Need advice on an old well.

[Pa Pa Jack]

When we bought this place about 25 years ago, there were two well houses that were next to the house. One had an old drilled well, and the other an even older bored well. They both had water in them but no pumps or piping.

The drilled well seems to have collapsed inside as I can no longer get a weight to go down more than about 8 feet. It used to go down about 25 feet and showed some water although I never did know how much.

The bored well is about 30 inches in diameter, and I can see water in it using a flashlight. There is a very old electric pump there, but I know it has not been used for many years even before we bought the place.

I would like to try to get this well working for irrigation purposes only. Watering the lawn and a large garden is my goal. Any suggestions as to where to start? I know nothing about wells, but it can't be that complicated for a shallow well. Would it be beneficial or even cheaper to have a pro come take a look at it? If I can get pump, how can I tell how much water would be available to use on an hourly rate?

 

[kude]

My county is rather strict with abandoned wells, If you are not using it must be properly capped off and sealed by a professional well person who will certify that and provide you a document. This same well person might have some ideas on how to bring your other well back to use, so you have no issues. Abandoned septic tanks, lines, and fields must be dealt with too.

Suppose you might want a mortgage some day on the property. The bank will ask for an environmental 1 exam of your property. When this happened for my property all tanks, abandoned wells or equipment was inspected for ennvironmental hazard. So the bank will ask you to take any findings off the list or resolve the issues. They look for abestos, lead paint etc. It's a pain, but if you want the monmey you jump through the hoops. The above is especially true if you want to develop the property.

 

[dave1949]

The 30" well with water in it sounds more like a dug well than bored. Are the sides lined with rock or something? The drilled well that is blocked is probably not worth doing anything with. I would seal that one.

I would pull the old pump out of the larger well and all the old wiring.

You could buy an small, inexpensive sump pump and attach a garden hose to it. You need one that will pump water high enough to get it out of the well, it's 'head' or lift rating. Time how long it takes to fill a 5 gal. bucket and calculate your flow rate in gallons per minute. If you let it run, see if the water in the well is being replenished at a rate fast enough to keep up with the pump.

You could make a dip stick from a tall sapling tree and use that to measure the water drop in the well.
Dave.

 

[RPW]

Easier way to measure depth is to use a weighted string and have the string marked every 10'. Lower away until the weight stops and by counting the number of marks you have fed into the well will tell you how deep it is. For the 25' well you can probably get either a shallow well surface pump or a small submersible one and be good to go. Even if you are only going to water a garden I'd still get a water sample analysis even before trying to put a pump in (weighted container on string). Might save you some time and money if the well turns out to be contaminated.

Good luck.