well question: sucking sound

[Clarence Martin]

So, there I was, trying my best to keep the shrubs watered. Got 2 outside faucets . One each on the North and South sides of the house. Have both of them hooked up and running about an hour ago. Was watering full blast on the shrubs. Went inside to take a pit stop. Toilet and bath Sink happened to be running along with the hoses. Also had the Washing Machine filling up with the day's wash. Went outside to turn the hoses off and heard that sucking slurping , chugging sound from the well. Noticed black grit out of the faucet at the time , too.

Was there too much water being pumped out of the well at one time for it to handle?

[Steve Jenkins]

Sure sounds like it. No pun intended.

[Malcolm McLeod]

I would offer you probably were hearing the equivalent of a straw 'slurping' at the bottom of a empty glass. The pump had probably emptied nearly all the water out the well bore and was sucking at the limited inflow of water from the surrounding aquifer.

At the risk of TMI - Most water wells can't can't maintain the full output flow of a pump for more than a few minutes: a well may only recharge at 5 GPM and a pump may be capable of 15-20 GPM, so if there's 100 gallons in the bore to start, you get maybe 6 minutes of full flow. Then you gotta either live with the slurping at 5 GPM delivery, or shutdown and wait for the bore to refill.

You can improve the delivery quantity by dropping the pump further into the well (assuming you're not already at the bottom of the aquifer). But there's no free lunch as you will see a proportional drop in delivery pressure due to the higher lift.

Or if this is a new event, maybe development or drought has pulled the aquifer down...???

[Larry Frank]

I would suggest you keep a close look on it. Sucking that stuff is not good as it could get into faucets. Hopefully you have a filter or softener that helps prevent it from getting into the house system.

[George Bokros]

Getting that grit into the softener is not good either. You were pumping water out faster than the well can recover. I would call a a well driller and have him determine the recovery rate of your well. You could run dry.

[Bruce Wrenn]

With over thirty years experience with low yielding wells, you need to think about getting a Pump Tech, if your pump has a Franklin motor. Pump tech senses current drop as pump is doing less work, and shuts pump down for a predetermined period of time, then automatically resets itself. As for lowering pump, most likely your pump is set about ten feet off bottom of well, to prevent sediment from stopping up pump. The "trash" you see is what is in veins / screens that is being pulled into well due to excessive draw down. Overnite it will settle to bottom of well. A 6" well stores about 1.5 gallons of water per foot. On your well should be a name plate with drillers name and yield.

[Lee Schierer]

Sucking sounds from your well are bad news. Western New York and Western PA are well below the normal rain fall levels so far this summer. Many water tables are lower than normal. I've seen numerous well drillers working on wells in our area, far more than normal.

Your heavy use may have been the cause. Submersible pumps do not like to run dry. There are protection devices that you can get that will protect the pump when they sense that the pump is running dry and shut it down for a period of time, allowing the well to recover. If you can pull of the cap to the well you should be able to shine a light down and see where the water level is.

[Clarence Martin]

Well is 70+ years old. The original well was a hand dug well in the front of the house with the old fashioned rope and bucket to get the water. Previous owner drilled the well himself when he added onto the house and extended the Basement. Well is in the Basement. No name on the Well. I do know that the Well is 55 Feet deep and the paper that was nailed to a beam in the Basement when I first bought the house, said that the water level in the Well was at the 35 Foot mark. So, there was 20 Feet past where they hit water. Well pump is a Goulds Convertible Deep Well Jet Pump.

[Fred Perreault]

Whatever volume you are pumping out of your well has to be less than the recovery rate of the well. Soil conditions, water table height, siltation inside and outside the screen at the bottom, the condition of the screen itself, to name a few variables contribute to the recovery rate of the well. It's possible to "redevelop" a well by using compressed air forced down the well bore to blow out and eject silt that may be blocking the bottom of the well. That may or may not help much. But mostly, what gets pumped out has to be replaced from the aquifer....... pump too much and you run outta water.

[Ole Anderson]

Talk to a well driller familiar with the area. Advice you get from the internet may apply to one area and not another. 70 year old well? Likely needing a new well/screen. That advice is pretty generic.