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My son's submersible well pump started acting up back in April. We replaced it, but never looked in the old pump to see what went wrong. Until now.
Watch Part 1 here: https://youtu.be/CntPc6b34Ac
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0:00
So we're about to expose the source of my grief back in, was it, early spring, I guess
0:08
Yes, if you remember, we did quite a long video about failed water pump, subversible water pump at Robert's Place
0:16
We did, the cause wasn't obvious. It was still pumping water, but we were in strange fibers in the water
0:23
A lot of backing and forthing, we eventually determined that it was the subversible pump, chewing at
0:29
itself up in some way. So we got a new pump and put it in and that solved the problem
0:36
But this pump was only three years old. It's a good name too. Jiro is a respected name. So
0:41
we got a replacement. They sent us a brand new one which is handy to have on it's a spare
0:47
because we've chosen to go with 120 volts submersible pump which is not too typical
0:53
The reason for that is so that we can power the water pump with a small generator if need be. Also
1:00
to a brand new pump, we've got a motor from the old pump
1:06
And this was bolted together once upon a time. There's nothing wrong with the motor
1:11
It was just the pumping chamber. And that's what I want to show you now
1:15
We're going to cut this apart and find out exactly what went wrong
1:19
I know something went wrong because you try to turn the thing by hand and it's
1:25
something's not right in there. No plumber that I ever called. about this and had ever heard of this sort of problem before, a pump chewing itself up
1:33
So it's kind of unusual. I'm interested to see what's inside of a pump like this bueno
1:39
I've never seen inside one and also why it's broken. So we're going to get a nice big power
1:46
half saw and we're going to cut this open and see what we find. I don't know if it'll be worth
1:52
looking at or not. I'm not sure where we should cut. What do you think, Robert? I think we should go
1:57
just slice it in the middle or try something angled or what do you think
2:02
Well, probably in the middle. I mean, it's going to be quite a long cut if we try to go angled
2:07
Yeah. Okay. So the electric motor fastens here with this coupling and this area remains open
2:14
This is where the water gets sucked in. And I guess it gets drawn in around the shaft there inside and then eventually comes out the top
2:23
There's a check valve here in the top of the pump. So stops the water from trying to get back down again once it's been pumped up
2:33
Let's see this a whirl here. Do you think I should get safety glasses
2:40
I got your little cordless there too. Yeah, not that I can use it here, but I was just going to mention how often I use these hacksaws
2:50
I mean, they're pretty handy. I don't do a whole lot of metal work, but I do from time to time
2:56
And these things are enormously helpful. This is a nice little handheld one, a couple inch throat depth, just for small stuff
3:05
But for this job, we're going to need to go with the cordless or this recorded
3:10
And actually, I'm going to move this over a little bit. Yeah so are we ready Yep
3:27
Okay, here goes. Almost through. I can tell we've been going through different sort of density. Sometimes it's taking a while to cut through. Sometimes it's just falling right through
4:00
so the mystery is almost so so. There it is interesting
4:19
But you must be Oh, okay. We're below the interesting bit, I think
4:30
Yeah, we're still into the section, I think, yeah, we're still into the section where the water gets drawn up
4:39
See, the water comes in here. But you see there's openings here, here, here, here, here, here
4:48
So the water's coming up there and there's sort of a swirling thing going on
4:55
Ah, but you know what? Doesn't this look kind of familiar? Sure does
5:02
Yeah. Cursed fibers. That's the stuff we saw floating around in the water
5:06
Give me grief in spring. But I don't really see anything wrong there
5:12
I mean, this is pretty fibers in there. Look at that. Yeah, look at that
5:19
What is that? What was that? Well, it was, well, most of it was
5:28
sawdust from the song. I think there may be something down further. Let me get a screwdriver
5:38
Start a little bit of bashing and smashing here. Going to bash and smash now? Well, maybe a little poke and pry first. But I think there
5:46
may be some sort of a pumping chamber under here. You know, these pumps are always described
5:51
as having different stages, like a two-stage pump, a three-stage pump. I'm kind of thinking
5:55
there's probably a series of pumping chambers. And we may be past the first one
6:00
