Digging a well

Anonymous Poster · Jul 25, 2001

I had to put in a new well for my barn because the well for my house was to far away. The well installer tells me I have three options for the tank - I can put it in the barn and use electric tape to keep it from freezing (my barn is not heated), I can put it underground or I can put it in a 4x4 concrete vault and put a light bulb in the vault on really cold days. I have no idea what the best option is. Can anyone give me some advice?

ERNIEB · Jul 25, 2001

Joy Susan, Since you don't say where you live, and you are not registered, it would be hard to say. If you lived where I do any of those would be extreme overkill.

Ernie

StoneHeartFarm · Jul 25, 2001

Heat tape will work, but is beginning to be frowned on because it is believed to be the cause of fires. The buried vault would work, but you might be prone to forget to turn the light on. The people I have talked to with underground tanks all like them. It is also out of the way and requires no thought or memory.

Bud · Jul 25, 2001

Joy Susan, I have a pit for my well, it's about 6' square inside and about 4.5' high. The reason it's 4.5' high is the solid rock on the bottom. The walls are 8" block and the top is concrete on steel decking. I had a rod pump and a 42 gallon pressure tank before I put in the submersible pump. This was put in in 1956 and never froze even though we have had tempratures as low as -18 degrees F.
By the way, there was never a light bulb or anything else in there to create heat.
Bud

Anonymous Poster · Jul 25, 2001

My recommendation is inside your barn. When we moved on to our property 12 years ago we had a trailer home and didn't have room for an inside pressure tank. We put in a "well pit" (vault) and while we had no freezing problems we had alot of ground water problems. To prevent hydrostatic pressure from moving the vault around they put a hole in the bottom to allow water to seep in and drain back out. Great in theory, not so great in practice. I don't know your soil makeup, but I have clay that slows down drainage. During spring melt or prolonged rain, water would fill the vault and short out the points. I finally had to install a sump pump that might have run 2 dozen times a year.

When we built the house we put the tank inside were it belongs (in my humble opinion). Now the vault cap is just another thing to mow around. Just another varible for you to consider.

One benefit the vault provided was a refuge during tornados, although I don't miss that at all with a basement.

heehaw · Jul 31, 2001

the tank can be a good distance from the well, how about puttin the tank in the crawl space, if you have one, under your house, or in a closet, the only noise is the sound of the pressure switch clickin on an off. i am curious how far is to far for a well, i've seen them far enough that it took a pump in the middle to get water to the house. some folks use insulated, fiberglass, dog house looking boxes. seem to work.
heehaw

Anonymous Poster · Jul 31, 2001

heehaw,

The barn is about 350 feet from the house. I considered putting pipe in a trench through the back yard but decided that that cost along with the cost of bypassing our water purification system was too much considering the cost of a new well and pump. What we have done so far is dig a 5x5 hole inside the barn (where the tack room will be). My barn contractor is going to make a concrete chamber when he pours the concrete for the main aisle, tack room and wash room. The well is 5 feet from the barn and we dug a 3 foot deep ditch for the pipe from the well to the pumb. What do you think? (and thanks to everyone for their advice).

heehaw · Aug 1, 2001

sounds like your on the right track...my well is 500+ feet from the house, an i have a 1/2hp gould pump that has worked since @1987; the only thing, no 2 showers at a time, an please do not flush while i'm in the shower, i could go with a bigger pump an solve that, but its not worth the trouble as long as the pump works.
heehaw