit breaker. Again, the pump wouldn't turn off. I knew it had something to do with the fact it had sucked up sand and dirt from the well.

The well pump I have is a Sta-Rite jet pump. I'm not sure of the model number. It's a 1/2 horsepower. I looked all over the place to see what was wrong. I tried Google and YouTube and didn't get very far. I finally came to the conclusion that the sand in the pump had ruined it somehow. Perhaps it destroyed a seal or a bearing. I thought the water was being pumped up and then, because of the bad seal or bearing, not creating enough pressure to activate the pressure switch. The pressure switch is suppose to flip when there's 30 pounds of pressure in the system, but the pump would only create 20 pounds. I even removed the hose (tube) that went from the pump housing to the pressure switch. I thought that might be clogged with sand. Nope. It was clear. And as I ran the pump, I pulled the pressure switch up with a piece of plastic. It worked fine, so that wasn't the problem.

Just as I was losing all hope and began looking for a new jet pump to purchase, I found a page that suggested I try something. It said there's a cleanout plug or bolt that's situated directly below the well water inlet pipe. If removed, any sediment that's collected at the end of the nozzle / jet / venturi inside the pump can be removed, thus increasing the pressure the pump produces. I ran downstairs, turned the electrical power and valves off again and removed the bolt. I pushed a thin screwdriver in the hole and hit something hard. I continued to push and the screwdriver through and it went, breaking through the sediment. Apparently, there's been sediment inside the pump for years and it became rock solid. The additional sediment that was pulled up last night was the icing on the cake. I guess it clogged up the end of the pump nozzle (I'm not exactly sure of the interior workings of a jet pump) and didn't allow the pump to produce the necessary pressure to flip the pressure switch. To make sure I got all the sediment out of the pump, I turned the valve from the pressure tank on a bit. When I did that, water shot out of the pump bolt hole, along with the remainder of the sediment. Feeling confident, I screwed the bolt back into the hole.

When everything was set, I turned the circuit breaker back on to give the pump electrical power. It turned on and after running for about a minute, it turned off at 30 pounds of pressure. I tested it out a few times by running the water in the house and everything worked fine. And then this morning, I flushed out our electric hot water heater to get all the brown water out of the tank. As of this moment, the water in the house is just about back to normal. It's almost as clear as it's going to get.

There should probably be a moral to this story. I guess it would be this: if you suck sand up from your shallow well and your jet pump won't turn off, first fix the well and then flush out the pump. The way these pumps work is that they need the water to move a certain way inside of them to build the proper pressure. If they're clogged up, even a little bit, they can't create that pressure. If there's not enough pressure, the pressure switch won't activate, leaving the pump running indefinitely.

Let me know if you have any questions. If you have any interest in how a well jet pump works, take a look at this video:

The Basics of a Jet Pump