Well and water

[OkeeDon]

I've been busy remodeling the property I'm going to sell, and haven't spent much time in Okeechobee in the last couple of months. But, Spring is here, the grass will start to grow again, and I want to get grass on the banks of the pond I had built last Fall. We also want to get a head start on some landscaping projects, even before we start the house. The only problem is, we didn't have any way to water it. To complicate things, our County does not allow electrical service to be installed at our zoning (Rural Residential) until permits are pulled, and we're not quite ready to do that, yet.

My daughter and son-in-law live next door, and recently we had a separate service and meter installed on his garage. The garage was in pretty poor shape when they bought the place, and the wiring was really bad -- it still had a single glass fuse to support the entire building. Now, the building is rewired, and there's plenty of amperage left for other projects. So, we decided to locate our well about 150' from their garage (which is very near the property line) and "borrow" some power until we get our own.

I installed a breaker and about 150' of 10-2 underground wire to the well site. The well pump is 1 HP, and well within the amperage of that amount of wire. I rented a Ditch Witch trencher for the job. I wanted a ride-on, 4WD trencher, but it was down for repairs. They talked me into trying their new walk-behind trencher, which featured hydrostatic drive and hydraulic steering, so I wouldn't have to "horse" it around to get it where I wanted to go.

The first picture is part of the trench for the electric line.

 

[OkeeDon]

We installed a 4" well with a submersible pump. I wasn't able to get any pictures of the well drilling rig, but this is the top of the casing. It's down about 120'. They hit water at the first aquifer at about 60', but from experience, we know the deeper water is more pure. They hit the layer of shell at 90', and know that the good water is about 30' deeper than that. The nice thing about drilling a well in Florida is that you will get water just about anywhere you stick the drill in the ground.

 

[OkeeDon]

I used the trencher to cut about 1,100 feet of initial water line trench. This line will be used for irrigation and to keep the pond at a constant level (more about that below). The line from the well itself to the back side of the pond is about 650'. I used 1-1/2" Sch 40 PVC pipe for the backbone of the line. I considered using poly pipe, but my well contractor suggested that roots, etc., could shorten the life, and I might as well put the HD stuff in from the beginning. This is a small section of the trench for the water line.

From that central back bone, I ran a couple of other lines that transport the water to different areas of the property. My design was simple. As long as I can reach any area of the property with a maximum of 200' of hose, I'm happy. Most of our watering will be for initial planting. There's no need to water things on a continual basis. The property is about 280' wide by 800' long. The branch lines are 1" PVC, feeding hose bibs installed on a 3/4" standpipe. I'll go back in a day or two and install a PT post at each hose bib to support the rigs. I installed a total of 8 hose bibs. Most of the property can be reached with 100' of hose, all of it with 200'.

The house in the background is being built on the next property.

 

[OkeeDon]

This is a picture of one of my hose bib rigs.

 

[OkeeDon]

This shows the trench around the back side of the pond and down the bank, with another hose bib at the top of the bank.

 

[OkeeDon]

I installed a Hudson float valve at the edge of the pond. I don't have a picture, but later I revised it a bit and installed a ball valve on that line near the top of the bank, so I can shut off the float valve without shutting off the rest of the water, if I don't want to maintain the pond level for some reason.

The Hudson float valve looks a bit like an upside-down flower pot. Inside, there is a float that lifts straight up when the water reaches the level, and shuts off the flow.

In this picture, the pump has been running for about 17 hours. The piece of PVC stuck in the ground was put at the water's edge at 11 PM the night before, and the picture was taken at 8 AM the next morning. The water has moved about 3' up the bank in the 9 hours. I didn't mark where I started at 3 PM the day before, but it was about 3' further. In other words, the pond in this picture is about 6' wider all the way around, or about 12' wider in diameter. It's roughly a 5:1 slope, so in this picture, the level has been raised a little more than foot. The goal is about halfway up the bank from this point, or about another 12" to 18" in depth. The pond will be a total of about 25' wider in diameter at that point. I'm not being very precise; I'll set the final level of the float where I think the pond looks good.

