Water Well

[skent]

When I applied for our replacement well, I was talking to a woman who was on her third attempt. First well was 375 feet and could only produce 1 GPM. Not enough for the health dept. Second attempt was 450 feet and dry all the way down. Third attempt was 400 feet and somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 gallon per minute. She was there to apply for a variance to allow them to use both wells on a timer with a storage 500 gallon tank (cistern). In carroll county you can not have two wells for a residence w/o permission.

I was lucky. I hit 12 GPM on my second attempt.

 

[techman]

Kiphorn:

I agree with several of the posts. I have 30 GPM (got that at 90'). I have my pump switch set to 50-70 PSI. I plumbed the house myself and used 3/4" headers and an individual 1/2" lines to each user. I don't notice the pump kicking in and out, and with 2 showers going you can flush 2 toilets and not know it in the shower. The flow capacity in the piping is the trick.

If you're building and want good pressure everywhere, put some extra money in the tubing.

paul

 

[TimSullivan]

Our well produces 5 GPM and I would be very happy if I had 30 GPM. You can do all the watering you want and still have plenty.

 

[BigDave]

Steve,

I'm a fellow Carroll Countian, and I leave in Winfield. The Winfield Elementary School's well went dry at the beginning of the school year, and it is only about a mile from my house. The school is only a few years old, so it was a pretty deep well meeting current standards. It had us a little bit worried. I'm sure happy for all of this rain we have been getting.

O.K. it took a while, but I found a Carroll County document which states MD state regs on private residence well yields...1gpm & total capacity, standing & new water, of 500 gallons over 2 hours. I'm not sure why 1 gal/min wasn't enough?

The document also estimates that daily water needs should be about 75 gal/person. So, 1 gpm yields 1440 gallons/day. That's a lot of extra toilet flushes.

 

[kiphorn]

How do the well companies determine the well capacity? When I stopped by they were flushing the well and there was plenty of water but I was wondering how they determined that a well produces X gals. per minute.

 

[Richard]

Whey they did our well, he stuck a cup or bucket under his made up "faucet" and it blasted the cup away, so he got a 5 gallon pail and used that to time it.

100 gpm and no one to have a water fight with. /w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif (though sadly, I only have a 10 gpm pump installed)

Richard

 

[gerard]

Can you explain this a little better? Does the water come out under it's own pressure after they pull the drill bit back out? I've never watched one drilled and as a previous post said how do they measure flow rate and recovery rate? If you have a 300 foot well that seems to mean the water table is 300 feet below the surface. How does the water come to the surface prior to the pump going in?

 

[Alan L.]

I don't know why there would be regulations not allowing you to use a well unless it produces X number of gallons. You get what you get, and if its low production, then get a large tank. In Texas I'm not aware of any such regulations, but who knows....

 

[kiphorn]

The well drillers told me that they force air down into the shaft which pushes the water out. How they measure the flow I have no idea.

 

[Richard]

I think Kiphorn explained all that I'm aware of. I have no idea why they use air pressure, I wasn't at our digging... I'm told that they drilled through rock and when they broke through, just like in the oil well movies... water (presumably under air pressure) blew up and into the sky, as high as the house (from the front, 3 floors up).

As an aside.. I kind of get a chuckle when my wife chides me for "wasting" water if I leave the hose on longer than she thinks I should.

I have had to repeadedly tell her that with a 100 gpm well and a 10 gpm pump, each minute that we do not MAXIMIZE our water usage... we are "wasting" 90 or more gpm. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Besides, as I explained to her... if we pull all this water out of the well into the lawn... isn't it heading back down from whence it came?

After the blank stare, she just tells me to shut up. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Richard