My well is 360ft deep. When you look down it, it looks like a rifle bore. Smooth granite all the way down. When the well was drilled, they hit water at 260 but kept going to make a reservoir. The well produced 5 gallons per minute.
When we bought the home we had the well tested. The water was very clean, good tasting, but only produced 3 gallons per minute. We had the well tested in April, during the spring, when it rains.
That summer the well went dry on us a few times. We were watering the lawn and using water like we did living in suburbia, on grid water. We would shut off the pump breaker and let it sit for several hours or overnight. That usually let it fill back up, slowly. I got tired of this and decided to call a well/pump company to come take a look. Now, its September, when it doesn't rain.
He ran the well down and used a sounder to measure the recharge rate. 8th-of-a-gallon-per-minute! "That's a dry hole" he said.
He suggested a pump saver, a device that will sense the increase in electrical current when the pump runs dry, and shuts off power for a set amount of time. This way the pump won't burn itself up.
I called a local fracker that my neighbor suggested. When he used the fracker, he got his well up to 9gpm! That's an amazing amount of water! I was envious and called the fracker immediately. The company came out twice, once to assess the well, and a final time to do the fracking. They used Co2 and packers to over pressure the well to some ridiculous amount. Apparently, carbonic acid is produced and will dissolve the minerals blocking the fractures in the granite, allowing more water to flow.
We had carbonated water for several days!
But it worked!! Our water went up to 10GPM!! YAY!! We had water! I loved timing myself filling up a 5 gallon bucket, and feeling the pressure my "dry hole" well was producing. $5,000 well spent!
But it didn't last. Our water turned orange with rust, and went back down to 8thGMP. Sad days. The fracker came back out to assess the well again. He figures they 'tapped into an underground reservoir with some iron ore.' Gosh, really?! At this point though, they said they are complete, and nothing more can be done. I need a new well. Well... that $20,000 just for a hole, not including electrical, and that's not a guarantee of water.
So I was left with high iron content and a low producing well. It is seasonal. And after a $5,000 water filtration system to filter the iron, and a $7,000 - 3,000 gallon cistern, we live pretty comfortably. We can irrigate some, do our laundry, etc. I have a water truck that I use for emergencies, including fire.
Based on my experiences, its a gamble. You could get tons of water for years to come simply by fracking the well, or you could end up like me. No more water, good water turned bad, and had to pay for it.
