Well Pump Troubleshooting! Diagnosing the Electric Line to the Well. Repair a Broken Wire in ground.
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We were called out to this "no water" job after 2 other individuals couldn't figure out the issue. On day 1, I decided that the electric line was faulty. We ran out of daylight & had to return when the customer was also going to be there. Fast forward 4 weeks and here we are! Troubleshooting this Well Pump System was definitely a head scratcher.
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You did a great job making the repair. I beleive that you analyzed the situation correctly. There is another break un the #8 wire. The best way to fix that problrm is to replace the #8 wire going all the way to the well pump. You are an excellent mechanic and you do everything popssible to satify the customer. The home owner is going to find out the hard way that it would be cheaper to replace the wire. I really enjoyed this video. I am an electrician and I followed everything you did. Dojn't let this job get to you. You did not not do anything wrong. Keep Up your great work. God Bless You!!!
Great diagnostic approach. Your logic agrees with mine so either great minds think alike or maybe we have a case where idiots rarely differ. None the less I would have simply put in a new run to the pump based on my desires.
We don't know the situation. It's possible they are cheap and won't be in the house long, they don't have the money, they don't understand what is going on, or even the well is old, no since in all that work when it can be done with the well replacement.
You did everything you could to solve the problem and the customer had a different need. It happens all the time. Actually, you did everything right, and your legwork gave the customer options. You deserve to be paid for the time and effort to help the customer. Mike needs to be paid, and you were not available to do something else because you were working on this job. So you get 5 minutes to bitch, complain, and feel bad, and then it's done. You have better things to do than rework a past that you cannot change. Good work young man.
Honestly the underground connection in the box while running the wires up seems like the best of both worlds to me. Keeps the destruction of property down while also doing a great job waterproofing. Good job
I live in England when we splice underground cables we encase the wires in a two part epoxy to form a water right connection
Yeah, we are supposed to use an underground splice kit here as well. It has set screw sleeve splices that are then encases in shrink tubing that has some type of sealant in it. They work fine. There are cowboys everywhere, and God knows who worked on this system.
Last summery dad said his stove kept tripping his circuit breaker. He replaced it, still popped. Unplugged the stove, we still saw the circuit breaker pop. Looking at it closer, the wire feed going to the stove plug was aluminum. But the wire on the circuit breaker was copper. When previous owner had remodeled kitchen, they put a Cu/Al junction somewhere. Only pops on hot days. Similar to yours. Hard to find unless you really do keep digging, literally. Love the videos!
Insulation resistance test will tell you within minutes if the cable is bad. Old copper/ally connections often leads to hot joints or short circuits, especially if they weren’t done with the right compound or none.
My experience is when you've found you got a problem with electrical runs pull new wire the time spent not every time but sometimes is better for the customers money no paying me for something that ain't fixed. I learned a long time ago sometimes you have to walk away but with the customer understanding why. I also felt terrible when spending to much time I had to bill a customer usually only paying for my guy's labor and I don't like working for free very often
A meager should buy a megohmmeter or megger. They sell a hand crank one for a few hundred. You could of tested each half of the break to ensure where the issue is. The issue could still be on the house side. The megger would have proved it with 1000volts at low current. You can also use it to test a bad well pump that has a short to ground.
I buried a 10-2 wg 34 years ago and fed my barn with it by using a chainsaw with the chain reversed about 4 inches deep. Used a yardstick to push it down with and put in a gfci in the barn to feed plugs and lights. I’m amazed that it still works it’s on the second gfci. It mainly was to protect my livestock etc. I always recommend putting wire in conduit to my customers
Phil, your knowledge and experience is priceless along with your work ethic. This combination is so hard to find today in just about any trade or profession. I would imagine in your Dad’s earlier years my statement wasn’t so. I am retired but still enjoy learning and I have learned a great deal from you. Thank you. What I enjoy most about your videos is your love and enthusiasm for what you do. It’s infectious and seem to be shared and enjoyed by everyone. Great team. It’s not often, unfortunately, that I get to say nice things and mean every word. So thank you again. I have enjoyed a large number of your videos, always a 👍 of course, but I finally reached a point where I couldn’t watch another minute without making a comment. So keep spreading your knowledge, experience, joy and enthusiasm 🍻 cheers.
