well pump help please

[Petert]

Recently acquired some property where a mobile home had previously been (one month ago) The mobile home has been removed by its owner and while they removed it they removed the wiring to the well pump. Pump is a submergible with 3 wires going down the well. Black red and green. My question how can I test these wires to know if the pump is 120 volt or 220 volt? I would prefer not to pull the pump if at all possible. Thanks for any help.
Petert

 

[dpendzic]

judging from the wire colors it is probably 220V--you could apply 120 to the black and red wires for a few seconds and see if you get a good flow

 

[Janicholson]

I agree black and red are often used for 220/240 volt motors. The green is equipment ground and not part of the circuit. It needs to be connected to the grounding rod attached buss in a sub panel. Jim

 

[Nordic]

It could well be 220 but for proper 220 wiring it should have a white wire also for neutral. So red, black, white and then green for ground.

 

[dpendzic]

many 220V devices don't use a white wire--its only needed if the circuits one leg is used for a 120V device--like a kitchen stove

 

[Keith True]

I wouldn't know how to tell by the color of the wires.For years pump wire was red,black,and yellow.Black and red to run,and yellow was for start.I see now some pumps are coming with 4 wires.All of mine are three.They need a control,or starter box to run them.Is it a problem to pull the pump?If it is 220 you will need the box to use it,you can't have all that juice running through the pressure switch.

 

[Caryc]

(quoted from post at 14:01:05 10/25/22) Recently acquired some property where a mobile home had previously been (one month ago) The mobile home has been removed by its owner and while they removed it they removed the wiring to the well pump. Pump is a submergible with 3 wires going down the well. Black red and green. My question how can I test these wires to know if the pump is 120 volt or 220 volt? I would prefer not to pull the pump if at all possible. Thanks for any help.
Petert

How deep is your well? My well is 120 feet deep therefore they installed a 220V pump to bring that water up.

 

[leroy in ne]

Keith your colors are correct for so called 3 wire pump requiring control box, However so called 2 wire pump motors have also been made for many years with no control box needed just switch, either pressure if used as pressure system or manual or float switch if used open discharge as stock tank or irrigation. green wire GROUND has been a more recent requirement and is not found on old systems. I recently run on to a well that the control box had manufacture date of 1963 69 years old and still used for livestock, last occupant of the house formerly there died 40 plus years ago.

 

[wore out]

The only way you are going to know what's down there is to pull it up and have a look. ASSUMING the pump is ''good'' now experimenting with powering it up could very well ruin it.

Might be worth checking with well contractors in the area to see if any have a record of that location/well.

There's a wide variety of submersible well pumps, beside the question of operating voltage and HP some need a control box (which typically contains an overload protector, start relay, and capacitor matched to the specific motor) and others don't. Some submersible well pumps even use a type of VFD to vary pump speed based on flow demand to avoid frequent starts and stops.

 

[Petert]

Thanks for all the responses. I did talk to a neighbor who at one time replaced the well tank and he had been told the well was 85 ft deep. He also did not believe that the pump used a control box but he could not be certain. I guess I will pull the pump and see what is there. It might be a couple of weeks before I can get to that.

Again I appreciate all the responses..
Petert

 

[Russ from MN]

That's exactly what I was thinking, I would give it a few seconds of 120V, if it didn't start pumping right away then I would try 240. First I would try looking down in the well to see if I can see water. Just because the well is quite deep doesn't mean it's very far to the water, try dropping an ice cube down the well and listen. I just learned that, a city employee was checking for leaky fire hydrants! As far as running 240v through a pressure switch, on smaller pumps it's not a problem, I have been doing it on pumps under 1 hp for many years with no problems.

 

[Red Dave]

Not necessarily. We have a 3/4 Horse 220 volt submersible set at 265 feet that has no control box. Direct wired to the pressure switch, been like that it was installed 32+ years ago.

My educated guess is that it yours is probably a 220 volt pump, but that is still a guess and your guess is as good as mine.

 

[miangus]

My pump is 240-volt two wire system, black and yellow and has run off the pressure switch since 1974. Pressure switch contact voltage is the same for a 240-volt pump and a 120-volt pump. A 240-volt system just uses two contacts each at 120 volts. You might check with some of the local well drillers to see if you can discover who installed it. I would connect it to 240 and see if I got water, I would expect the green to be a neutral. Be ready for some water, I tested mine once after I cleared a frozen spot. I flipped the breaker on and right off and that quick it pumped about 5 gallons on the basement floor. Well, it seemed like that much. I got to thinking what would happen if the pipe in the basement failed and I installed a pressure switch that shuts off if the pressure goes to zero.

