Well Pump Removal

So Johnny and I have been needing to get this old pump out of the well….however it was piped with galvanized steel….of an unknown depth. After calling multiple well companies who pretty much refused to touch that with a ten foot pole (and told us we just needed to drill a new well) – we buckled down, did a BUNCH of research, and pulled it ourselves. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures as I was the one in charge of most things needing to be done. But we did take a super cool video of the last bit of piping and ultimately removal of the pump.

I researched this for sooooooo long, trying to figure out the best way of accomplishing this feat…and unfortunately, most discussion boards on the internet just chastise you telling you DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS – CALL A PROFESSIONAL. Yeah well, I tried. They wouldn’t come. I called three different companies and none of them would do it.

So here’s what I ended up doing…in my searching I came across suggestions for several different knots to use to hold and pull the piping. I tried a couple (testing at home using yarn and a pen) – and neither held. Then I tried a knot called a pipe hitch. This is the knot that held the piping, it’s finished with a clove hitch and then I even added a square knot on top of that, just cuz I’m paranoid!

At this point, I had to figure out how to attach my pipe to a hook to pull it. Then I came across the bowline. This is the part to hook onto the hoist.

Last but not least, something to pull it and do the heavy lifting, quite literally. We’re talking about roughly 75′ of galvanized steel piping, filled with water, a big ass pump on the bottom of all that, and the copper cable all the way down. This thing was HEAVY. We used a 2 ton haul master chain hoist from Harbor Freight (mainly cuz the 1 ton was not in stock). This thing was only about $60 with a nice coupon they had, and it had no issue pulling this rig up.

It took us 8 hours, but we got it up, and saved a load of money (assuming we could have ever gotten a well company to come do it for us). Check out our latest video to see our rig in action! We’re super proud of ourselves and this opens things up to be able to get animals out to the land once we get water established! There’s something to be said for self sufficiency!