PS. It would be nice to see more of Mandy and Ginger😊
You don your best. People don’t understand the best way to fix a problem . They look for the cheapest solution. And get bitten again .
Great video, If they would splice it once, they wouldn't hesitate to do it again without notifying the home owner.
have a great day
What a wild service call.
I was always taught not to twist the strands together when using a crimp as the twisting increases the diameter of the "bundle" of strands, meaning after crimping any untwisting can loosen the hold of the crimp.
but Love your videos
What a dog’s dinner of a plumbing job by someone who should know better, bet they were cheap, you should be proud of yourselves as the customer had an inkling about the fault and said nothing, you are a honest company , not many around today.
Underground splice kit from Home Depot. Done. That’s what it’s made for!!!
I've used an underground splice kit with heat shrink over the splice. I pull a used bicycle inner tube over the wire before splicing and after the above steps, pull the tube over the entire splicing.
I then wrap both ends with gorilla tape.
Thanks for sharing your troubleshooting process on this video. Looks to me like you did all you could and it was up to the customer to make the call. No shame in that.
Heaven forbid you have to go back and replace the bladder tank😂😂😂
Amen!
@@thomaspoeta6308 or better still mark the property as not to be worked on as not serviceable and call it a day
Helicopter?
Great video again. Thanks for sharing this. This is the kind of situation where a cable fault tester comes handy.
Good job Rayn it takes lot of effort to try and find an electric short underground 😮😂😂
Is it possible that you have a hidden junction box in behind the drywall where it transitions from 10 gauge to 8 gauge?
That junction was in the bottom of the panel box, it tested ok.
@@h2omechanic I know you saw that junction but I would have opened the drywall anyway, or at least put a 3/8 hole to poke my borescope in and have a look. I still think there is likely a second connection in there.
@markbernier8434 the customer was too "clean" to allow that. #8 was in a 2" grey conduit in the wall, sweeping into the bottom of panel box. I want to pull it out, but he said stop. After 9 hours, I could have had a new line installed
They upsized the wire to account for voltage drop over the long distance. There are rated in-ground boxes for electrical use to address issues like this
I share your frustration with underground cable failure, the line underneath my wife's garden & a gravel driveway circle to a shallow well failed over a month ago. Water started sputtering out of the faucets & I feared the 14+ year old pump was failing. After some troubleshooting the black wire was found to be shorted to ground at the well & open at the pressure switch on the tank under the house. I did some quick testing with my metal detector & a telecom test signal fed from either end but couldn't find the break, probably because the guy that built the house himself buried everything in 4+ foot trenches.
I hate UF cable; 5 of my 12 or so buried UF installations over 5 decades have come back to bite me so I prefer conduit. I laid 130 feet of conduit above ground between the house & well to get water flowing again with the intension of renting a trencher in a couple of days to bury it. However, after getting the temporary wiring connected, I dropped the 250# well cover on two fingers of my hand. I think the broken bones will be sufficiently healed to run the trencher & backfill the trench next week. Hopefully, I can horizontally bore a 3" PVC pipe under the garden using a pressure washer to keep my wife happy. I also decided it's worth the extra $130 to purchase a new 1" poly pipe given the $300/day trencher rental & the difficult route.
Nice shot man.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. It really brings another level of home ownership when you have a well and a greater appreciation for your job. You are a stand up guy and I appreciate you and your channel
I started using the water sticks. I think I became very good at this art. This thought is for the owner of the channel. Your shop is in a water vein that's tears don't let any very sad people drink it. But that sodium is very safe for me and you. Cause we have lots of Joy. My town water pipe is leaking 2300 gallons per hour Between house number 18 and their tank. I person I told on the phone. My sticks tell me they didn't tell anyone lol.
Don't let anyone sad drink it after filtering.
The Chester NY water leak is 17 years old. Been really bad for 2.5 years. They looking for where there is tiny leaks. LoL
Another fine job fixing shade tree repair.