So let's just... This will look to be some kind of a pumping chamber in there. Plexiclass
6:25
No, well, some kind of clear plastic, but That's interesting This whole thing is coming up now
6:34
It hard to tell but I think this thing is I think this thing is an impeller
6:53
And once again, look at that. Once upon a time, it was fast into this shaft
7:04
But you can see, look at the rub marks. Can you see that? the rub marks on the side here. Yeah. I think that this for whatever reason, this lost its grip on the
7:15
central shaft and then this shaft was just spinning within the within this first impeller
7:22
Wearing away the plastic of the impeller and that's what the fibers were. Exactly. Well, they
7:28
looked just like this except a bunch of them. Yeah, that's identical to what we pulled out of my
7:33
taps. We consulted a couple of plumbers. at the time because we didn't want to go out and buy another $1,000 pump, put it on and find the fibers
7:42
are still floating around. But none of them, and these are guys with 30 and 40 years experience
7:51
they've never heard of a submersible, but they deal with them all the time, never heard of them
7:55
breaking down like this. What do you figure's under there? There might be another impeller
8:04
I mean, we've kind of, we're certainly, and look at that. I hope I can get it apart more, but whatever bearing there was down there is kind of shot
8:17
There we go. Well, just your basic disaster
8:36
I'm still curious. about what's going on deeper in here. I think we found our culprit as far as why this thing broke
8:46
I'm still curious. You can't tell by the video, but this stuff here
8:57
this discoloration, it's iron. You can smell it. It smells like iron
9:01
You have a fair amount of iron in your water. Yeah. I hope there isn't something peculiar about our water chemistry that
9:07
chew up to municipal pumps every few years. I don't think so, though. I just thought I'd give you something
9:13
to worry about. Should we cut it again? Just to see what's further up? Why not? Okay
9:37
Another washer or something. Well, I'm seeing another pumping chamber of some kind
9:46
I think there's probably at least another one of these impellers. Maybe, maybe, it's kind of like a little water wheel
9:59
It spins around and you see it got these angled things Water impellers always look like this I seen them in jet pumps too and they kind of they kind of grab the water
10:14
As I understand it, they grab the water as it spins around and force it down in towards the center
10:20
That's kind of how it moves the water. So it's a sort of propeller
10:27
Here's that check valve. So I said when the water flows out
10:32
pushes it open but when it tries to go back down again it can't
10:37
Have we solved any sort of a mystery here? Maybe we should should I try bashing
10:41
one away further in? Might as well. Okay. Can't help think back to your words of wisdom
10:54
to me when I was a little kid at times like this. Robert, never force anything
10:59
Figure out why it's not opening up. Don't bash and smash. Okay, you got me
11:07
But sometimes a bash and smash is necessary, right? When you're dealing with a pump that's already broken, for instance
11:13
So now isn't this, okay, look at this. This is interesting. So here's the central shaft
11:18
Once upon a time connected to this. And this is one of the impellers, the not broken one
11:24
One of the not broke ones, I can see some more in here too. and the impeller is locked to the shaft by virtue of its octagonal, hexagonal shape
11:35
Oh, yeah, hexagonal shape. That's the thing that was broken out of the center of this one
11:42
So how exactly had it broken? Can we see that? Not exactly
11:47
The hexagonal part had just broken loose of the disc or had it worn to a circle
11:52
No, it broke. I don't know, maybe something got caught in it
11:56
There's nothing in here well though, and we were a long way off the bottom. But, yeah, another in color
12:03
I bet there's a third one here somewhere. Another one
12:18
I can see what looks like two more in there. Two more
12:26
That's a total of what? Five, it looks like one. Certainly there's at least one more
12:33
Actually, I can see two more. Two more than there. As far as we can see, it was just the one that let go, right
12:44
Yep. All the others were fine. That's why it was still kind of working
12:48
Pumping decently, yeah. Yeah, it just wasn't reaching 60 PSI. So there's no particular moral of story here
12:56
I just thought you might find it interesting to look inside and see how these things go together. See how this pump failed
13:01
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13:09
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13:14
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13:20
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