Acceptable Residential Well Flow Rate ?

[Sparks45]

SWMBO and I are building two houses on 5 acres in Carroll County, Maryland. One for us and one for our son & family (wife and two boys - 3-1/2 and 18 mos). Per code, each house must have its own well. First one was done yesterday, hitting water at about 130', and the driller estimates an 8-10 GPM flow rate. Is this a reasonable amount of water? This will be my first experience in well water - always been on 'city' water before now. Seems to me more than enough volume to me but curious what you all think.
Thanks,
Charlie

 

[CalG]

fine

what depth you drilled to and how much water is above the pump may be more important. Also, flow in a dry September might be nice to know.

Keep your pump 100 feet below the water line, and you won't see a problem.... It's got all night to refill ;-)

The wife and I could get by on 2-3 gpm without issue. Heck, the pump doesn't put out much more than that. The volume in the well trol answers most every domestic need. At times the garden gets to be a big user.

When supply is pushed to the limits. we get sand in the inlet filter.

 

[dmccarty]

8-10 GPM is plenty. We are lucky that we have 15 GPM if I remember right. Most of the neighbors have 5 GPM. Most the wells are around us are about 200-250. Our is 223 which provides a quite a bit of reserve. We have low flow faucets and toilets while the dishwasher and clothes washers use no more than 10 gallons. I doubt we use 200 gallons a day and the real number is most likely closer to 100 gallons per day.

Later,
Dan

 

[oldpilgrim]

When I built my house, I was getting 14 gpm at 140 ft. Six months later my neighbor drilled a huge well to flood his cranberry bog. His reservoir wasn't doing the job anymore.

My well went dry.

I had the drillers back and they went to 500 feet and were only getting 1.5 gpm. After calling in the frackers, I was getting 2-3 gpm.

The driller said don't worry as at 500 feet there is nearly 750 gallons in the pipe at any one time...and it's refilling at the rate of 2-3 gpm. He said it was VERY unlikely that I'd run out of water.

20 years later, he was right.

 

[Sparks45]

Thanks for all the info. I'll rest easy now. I don't know how deep they went or how much water will be above the pumps but I now know to ask these questions.
Charlie

 

[nybirdman]

Around here finance minimum is 5 gpm....I have something over 30gpm.Get low flow toilets,ect. With washing ,cooking ,showers ect.expect 30gal per person per day usage.

 

[toppop52]

I'm on the other end of Maryland from you, but here on the Eastern Shore, I have water at 9', very good water for drinking, etc.... my total well depth is 65', but I'm sitting on top of the Paleo Channel. When were building we were cleaning up the old well to see what we had and avoid drilling new if possible. We were running a 1.5" pump shooting a stream 30' or so across the yard and you could pump 5 gallons a minute with the hand pump on top at the same time. That was near the end of a very dry 2012. We are fortunate indeed.

 

[techman]

Most wells will fill up to a level much higher than the drilled "find" level. We had first water at 60'. Normally it fills to about 30' down. The column of water will give you a working reserve. But as stated, 8-10 GPM is a good well and unless draught affects the well, you should be fine.

paul

 

[therealmjfox]

I have a 400 foot well with 1-2 GPM, plus two 40 gallon pressure tanks under the house. As others have said with a well that deep I'm storing plenty of water and shouldn't ever run out with normal use. Now, stupidly forgetting to turn off the hose to the pasture water troughs is another thing altogether. :confused3:

It can be a blessing though. I had a pipe burst and the damage was minimized by the fact that the well ran dry before the house could be completely swamped.

But when the well does run dry it's a pain. The water is muddy for the first few days of recovery. Now I'm on county water and no longer use the well.

