Installing a manual well pump.

[Deleted]

We've got a well here that used to be the water supply for our place about 10 years ago.  Several years before we purchased the place the county put in water so the previous owner ran the 1/4 mile run to get to the road and grab water.  Part of going on "public" water was that the well lines (electric and water) had to be completely disconnected from the house.  I've got an extra generator that I was going to use to hook up to the well and pump water if need be, however I have considered going with just a manual pump instead.

I managed to get in touch with the guy that built this place and asked him about the well (among a lot of other things). 

I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to wells so I am looking for advice.

The well is around 200ft and water is around 180 or so.  The guy that installed it said that he put a "bushing" around the water line going down and that I could not run another line down.  

My question (s):

Where typically is this "bushing" he is referring to? 
Am I going to have to pull this entire pump/line, remove the bushing then drop everything back down and add in my manual line?
How hard it is pulling the pump up from that far down?

I mean in a perfect world I'd love to simply go get a 240 plug for the end and run the generator if we need the water but the survivalist in me realizes that gas and diesel to power a generator would be gone in no time and I'd have no potable water.....so I'd sleep a lot better knowing I've got a manual pump hooked up and could have enough water to keep things going.

What am I up against here?   I'll take all the advice that anyone has to offer as I have never messed with a well outside of volunteering to help dig a few 25ft deep ones by hand 30 years ago.



 

[oxankle]

Here; I'm no expert, but I've done a well or two.

First, if you intend to pump water by hand from a 200 foot well you are going to have one long and heavy sucker rod. Second thing is that you will have to drop a long pipe with the pump valves way down there---a suction pump manually operated will only pull one atmosphere--about 25 feet.

Second thing--if the fellow had an electric pump down there, do you know if it is a submersible electric or was it a jet pump? A jet will have two lines down, the jet line and a return line that furnishes the usable water.

Third, is the line going down metal or plastic? If it is plastic it will likely have a wire and a rope attached to it--the wire to power a submersible pump and a rope to pull the pipe up for service. If you find that set up you and a friend can pull the pump and remove whatever bushings there are, or the whole piping set up. But you'd probably be better served to keep the submersible electric pump. TEOTWAWKI is more baloney than probability.

The "bushings: on such a well are just plastic collars around the pipe that permit the passage of the pipe and any ropes/wires that are needed but keep the pipe reasonaby centered in the well. Nothing special--you can deal with them.

If the down-hole pipe is the black pipe sold in coils you and a friend could probably do all this with no more than a 4 x 4 tripod and pulley over the well. one fellow pulls the pipe up by the attached rope, the other fellow carries off the long "hose" and wire as it comes out of the well. The rope and wire will likely be taped to pipe at intervals, so you'll need to be able to tie off the rope to something solid so that you can catch a breather and attend to the wire and rope fasteners.

Were I in your shoes I'd pull the cap off the well and put some light down the hole to see what I had. I would NOT want to put a manual pump on that well.

[spacecase0]

you might want to consider a solar powered pump, a hand pump might be a pain that that kind of depth
here are some ideas
these will be more reliable and will run on AC or the solar
www.solar-electric.com/wind-and-water-products/sodcwapu/grsoposuwapu/grsqpu.html
this one costs way less
www.solar-electric.com/sdsosupu.html

[gundog]

I would pull the top off the well and take a bolt tied to a rope and lower it down until you hit water or the collar. If you hit water first keep tract of that depth and continue down until the rope goes slack. I did this on our well and while my well is 225 feet deep and my pump is at 150 feet, My water level is at 35 feet. I will be setting my hand pump at 75 feet and with a refill rate of 3 gallons per minute I can pull all the water I need for the family. Just saying, I would check your static water depth as there my be no need to pump from that great of a depth.