Mmm, Good times !!! You're bright you'll get it.
Good job, but personally I would have soldered them after crimping them, but tjats just me. I seen the crimps corrode to many times, where solder eliminates that.
Soldering, especially on large gauge wire, massively increases the risk of damaging the insulation and creating other problems though. A properly done crimp won't have any issues.
I used to be electrician for a carnival working with DC power
Being one who does low voltage and have done it for many years, do not feel defeated. You found the issue, made recommendations that’s all you can do. It’s our job to educate and recommend. Some go with it. Some do not. The repair could last forever or in your case, 5 min. Anyway be proud that you used experience and instinct for a successful troubleshoot
Divide and concur, Split and check.
Wow great vidio thank you so much friend for sharing infortainmen good work and good blless
I've been doing both of them for about 25 years
Something you might find handy-Pasar Amprobe Current Tracer Kit - P23 Probe T23 , find what breaker is feeding the pump. Locate where in the ground is the break, down to 6 feet using a regular extension cord for supply power. Find were the brake is. Your pipe tracer may work the same way-
Super 300 sealer works great over elrctricalntape
Cool 😎
Very interesting. I'm sure the customer appreciated your honesty and your fault finding ability. Not your fault that the carport slab excavation properly damaged cable. You could suggest that the customer dig and expose cable himself, just in the carport slab area if he is capable of doing it to save some money.
I also put in septic tanks and it's got a dozer tank in it we had a problem it was back feeding through the ground
👍 sweet
Perfect. Thats almost exactly what they do for bigger underground powerlines. I think you could have buried it tho, it's rated for it.
Something to keep in mind for the future. There is a wonderful device called a TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer), it can be used to find breaks and shorts (even PARTIALS!) in long cable runs. You could get a new one for about $6k from Mitchell Instruments. You MAY be able to rent from an equipment supply house in your area. They will tell you how far from your connection the fault is. In the past it has been damned near a lifesaver for me when trying to figure out WHERE a conductor was broken (in my case it was a coaxial network connection).
For future reference, if you have to make another underground splice there are a couple of good alternatives to the hardening basement cement. Some big box stores & all electric supply hoses have liquid electrical tape. It's black, gooey & comes in a can similar to a small PVC cement can. It makes an extra watertight seal when brushed over the shrink seals. The other substance is known as "coax seal", another black gooey substance that comes in a roll for sealing radio coax outside connections. There is also a black gooey weatherstriping that comes in 4" wide rolls for sealing around windows & doors during construction. I usually wrap the shrink wrapped connections with tape before applying any of these substances & wrap it with tape again for underground splices. This makes opening up the splice easier if future problems arise.
You clearly have never done this.
@@Failure_Is_An_Option I didn't say at any point that I had repaired an underground well cable. I did extrapolate from my. past experience waterproofing splices of coax & other types of cable above & below ground.
So what is the (your) problem?
I just purchased a "waterproof" underground wire repair kit! on Amazon to replace a wire's place I had to do in a box underground at the cabin that I recently opened up this spring and found it completely flooded with water and thought maybe I should try and replace that with something that's a little more waterproof than what I did 10 years ago. It was supposed to be here today before I head out to the cabin and I'm going to be installing it when it arrives but it might arrive tomorrow so that might work a little bit better than what you just did if you have to do it again
Hi I am an electrician in the uk and I am surprised you use such a vulnerable cable buried so near the ground surface. In uk we are required to use a steal wired armoured cable (SWA) buried at least 24 inches deep. Love your videos and find them very interesting.
That wire installation was a bad joke................. nowhere near even heritage code compliance.
There are electrical splice kits for under water available. Its been 30 years the my dad installed our pump, the place where he go the pump from sold him the splice kit as well. The wires are crimped and then the whole thing gets filled with some epoxy. And since in Germany most houses have 400V 3 phases we didn't use a #8 wire for our pump, #16 is fully sufficient.