 

[oosik]

When I was in Alaska the FHA standards were 5 gpm. However, that was 5 gpm delivered to the house. There are many ways of delivering that to a house. Deeper well, large storage tank, etc - its all a matter of volume storage for X delivery over a specific period of time. Many times the water quality was a much bigger concern than volume. My well here is a trapped spring. Its 24 feet deep and when improving it (cleaning out the dirt/mud and leaving only gravel at the bottom) I pumped it with a large trash pump at 175 gpm, 24 hours/day, for 4 days and never drew the water level down a bit. This is certainly not the normal situation around here. I'm certain this is why the couple that homesteaded this land in 1892 built their house at this location. They drew water from the spring with a wobble pump.

Yes, most definitely, 8-10 gpm is sufficient water to create all sorts of sewerage problems. Ha,ha

 

[Looking4new]

I would get the water tested at the county health unit or whomever it is that test water for potability in your neck of the woods. Most water drillers only guarantee water, not the quality of it. My well is down 176' and I have 100' of reserve at 12 gpm.

 

[nc redneck]

I am in the same area as dmccarty. We have 5 to 7.5 GPM at 260 feet cased. No water problems with 3 of us and wife and kid take long showers. The only thing you can not do is water lawn or fill a swimming pool. Run well wide open for 45 minutes or more and it will die plus fill your filters with sand. Back when we had swimming pool I bought a 500 gallon tank and would fill from local town supply, cost was cheap for water not so much in time or equipment. Kid got older and we removed pool. I can fill 7 person hot tub that replaced it in 3 sessions from well with 1 hour rest or break between fills.
Also you never know I have 2 neighbors within 1/4 mile. One has 15 GPM the other has 32 GPM. The guy next door had 3.5 GPM and his went dry a few years ago.
Hope this helps
Scott

 

[tractchores]

Health code here is 5 gpm for a single house. Depending on depth (stored water in well) you can get by with as low as 2-3 gpm, but you really want 5 for residential use.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Howdy neighbor.
Thats a good well rate.

 

[flusher]

SWMBO and I are building two houses on 5 acres in Carroll County, Maryland. One for us and one for our son & family (wife and two boys - 3-1/2 and 18 mos). Per code, each house must have its own well. First one was done yesterday, hitting water at about 130', and the driller estimates an 8-10 GPM flow rate. Is this a reasonable amount of water? This will be my first experience in well water - always been on 'city' water before now. Seems to me more than enough volume to me but curious what you all think.
Thanks,
Charlie

Reasonable for the house--might be a problem running landscape sprinklers. Driplines on your shrubs and trees would be the way to go.

My place is on the floor of the North Sacramento Valley about 120 miles north of Sacramento. My well is 154 feet deep, in the 3rd strata, blew out at an estimated 100+ gpm. Water level is 90 feet below the surface. Pump is 1.5 hp at 120 ft below the surfaces and supplies about 30 gpm.

Good luck

 

[therealmjfox]

I would get the water tested at the county health unit or whomever it is that test water for potability in your neck of the woods.

The problem with that is that there isn't a broad based "is this water good" test. You test the water for specific pollutants. Each pollutant you test for costs $$. If your water is polluted with something that you didn't request a test for, you won't know.

 

[TheGoose]

The avg. family of 4 uses about 300-500 gallons per day depending on conditions.

5 gpm = 300 gallons per hour or 7200 gallons per day.
10 gpm = 600 gph = 14400 gpd.

The trick is all about how you set up the pump/tank. With 8-10 gpm you should size a pump that will never over-pump the well once it draws down to the depth the pump is setting at.

 

[kennyd]

IIRC, when I built my house 10 years ago (also in CC) the minimum required was 1 GPM. Yes, sounds crazy!

 

[SPYDERLK]

Our well delivers about 4gpm. A toilet running overnite will run it dry so the 10gpm pump is sucking air. We have had no trouble running our farm on it. After all, that is over 5000G per day.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

I'm in southeast New Hampshire. We went 305' down with our well. Driller's pump maxed out at 75 gal per min and couldn't keep up with the fill rate of the well. Don't think we're going to have any problems with it short of an earthquake hitting 9.0.