New water well

[Steppenwolfe]

Just had my first experience with drilling a new water well. Pretty amazing piece of equipment to watch. Took about 12 hours to hit 620 ft. According to my driller we have right at 4 gal/minute replenish rate, a 570ft head of water with the pump sitting at 585; this gives us an 800 gal reservoir in the well. 4 gal/min doesn't sound like a lot, but with reserve we should have more than enough for two people. We have a spring house as well on the property, but I don't have power to it yet.

 

[RalphVa]

Hope your pump lasts as long as ours did at 34 years. Hope you can get a brushless pump now. Never thought to ask the guy when he installed our new one recently (in less than 2 hours' time).

Ralph

 

[sikmusicfreak8]

About to start drilling my new well in a couple weeks. Expensive endeavor no doubt.

 

[riptides]

Just had my first experience with drilling a new water well. Pretty amazing piece of equipment to watch. Took about 12 hours to hit 620 ft. According to my driller we have right at 4 gal/minute replenish rate, a 570ft head of water with the pump sitting at 585; this gives us an 800 gal reservoir in the well. 4 gal/min doesn't sound like a lot, but with reserve we should have more than enough for two people. We have a spring house as well on the property, but I don't have power to it yet.

I always thought 4 to 5 gal/min was a good average. It's the reserve that is important. Am I wrong?

 

[Valveman]

Just had my first experience with drilling a new water well. Pretty amazing piece of equipment to watch. Took about 12 hours to hit 620 ft. According to my driller we have right at 4 gal/minute replenish rate, a 570ft head of water with the pump sitting at 585; this gives us an 800 gal reservoir in the well. 4 gal/min doesn't sound like a lot, but with reserve we should have more than enough for two people. We have a spring house as well on the property, but I don't have power to it yet.

I don't see a slush pit, so must have drilled with air. Air drilling can go quickly if they don't hit anything very hard. 4 GPM is 5,760 gallons per day. As long as you have adequate storage 4 GPM can supply 10 or more houses. A good water well is one of the best investments a person can make.

Regular submersible motors do not have brushes. The brushless thing is for variable speed pumps, which you want to stay away from if you want something dependable and long lasting.

How a Pressure Tank Works and why you need a Cycle Stop Valve on Vimeo

 

[radios1]

drilling that deep, you might need a water softener, ever since my water company drilled to 1000 feet,(to avoid chemicals used in aircraft manufacturing) my water got hard, and it takes 3X longer to cook something in water!!.. that REALLY sucks!!..

 

[Steppenwolfe]

I always thought 4 to 5 gal/min was a good average. It's the reserve that is important. Am I wrong?

According to my driller you are correct; he said he has wells in the NC piedmont that only produce 1/2 to 2 gpm and work fine because of the high reserve in the well.

 

[mred2]

My well supplies, I was told, about 14 gal a minute and is almost not enough due to being very little reserve. It supplies the water for the house and an open loop geo heat pump. I really think it may be only about 12 gpm.

 

[oosik]

Four or five gpm is adequate for a single family house. Unless you plan to water the north 40. I've seen MANY wells - 600 to 800 - and produce 1 gpm. Storage is the key.

 

[Valveman]

My well supplies, I was told, about 14 gal a minute and is almost not enough due to being very little reserve. It supplies the water for the house and an open loop geo heat pump. I really think it may be only about 12 gpm.

If you have enough water for an open loop geo system, you have a lot of water. What you may not have is enough water to feed both the geo system and house at the same time. If geo uses 10 GPM and house is needing 5 GPM, your 14 GPM well pump is lacking. However, there are ways to supply both in series instead of parallel, and use only 10 GPM total. The house supply would come off the back side of the Geo instead of the front side. The temp of your house water will change about 10 degrees up or down as the Geo system is working. You won't notice the temperature change nearly as much as the higher pressure in the shower from having adequate water supply for both.

 

[workinonit]

Are these 4" wells you guys are drilling? When my well was installed we put a 2 HP, 13 stage pump in and swung it on 2" galvanized. 180 ft well, cased to the bottom and screened on 4 strata's of water, I think. When he pumped off my well and ran the pump it would fill a 55 gal drum in less than a minute. He ran it like that for a day. I've since had to replace the pump. Put a 1.5 HP in and black plastic pipe. It's nothing like it was before but I guess comparatively speaking pretty good.

 

[Valveman]

In some areas 4" casing is common. In other areas 5" or 6" is more common. It also depends on what size pump you need. A 2HP, 13 stage will pump a lot of water from that depth. The fact it would pump 40-50 GPM while you were using a 3 GPM shower causes the pump to cycle on and off a lot. Which is most likely why the pump went bad and you already had to replace it.

 

[buck12]

About to start drilling my new well in a couple weeks. Expensive endeavor no doubt.

Yep, I got my well installed at our remote property where we are building a cabin. The well really messed up my budget.

 

[workinonit]

In some areas 4" casing is common. In other areas 5" or 6" is more common. It also depends on what size pump you need. A 2HP, 13 stage will pump a lot of water from that depth. The fact it would pump 40-50 GPM while you were using a 3 GPM shower causes the pump to cycle on and off a lot. Which is most likely why the pump went bad and you already had to replace it.