Look into the 3M Scotch Cast underground splice kits
Next time use a gel splice kit. Use them all the time. What a frustrating service call. Good job
This area of Oregon requires a tracer wire on water lines: pumps and city lines. Water lines are also put in below the freeze depth (my specific area is 4 feet) and insulated. Every pump I have seen go in new, they put the wire in conduit because there are critters underground that tend to chew on things.
Thanks again for the help your videos are the best on TH-cam Mississippi
Editing so it doesn't get buried - I'd open the splice in the new box up again and make sure your heat shrink tubing didn't allow a short between the wire connectors. They have sharp edges and are right next to each other and that tubing might not be the right material for that application. Original novella below.
Love the videos. I would have used continuity/resistance measurements to see if a short was still present. Then split that connection where you found the damage and checked either side of it. Pump side and house side. Might be able to only replace a half or a third of the wire run instead of the whole thing, if a missed short was the problem.
But, you also had all of your butt connectors (you called them "stake-ons" I think) next to each other instead of staggered. So only the insulation of the heat shrink tube is stopping a short circuit between the connections. Plus the "stake-ons" had sharp edges after crimping. Might be that the heat of the seven amps and the thin heat shrink material allowed the sharp edges to break through the heat shrink tube and contact. Just a thought. You put a lot of effort in to protecting from an outside short to ground but maybe not enough on an internal one, between the wires. If you have the time it might be worthwhile to open up that splice again. Since it's in a box it's easy to get to.
Hate to be critical but the fact that it worked for a short time then didn't kind of fits my guess, I think. Keep up the good work.
I agree, but likely he didn't have enough slack to offset the splices.
He taped over the individual heat shrink on each conductor. So there is tape adding electrical insulation between them.
His splice was overkill yet you think it might be the problem?
Just a single splice with a heat shrink is used in submersible applications. He did that plus wrapped in electrical tape plus heat shrinked two more times over the entire splice
There are devices that use Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) to determine the distance to a short in a cable. Basically we send a waveform down the cable and when the wave hits the short, the wave bounces back. How many nanoseconds that takes gives us an idea of how far the wave traveled. The simplest, and least expensive of these don't display the TDR waveform; they just give a reading in feet to the short. You hook the alligator clips on, push the button, and you have a number.
In this state neutral busbar is separated from the mechanical ground
I have a toner now to locate my sprinkler wires
We put in a pump about 3 months ago we had electrical storm burn the pump up it was still under warranty it was down 200 ft
do they not have direct burial electrical junction boxes down there?
Pretty sure I have a break in an underground wire to my septic holding tank. The alarm that's supposed to go off when it's getting full doesn't go off anymore, and thinking back it worked before they buried my cable for internet and not after. This video reminds me I should really get someone to locate it for me so I can fix it.
Had this same sizzle and no breaker and no power (to the shed in this case) at my in-laws several years ago. No power to the shed, but the breaker had a near 20amp load on it. Dug up the line in several places. Finally found a few feet 2/3 of the way between house and the shed where the wire was dissolved - nothing but green dust.
A lightning strike a few years earlier had destroyed the electric fence charger in the shed, and the cable modem and a few other things just inside the house near the power line out to the shed. And apparently that strike had perforated the insulation in the underground power wire and electricity leakage over the years had gradually dissolved the copper. After replacing that underground wire, their power bill went down by more than $50 per month.
We had the same conversation about it possibly was lightning that caused the wire to fail.
Ok I’ve got an electrical short somewhere in my truck lights’ wiring harness. ….if you could just…. 😂😂😂
One idea how to locate the short - I would try to find the fault using thermal camera. If you run 30amps through, the heat must be significant to be "visible" after some time... If you don't want full 30Amps running through, I would try to connect only 120V to the wire to keep the current in some safe margins...OR connect some load (space heaters...) in series of the cable to limit the current and let it run overnight. And in the morning (before the sun hits the ground) walk with thermal camera and the short should be visible as heat spot
It would have been good to ohm the wires both directions before the repair. I feel you on this, it is truly an aggravating situation. But on another note, I am going to have nightmares thinking about that tank.
