Acceptable Residential Well Flow Rate ?

[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.