No, that wasn't the reason. I have my pump set up on low voltage controls and I'm the only person that understands how it works. For some reason I took off the pressure relief valve, I think it went bad and I didn't get a replacement. Anyhow, the contractor remodeling my kitchen closed the 1.5" supply valve in my house which isolated the two 160 gallon bladder tanks and pressure switch and the pump ran to a deadhead until the windings opened. Luckily it didn't expand and stick in the casing. Major lesson learned on my part. Had that not happened I would likely still be running it.

 

[fried1765]

In some areas 4" casing is common. In other areas 5" or 6" is more common. It also depends on what size pump you need. A 2HP, 13 stage will pump a lot of water from that depth. The fact it would pump 40-50 GPM while you were using a 3 GPM shower causes the pump to cycle on and off a lot. Which is most likely why the pump went bad and you already had to replace it.

In my Nova Scotia Summer place I had a 1/2HP Goulds at 200', in a 4" well, using an 80 gal bladder tank.
A bit less than 1 GPM recovery when initially tested, but never ran out of water, even with some lawn watering.
Pump did have a "Pump Saver", but it never activated.
I often wondered if the recovery rate had improved a bit since the original drill test.

 

[oosik]

I have an improved spring that serves as a water source. Four foot diameter cement rings down to the perforated one on the bottom. The top ring pinches down to 32" with an industrial grade fiberglass lid. I pumped and cleaned out the mud/silt when it was first constructed. 350 gpm for three straight days and no draw down. Every four hours for three days - go down and fill the fuel tank. Surge the well with my home made "surge tool". A 6" trash pump goes thru fuel like mad.

Some how or other there is an occasional little frog down in the spring. But they don't drink much water ...............

 

[Valveman]

No, that wasn't the reason. I have my pump set up on low voltage controls and I'm the only person that understands how it works. For some reason I took off the pressure relief valve, I think it went bad and I didn't get a replacement. Anyhow, the contractor remodeling my kitchen closed the 1.5" supply valve in my house which isolated the two 160 gallon bladder tanks and pressure switch and the pump ran to a deadhead until the windings opened. Luckily it didn't expand and stick in the casing. Major lesson learned on my part. Had that not happened I would likely still be running it.

Sorry about that. But that is exactly why I never put a ball valve between the pump and pressure switch. Someone might inadvertently close it , which would dead head and burn up the pump/motor. If you had a pressure relief, it would most like be close to the pressure switch and still would not have helped. Yeah you are lucky it didn't melt the casing. Working with a guy now who's pump is stuck at 290' and laying sideways in melted casing. Ouch!

 

[fried1765]

I have an improved spring that serves as a water source. Four foot diameter cement rings down to the perforated one on the bottom. The top ring pinches down to 32" with an industrial grade fiberglass lid. I pumped and cleaned out the mud/silt when it was first constructed. 350 gpm for three straight days and no draw down. Every four hours for three days - go down and fill the fuel tank. Surge the well with my home made "surge tool". A 6" trash pump goes thru fuel like mad.

Some how or other there is an occasional little frog down in the spring. But they don't drink much water ...............

350GPM+ = good fire protection!

 

[RjCorazza]

Wells are a combination of geology, science, luck, and voodoo. Probably in that order. My house well is 4gpm and has never been a problem other than one pump after 18 years. The well on my 3.5 acre building lot next door is 60gpm and has never been used.

 

[fried1765]

Wells are a combination of geology, science, luck, and voodoo. Probably in that order. My house well is 4gpm and has never been a problem other than one pump after 18 years. The well on my 3.5 acre building lot next door is 60gpm and has never been used.

My well is actually..."MY well"

Back in the 60's I dug a 6' x 6' x 10' pit, (sand) and blocked it in.
Used a 6" hand auger, and by adding 5' extensions, dug a hole 20' deeper, to top of water (hole begins to collapse at top of water).
I quickly dropped in two glued together 10' sections of 4" PVC.
Now I was a total of 30' to top of water, from ground level.

Next dropped in a piece of 2" PVC 28' long, with a 3' SS # 8 slotted screen point added.
Next lowered a combined 31' length of 1-1/4" galv. pipe into the 2" PVC.
Set up a tripod, and used a 100 lb driving weight with driving cap on the 1-1/4" galv. pipe.
Drove on the inside of the SS point, for 11 more feet into the sand, and pulled out the 1-1/4" pipe.
Top of water at 20' below top of well, and bottom of well is 31' below top of pipe, 41' to bottom from ground surface.

Could use a shallow well pump, and I had 7 of them....used (free) identical, Burks 1HP shallow well pumps.
Rebuilt several, as they would only last about 10-12 years...but they were free.
Finally.....became impossible to find replacement Burks parts.
'
Bought a new 1HP Goulds shallow well (J10S) pump.
They last 15+ years.
I have a rebuilt spare on hand. Very low cost, and an hour or so, to swap a pump!
Can easily pull the PVC pipe from 11' of sand, and then drive it back down again, if cleaning the SS point should be necessary.
A low cost well,...... that I can maintain by myself.....even at 80 years old .....I think?

(moderately) Deep well pumping at shallow well cost!