u/Low-Layer7281

TLDR - I've found water at 5 feet down, I installed a sand point well and a pitcher pump, but the pitcher pump fails to pull up any water. After pulling out all the air from the line the pump feels like it's just stuck, and the lever just gets really hard to pump, like I'm pulling on a clogged pipe. There's water, the pipe isn't clogged, but still no luck.

Edit Update: This whole project actually started with me driving the sandpoint down to 20 feet with 5-foot sections of pipe. Same problem down at that depth. I pulled it up with a floor jack and retested at each 5-foot depth and same problem. Used the jetter, cleaned out the mud, etc... everytime I hit the same issue with the pitcher pump.

I have a property with an existing well (18-feet deep) and a submersible pump. I can get water out of there if I run my generator, and that well has been working just fine for the past 100 years (family homestead). Now that I've taken stewardship of the property I decided I'd like a backup hand-pump so I went the simplest route with a sand point. The soil is sandy loam and very easy to drive pipe into. I was able to drive about a foot of pipe down every minute.

I bought the Water Source 3-foot sand point with the 80-mesh screen, and also the Water Source red pitcher pump. After driving the point down with a single 5-foot section I hit water at 5-feet down. I let it sit for a couple weeks and came back with the pitcher pump and checked again - found standing water at 5-feet down.

By my calculations, I drove the sand point down to 6-feet at the top, and 9-feet at the bottom (because it's a 3-foot well point) so that the top of the well point is 1-foot below the top water level.

The pipe is connected with the drive coupler, I used pipe dope, I tightened all the connections so even bujeezus couldn't undo it - they're air-tight.

After hooking up the pitcher pump, priming it, letting it get wet and the leather parts swelling for 20 minutes, I start to pump and I can hear it all working to pull air out. After about a minute I can feel more and more resistance on the lever, until finally it's really hard to push down. At that point I can pull it down but it just jumps back up like a stiff spring, feels very much like there's a vacuum just sucking the piston back down.

At first I thought maybe the screen was clogged, so I did these steps several times:

• Ran a garden hose down at the bottom of the pipe watching the water go from super muddy to rather clear over the course of 3 minutes
• Took my pressure washer (Harbor Freight 1750) with the mini-jetter kit and jetted out the pipe from top to bottom, and let it run for 10 minutes. I focused on the bottom 3-feet to jet out the mud if possible.
• Sealed off the pipe at the top with an NPT-GHT connecter, and connected a garden hose that's at 35 PSI and just turned it out to pressurize the inside of the pipe to push anything else out

I then hooked up the pitcher pump again and exact same issue - I pump until it gets hard to pump, and then there's a solid vacuum pulling back down on the piston and I can't pull water up.

Then I did these things:

• Took 2 weeks away and left the pipe open. When I came back water level was at 5 feet down again
• Pulled up the pipe and drive point entirely to inspect - everything looking fine, I pressure washed everything and got it clean and tidy, and then shoved it back down in the hole (didn't take much, the hole was still there no problem)
• Re-jetted, re-pressurized, then re-assembled the pitcher pump and tried it again

Still no luck!! I even pulled the well point up a foot, pushed it down a foot, thinking maybe I'm off with my calculations, etc.

There is water down there as evidenced by my dipstick showing it's wet, and my bobber on a string making water splashing noises at the same depth. If I drop a rock in there it goes "sploosh".

I've watched ALL the youtube videos on the topic, I've taken apart the pitcher pump and inspected everything - gaskets, bolts, etc.

What am I doing wrong? Is it possible my pitcher pump is defective? Something weird with the sand point that all the youtube videos didn't point out?

Any help is greatly appreciated!!