I just ran into this exact same problem with a pole lamp in a customer's front yard. The wire was buried just a couple inches in the ground and landscapers hit it in 2 spots
There are tools you can hook into the wire that tell you how long the wire is. You can hook it on and find the break measure out and dig there
I believe those devices are called "Time Domain Reflectometers". They can tell within a foot or two where a 'discontinuity' is.
Open the splice and see if it’s shorted to the house or the well.
Troubleshooting eletrics can be hard when it goes beyond the basics ,,,, plus,, u dont have a apropriate meter ,,,, with it, and proper knolege u can read the disance of all the insulation defects along a cable...
and,,, by the way , at work we repair underwater cables (for life) with Cheap Epoxy Submarine 👍´´´another detail ,, when repairing the cable as u did, always (cut) /space the 3 wires with 1 cm distance along the cable ,,, i think u understand why
anyways i have learned a lot with u regarding water suply ,,, thanks for your videos 👍
Check the wiring coming in the main wire coming in is shorting together
At the old farmhouse I lived at when the pump come on the lights dim come to find out loose ground
The ground rod clamp was loose
Check in the AC disconnect under that eve you were pointing to in the beginning. May find something crazy going on in there
I do underground splicees all the time on the ranch. the only thing I do differently is I stager my splices so they aren't rubbing together and use underground heat shrink then put a piece of black plastic pipe over it because frost up here will make the splice rub together and short out awesome diagnostic though 😎
I thought it interesting how much extra wire there was on the first repair
You need to invest in a wire fault detector. I have a fluke wire fault detector that will tell me how many feet away the damage is. You could isolate each section of wire and ohm test each section with a dmm.
That wire should be 24" to 36" below the surface of the ground and it should be in conduit. I do not use any type of direct burial cable for anything.
Dielectric grease or compound should never be used on the actual conductor or contact since it's an insulator and will increase resistance in connections. It should only be used to seal the insulator or rubber jacket.
Good troubleshooting! As much as we all dislike the National Electrical Code , things like Underground Cable splicing is usually a No No for good reason like you found. Out in most rural areas, NEC has no authority and good common sense has to prevail. Good Common Sense ain't very common.
Looking at the electrical taped blown out splice you found is not unusual to find one or more when no Inspector is around to out a big X on these. Eventually water will get into the splice.
There are Direct Burial Splice Kits that also include RTV type sealant within the shrink tubing. Even in a meter Box enclosure, heavy rain can flood the enclosure and get into "dry" (no silicone) heat shrunk splice.
As a 3rd generation journeyman electrician HVAC tech people breakers are made for certain amps as is wire it will kill you or set your house on fire
Open the LB and check the amp draw there then you will know which direction to start checking.
Tip when i join wires like this is to stagger the joints so they dont all meet at the same point if that makes sense.
We work in different fields, but one common thread is weird bugs like this that are sometimes not worth digging up (figuratively or literally). I'll be very curious if you hear more about this particular situation once they've put a new line in the ground. Also curious if there's any way to protect a long line like that from lightning striking nearby (e.g., a tree or even direct to the ground above it)? I'm guessing not really...
450' of #8 and that kind of run to the well and I would be looking at having a conduit installed and then encased on concrete.. or least a directional bore 60" UG and some UL-listed HDPE would be the way to go if the customer doesn't want the landscaping disturbed. In a commecial application, could bore 4" HDPE with 1-1/4" UL sleave at 60" and then pump in some concrete for some added protection.
From the box you get a 125 from the box to decepticon 120
3M #82 scotchcast splice kits would have been used for this repair kit. Any local electrical supply house sells them. You pour a resin into a tube, and seals off any water intrusion.
Wire problems can be the worst. I hate wire problems
Our well pump had a double 30 amp breaker... water heater also should not be on a 60a pull switch
probably where their roll of wire ran out and they spliced it there. there's possibly more splices, depending on the total distance and wire spool sizes.
if one failed, more will sooner than later, unless that was damaged by a machine when having the car-port/canopy built.
