I need to replace ~280' of 1" galvanized well pipe. At $4/ft for galvanized I am looking at PVC or 160 psi poly pipe. Any pros, cons, or potentials pit falls to be aware of. I like the poly pipe because of the cost and easy install. Is the poly pipe connection just a hose barb and hose clamps? Able to handle starting torque?

We have a water well here. Have lived here since mid 1985 with a 300 foot well. the main supply line is plastic and have never had a problem with it.

I don’t know anything about wells, but as far as in house piping, freeze proof, extremely durable and hard to damage, you should look at Wirsbo or Pex tubing. You need special tools to splice it together, but a local plumber should have no problems making this happen.
Shouldn’t be an issues to unspool and splice as much as you need to go as deep as you need.

It’s quite fantastic tubing.

We have three wells with plastic drop pipe, but they are all three inch and are certa-lok. How are you planning on connecting the sections of drop pipe and will the connections handle the weight of 280’ of pipe, your pump, (I’m assuming you have a submersible), and the column of water?

I deal with this more than I would like. Here is what I use, schedule 40 p-letter that rhymes with B, then a C, with schedule 80 connectors, it makes a pretty rugged connection. Btw, my laptop has dropped the key that rhymes with B and I don't mean C. So when I mention polyinyl chloride pipe I hope you catch my drift, haha. These connectors are glue on, and if you are careful with that, you will be good. Hit me with questions if you need to. I am pretty confident about what I know works.

If you're thinking of using a roll of poly pipe, skip it.
It will rub the wall and either put a hole in the pipe or rub through the insulation on the wiring.

Straight pipe with heavy screw couplings.

Never seen anything but black poly with "bumpers" spaced every 20 or 30 feet to prevent what Excam Man is talking about.

My pump is down 160-ish feet and I've replaced it twice over the years still using the same pipe.

We have installed literally hundreds of wells for the houses we’ve built and always use 160 PSI poly pipe without issues. Yes the barbed fittings, with 2 hose clamps work great.

If you’re concerned about the pipe being chaffed against the wall of the hole they make donut like bumpers that keep the pipe centered. I think we used to place them every 50 feet or so.

My dad used to drill wells in Fla. he always used PVC and taped the wires and rope to suspend the pump to the pipe every ten feet or so. When we moved to the western NC mountains he used black poly pipe for some wells, but hat was what the owner wanted. He didn’t like how you had to keep adding some kind of spacer to keep the pipe from rubbing the casing.

And the pump shouldn’t be suspended by the pipe, he always used blue ski rope.

Our 112 ft. well, with a 1 HP, 18 GPM pump, has white PVC in it.

Thanks everyone! Good info here. I'm leaning towards the poly pipe and hadn't heard of the bumpers to keep the the pipe centered. I'll keep everyone informed.
It's been a fun project. As an oilfield roughneck in my teens, I decided my son and I can pull this well. I have a 12' A-frame. Welded a bracket to it and attached a 3500lb ATV winch. It went very well and saved a quite a bit of money over hiring a well truck.

Funny timing. In my neighborhood we have "community wells" for our centralized water system. Two of the wells are on my property, a deep well, ~720' and a shallow well. On the 720' well, the 5 HP pump crapped out 2 days ago. They pulled the pump yesterday and will be installing the new pump today. We use 20' sections of PVC sch 120 with **I think** stainless couplings. I can check today if they are stainless or galvanized. I am pretty sure stainless.

Pretty much what Excam_Man said above.

The pump runs 24 X 7 X 365. For some reason we only got 4 years out of the old one, installed in July 2018. I think we got 7 years out of the prior one.

ETA: yep, stainless couplings, and I confirmed sch 120 1" pipe.

I'm not sure you can pull close to 300' of pipe with a pump attached to it by hand? That's got to be heavy! You certainly don't want to drop it! I'd go with a rig.

I have had poly and galvanized pipe for well drops. I prefer the steel pipe. As long as the well is not too deep I would imagine PVC to be fine, but I am just more comfortable with the steel pipe.

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
We have installed literally hundreds of wells for the houses we’ve built and always use 160 PSI poly pipe without issues. Yes the barbed fittings, with 2 hose clamps work great.

If you’re concerned about the pipe being chaffed against the wall of the hole they make donut like bumpers that keep the pipe centered. I think we used to place them every 50 feet or so.

The longer the drop, the more susceptible to damage from torque winding and unwinding so don’t forego the plastic donuts.

Our pump (sits at about 420’ down in a 680 foot shaft) quit on us about 12 years ago. Our neighbor used to do well work and still had all his gear to include a slick motorized friction wheel for the poly water line. When we finally got the pump to the surface, we could that a donut had disintegrated and allowed the power cable to brush the sides of the pipe. Over time, the line was sanded down from about a 1/4” to the thickness of a human hair before breaking.

Done a lot of water wells here in WNY, have used lots of poly pipe with plastic pipe & wire guides that clamp onto the pipe every 20' and black 3M electrical tape halfway between those. Never had a problem. Deepest was a little over 300'. That one was a bugger to pull, 1-1/4" galvanized coming out