 

[OkeeDon]

This is a little wider shot of the pond being filled. It went 6 months over the Winter without grass, but didn't erode very much. A little work with the box blade and it will be ready for seed. We plan to plant wild, native plants around a significant amount of the bank, including the area where the float valve is located. The local County extension agent is working up a list of suggested plantings for me. Some of the area by the palm trees will be grass.

The pond will be filled roughly to the top of the dark stripe in the bank. At the top of the bank is a part of the trench I dug. I'll use the tractor to back fill the trench.

 

[OkeeDon]

This shows the other end of the pond, and shows the worst of the bank erosion over the Winter. Our house will be at the raised area to the left, facing the pond. This bank will be mostly grass, extending the front lawn right down to water's edge. Once we get electric installed, I'll install a pump and fountain to aerate the pond and make it pretty.

I'll be watching it pretty closely all during the summer rainy season to see if it needs an overflow outlet. If so, I can install one pretty easily that will flow the overflow to the highway swale outside my property. My daugher's property has a slightly smaller pond, and they never overflowed during the historically high rain we got last Summer, so I will probably not need it.

Anticipating some questions, I'll remind everyone that pond construction is different in Florida. Basically, all we do is dig a hole in the ground, and we get a pond. There is no attempt to clay line or otherwise seal the pond; otherwise there would be little water in it, because the land is too flat for runoff. Without the float valve and well water to maintain an even level, the pond goes up and down with the water table, often as much as 6' in depth.

We want our pond to be at an evenly maintained level for a couple of reasons. From a livability point of view, keeping the water level at the same point cuts down hugely on the mosquitoes that will be bred. Plus, it just looks better -- a deep hole with dirt banks below the grass is not attractive.

Our primary reason for digging the pond was to get cheap fill; the primary benefit for us is looks, because I'm not much of a fisherman. I'll stock it, but it will be for the benefit of guests and the granddaughters.

We expect the pump to run for about 3 full days to bring up the level, but will likely run very little after that. Obviously, with this type of pond, some of the water is constantly seeping back into the ground, raising the water table at that point. However, I turned off the pump for 5 hours yesterday while I finished the plumbing, and the level didn't drop even a fraction of an inch in that time.

According to my well contractor, the 4" submersible, 1 HP pump delivers about 25 gallons/minute. Since it's not being used for anything else right now, the full flow is going into the pond. That's about 1500 GPH, or about 36K gallons per day. The Hudson valve is rated to 2400 GPH and up to 130 psi. It cost about $35.

 

[RayH]

Must be nice to have all that water under there just ready for the taken.
When I had our well drilled, we hit water at about 450' and got only 3 GPM. I told them to continue down until they got more and finally stopped them at 700', still at 3 GPM. I dropped the pump in at 600' figuring the level would rise some, which it did, and with only 3 GPM I would at least have a good reserve above the pump. I chose 600' because that is the deepest I could go without splicing tube or wire. The water level has risen to 150' since I dropped the pump in and many of my neighbors have run out of water in the past while Im out washing the car.
It was a very expensive well but we dont need a softener, filters or lights and I never run out but it must be nice to just dig a hole anywhere and the water starts gushing.

 

[RonR]

RayH, where are you? Wow, that's a LONG ways to go for water.

Where I live in KS, you can hit water at 25 ft, but to get enough quantity to pump much, need to go between 60-90 feet. Any deeper and you hit SALTWATER! My well has water at 25 feet and the well is 55 feet deep.

Our city is running out of drinking water, and to force conservation, trippled the water price last summer. So anyone who could had a well dug for irrigation.

One person who didn't know what he was doing hit the same veins of water at 60 feet, but wanted "good water" and a lot of it. He went 125 feet, sunk his well, and started watering his lawn. It all turned brown, so he watered more. Finally had it tested and it was all SALT. Killed everything in his yard, including his trees.

Best wishes,
Ron