water well information

I would be interested in how you go about digging a well on your property as well. Can anyone provide good useful links. How would you know where the water is? I am new to this.

Cannot speak too much on this. You know there are "artesian" wells like they have in the 3rd world. These are basically holes in the ground that you drop a bucket into and pull out water. If there are natural springs in your area this will work for you. The water table is very close to the surface. Dig a hole down to till you hit "ground water." Be sure to purify this because it may have microbes and surface poison from pesticides and metals.
If not you will need to drill a well. My son has a well. It is several hundred feet deep down to the water table. He also has a device that he can attach to the well head that enable them to physically pump water to the surface. This deeper water is safer because it is filtered through several hundred feet of soil, sand, rock, and clay. Have it tested for purity.

tturt said:

Our electricity goes off periodically. Our internet search yielded lots of hand pump information for shallow water wells but ours is 150' Does anyone know of a source?

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Our well is a 700 feet deep rock well, we were looking for the same thing but I would run into pumps for up to 300 feet deep

For example heres one

http://bisonpumps.com

Those kind?

Fireinfolding said:

Our well is a 700 feet deep rock well, we were looking for the same thing but I would run into pumps for up to 300 feet deep

For example heres one

http://bisonpumps.com

Those kind?

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I went to the web site for Bison pumps and it mentioned "a static water level of 300 feet." That means that pump can push water 300 ft higher (straight up) than the pump. It also mentioned that you could build pressure in a tank with this pump. It doesn't say from what depth it will draft water.

MWood said:

I went to the web site for Bison pumps and it mentioned "a static water level of 300 feet." That means that pump can push water 300 ft higher (straight up) than the pump. It also mentioned that you could build pressure in a tank with this pump. It doesn't say from what depth it will draft water.

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I dont really get all of that, I only know our well (at 700 feet) cannot be accomadated by any of those type of pumps, and the number that stuck with me (as I searched) was a limitation set for 300 feet but I dont know who has static stuff and who doesnt.

Im interested as our church had a prayer and self denial special offering for wells to be dug in se asian countries. This is a means to spread the gospel. They really do need wells as water is scarce.

tturt said:

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Didasklos, do you know the details on "He also has a device that he can attach to the well head that enable them to physically pump water to the surface." Thanks.

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I will ask him for details. I think it attaches to the "well head"(?) and has a manual hand pump.
When I was a kid we had a camp in the mountains. There was a hand pump well there. We had to "prime" the pump by pouring a bucket full of water down the shaft. Fun. For kids it was an adventure.

The other way to deal with this is to have storage for the water, which the normal pump will supply, and which you can tap into even when the pump isn't running. Above ground is nice, as you could use gravity flow to get the water, but it also could be buried shallow enough (32', I believe) for a hand pump to access, and that has advantages in cold climates.

The old fashion hand pumps for water wells used leather lined piston to pull water up by vacuum created behind the piston. A perfect vacuum can pull water up 33.9 feet at sea level due to the 14.7psi of the atmosphere; but due the mechanical limits in pumps about 25ft is all this kind of pump can lift water. The shallow well electric pumps (called jet pumps) are limited to this also. we had one on our well at home and found 17 ft was about all we could pull up reliably; so we had to go to a submersible pump which can pump (push) water hundreds of feet up from a well in the ground.
For a hand pump to push water up from a lower level would take a mechanical link like a rod to go down to the water so you could pump water from a deep well. The weight of the rod would be considerable after a hundred feet or so and a person would need some kind of lever to move it. I have a feeling there would be some limit a person could pump water using their own muscle power. For an off grid well the best solution would be a solar array and an electric submersible pump. Here is a site that explains vacuum pumps in detail:

http://www.robinsons1874.com/Honda/pumps/Honda_pumps_principles.html

And here is one on the limits of jet pumps and submersible pumps:

http://inspectapedia.com/water/Well_Pump_Capacity.php

Question..those who have wells is it just for your family or is it like a community well?

Does anybody have a swimming pool? I know people that have them become very popular in summer!!! But it must be so expensive to maintain...they could have just dug a well.

Goodbook said:

Question..those who have wells is it just for your family or is it like a community well?

Does anybody have a swimming pool? I know people that have them become very popular in summer!!! But it must be so expensive to maintain...they could have just dug a well.

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We have both a well and a pool, but the wells in our area are so deep it matters very little whether you have one dug without a power source you can reach the water at those depths manually.

So we are really better off with a pool, its sorta like a huge water cistern and that is kept full by the rainwater catchment system which utilizes all four roofs. Works great because our first well couldnt fill a bath tub, this second one has what seems to be an endless supply, but its always better to catch the rain and use that and save the other.

Some of us have spouses that dont believe anything is going to hit any fan and dont listen (but also arent in the position to be the head of him) lol

I could have had my husband set up (not even needing to work) had he would have heard me on the "could of's would of's and should of's" back in 2007.

Welp, hindsight is always twenty twenty but being the wifey, if my husband jumps off a cliff my chain and ball must needs follow after him

We had the pool long before, it has actually come in really handy when the well was struck by lightning, and when the pump needed to be replaced and the time it wasnt producing and we needed a new one (a three month wait).

Pools could be a huge cistern, to draw from there and treat it to drink. A hand pump would work at that depth if you covered it.

Yes that was what inwas thinking rainwater is always going to be fresh from the clouds. But well water it might not be fresh.

However, it does need to rain!

I have a 700 foot deep rock well, usually its the more shallow wells that need to worry about their water. We just have a pump dropped down there and have no filtration system (no cleaning system, filters, or nothing). Its ice cold and we never got sick not having all that expensive water cleaning gear.

Although we just got a new hot water heater for the guest bathroom and theres something in the water mixing in the water heater causing that sulfur smell.

I turned it off, thats nasty, its only in there lol