 

[wp6529]

Black/Red/Green *should* be a 2 wire pump. Green should always be ground, not neutral and not start capacitor. A 2 wire pump could be either 120V or 240V. A submersible well pump is water cooled and usually thermally protected and will not be damaged by a short operation at lower than rated voltage.

Connect to 120V and see if it pumps at a reasonable rate and if so then see how long it takes to build to a typical 45 PSI+ pressure. If it takes some time to get to that modest pressure or can't get there then it's most likely a 240V pump. If it doesn't start pumping a decent flow within 10 seconds or so at 120V then it may be a 3 wire pump connected with wire that does not have the proper color code.

If this is not a particularly old pump or a deep well, it is most likely a 1/2 HP 2wire 240V unit. 120V pumps are not that common and 3 wire pumps are also not common these days on smaller pumps. If it was a mobile home there, 99.999% probability is is not a fancy expensive 3 phase VFD driven variable speed pump.

 

[Destroked 450]

I have 4 well pumps, 2 are 3/4 hp laying in a 40,000 gallon reservoir feeding water to our poultry barns
They are two wire 240 volt with no control box

I have a 1 1/2 hp pump hanging at 380 ft that supplies water to my house
That pump is also two wire 240 volt with no control box, it replaced a 3 wire pump and control box that was installed in 69

The 4th pump is 2 hp hanging at 480 ft supplying water to the poultry barns reservoir
That pump is 3 wire 240 volt with a control box

A 85 ft deep well puts a 1/2 hp pump at its limits to produce the 8-10 gpm recommended flow for a home
A good pump installer would have used a 3/4 hp pump which would normally be 240 volt

 

[WNYBill]

Did they cut the wires off at the well head? Wouldn't pump wiring usually go to a breaker box of some kind. Is there a pressure tank? Where does the water pipe coming out of the well go? I would go looking for the company that drilled the well, they will have all the information. Might be a name on the well cap. In most states the well has to be inspected and the water tested. Check with the county health department.

 

[wp6529]

(quoted from post at 11:22:16 10/26/22)
A 85 ft deep well puts a 1/2 hp pump at its limits to produce the 8-10 gpm recommended flow for a home
A good pump installer would have used a 3/4 hp pump which would normally be 240 volt

Depends on the yield, I have a 100' well with the pump hung at 90' and a 1/2 HP 240V 2 wire pump. The well is low yield and I have the pump throttled back with a valve to limit flow for optimum pumping cycle duration and a control box that shuts the pump off for ~10 min each time it runs dry so the well casing can refill fully. This feeds an 1,100 gal cistern tank (non-pressure, so only the head pressure of the 90' lift) and is controlled by a float switch in the cistern. Another pump of the same type is in the cistern and controlled by a pressure switch feeding the usual bladder tank. Been working fine for 7+ years.

 

[Destroked 450]

Yes at zero pressure free flow a 1/2hp pump is good for 250 ft flowing 2.1 gpm
For the average direct feed providing 8-10 gpm to a home using a 20-40 pressure switch it will flow 10 gpm at 80 ft or 8.7 gpm at 100 ft
Throw on a 30-50 pressure switch and flow drops about 2 gpm at those depths
8 gpm is considered bare minimum for a home, below that and any faucet turned on while your in the shower could leave you with a trickle of water or none at all

 

[Petert]

Again Thanks for all responses. At this time there is no pressure tank and the water line comes out of the ground in what would have been under the mobile home. All that is there at present time is the well with the wires sticking out.

I am thinking I will try to connect it to 120 volt and see what happens.

Thanks again everyone.
Petert

 

[Caryc]

(quoted from post at 14:40:36 10/26/22) Again Thanks for all responses. At this time there is no pressure tank and the water line comes out of the ground in what would have been under the mobile home. All that is there at present time is the well with the wires sticking out.

I am thinking I will try to connect it to 120 volt and see what happens.

Thanks again everyone.
Petert

If you're going to use the well for water for a house, you will need a pressure tank. You can get one with an air ejection system like mine or a tank with a sealed air bladder inside so it builds up water pressure. If you don't have a pressure tank, every time someone in the house turns on a faucet, your pump will have to come on. That's a good way to wear out a pump prematurely.

 

[Dusty MI]

Many years ago watched a new well drilled, where the pressure tank was part of the well which went down threw the center of the tank.

 

[Russ from MN]

My parents had one like that on the farm in the early 70's, the pressure switch was by the top of the
casing. I think it lasted as long as they owned the farm.

 

[Bruce(OR)]

You have all the answers. Now if you wind up replacing that pump, your new codes might be going to a 4 wire pump on 220.