Don’t know the code in the USA for underground cables, but here in the Netherlands you have to make the connection in a special joint, and fill it with a kind of epoxy. Groundwater can and will penetrate. Good luck with this one.
Gophers are the most efficient saboteurs. They will chew on Romex until they get what they want, that 240 volt ZAP. Grey Romex, or lay pipe to run it in.
Or lightning. I had a bolt hit my pump and tried to go in, but it blew the Romex in two. It took two hours for a well company to sort that out and lay new grey.
Use these the best UF stretcher splice kit
3M UF2-SPLICE-KIT Splice Kit Stretcher 11.7" (297 2 mm) Connector 20" (508 0 mm)
You need a megger and an underground a-frame style fault finder to sort this out.
A Megger? What is that? Not trying to be smart I promise. Just curious.
@@BUFORD-T It's a high voltage ohm meter for electrical insulation leakage testing. It catches the intermittent stuff as it can arc across gaps.
I have a question, where is the junction in the wall that goes from #10 ga. to #8 gage wire, are they just twisted and taped, or wire nuts? if so that can't be good? Did you have the customer sign a release so you can't be held liable?
Hey, can you fix my well pump? I don't know why it's blowing the breaker. But don't do a better job than I would do myself.
Hey , 3M makes an excellent direct burial splice kit for any size cables (armored or not), i would megger( at cable rating 300 volts i'm guessing) the existing cable after you find the other fault (probably where you think it is) , using the proper sized butt splice and crimper is the most important part of this repair , do not twist your wire , do not apply silicone to copper area of splice , do not use the next size smaller crimp dies in crimper set (every connection does expand/contract a little bit so some give is a part of the manufacturer's hardware) , the cable from panel to last short HAS been stressed more than the rest of cable ,that is what you wanna test with megger (insulation test in MegaOhm's, higher better) and you can use about .6 to .8 ohm's/1000ft for copper resistance (less is better), exact values are googlable easily . that is my 2 cents , i'm thinking i just opened a huge can of worms here , good luck
Bit of an unrelated question, but where do you source your mock-rocks from, and are there any brands to avoid?
Also, as an industrial electrician, I'd say you did the best you could with that repair, and that the customer getting a new wire run is indeed his best bet. There's no way to tell if, especially with some sections being so shallow, anything else in the yard has compromised the wire over time.
That #8 spliced in is likely the issue. Basically system has a giant fusible link.
What does shaking cables mean?
Heat shrink and scotchkote and tape heavy and bury it. If done right, last forever.
You need to get yourself a Megger and test the cable and the motor independently for a fault to ground. In my line of work it’s indispensable, I generally work on shorter runs of cable and three phase equipment but it would work just the same. I
If you ever need to make an underground splice again 3M makes a kit called scotch 82-A1 or 82-A2 or 82-A3 depending on the wire size that is the best for this. Done properly it will last longer than the wire. Done hundreds over the years.
Could it be the splice in the wall ?? Where it goes from 10 to 8 wire?
What is "shaking in " a cable mean?
as a fully qualified industrial sparks in the UK ( not in work now 77 years old ) the only cable I would put in the ground in that location would have been a wire armoured cable at least 600 mm deep with id tape above . that said I would have one jointed UG with a resin filled through joint box .
on a personal note that owner would not take your recommendations ( what is the regulations / code for UG non armoured cable ) if the job would not meet that I would refuse to carry out the work , he will only bad mouth you if it goes bad again
but I have to say that wire/cable was small fry ( jk) it had to be at least 500amp or above to interest me ,or large scale control panels
my last job for a UK bank had 4 500ton chillers and six 16 cylinder cat stand by gen sets.
Cut the wires in the LB and see if the breaker still trips that will tell you if the fault is inside or outside.
I bet that the wire running through the outside wall has the same connection, all taped up to.
Do you splice your black roll pipe when your installing a pump or do you buy 1000 ft rolls?? I was wandering on your deep well installs.
We can buy 300ft 400ft & 700ft rolls. But we can Splice the pipe with a SS inline
Probably wire was hit when car port was installed. Wire was too short to repair so a short section of wire was installed so there would be two splices.