Water well problems

About a week ago, we began to experience some problems with our water well. It began as greatly reduced flow to the point that it was barely a trickle coming out the end of the garden hose. We were also beginning to see flecks of dirt or something in our drinking water in the house. We started pouring it through a coffee filter to get the flecks out. Then, it began turning really dirty looking.

I talked to my son-in-law about the issues. He and my son began working on things, starting with putting in a new well switch and pressure gauge. The gauge has little to do with water flow other than telling you what pressure it's at when the switch kicks on and off. They also replaced the spigot that was in the well house because it was pretty corroded. Sometimes the water pressure would build up, but then it would drop again and it looked like the water was running BACK into the well from the water lines or pressure tank. There was a definite vacuum pull on the open end of the water hose.

None of the quick, cheap fixes worked, to our dismay, so the next step was to "pull the well". In other words, unbolt the well cap and pull out the water lines and well pump. Because my son has come down with some sort of bug, I helped son in law with the pulling. It wound up being about 100 feet of water line out of the well before he got to the pump, which was crazy dirty and muddy.

He rigged up a way to put the pump into a garbage can full of water, then hooked the power back up to it to see what happened. It pumped for a bit but didn't really get up to pressure. It stopped. Then it pumped again and sounded awful. Even from under the water you could hear lots of grinding going on, and it wasn't really pumping much water at that time.

So, the conclusion is that we need a new well pump. Son in law thinks he has one lined up for little or no cost, but if that one isn't up to specs for our well he'll have to buy a new one next week.