Need Water Well Advice, Please

[RobertN]

WE went to St Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands a couple years ago; this was a very common practice. It is a small island with no streams or creeks for water; just tropical rain. They also had a desalination plant that trucked water too.

I have friends around my parts with poor water and they dug multiple 1000 gallon storage tanks into the ground and tied the down spouts into the tanks for water collection.

Depending on how often it rains there this might do the trick. Only you know how long water will last at your place. You truck in how much how often?

 

[mikim]

google "rain water harvesting" ... lots of info on how to etc ..... sounds like it would be cheaper & better than what you have.

 

[tlbuser]

Just stumbled across this article http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/files/gi-366.pdf_4008200.pdf

 

[Gadgetnut]

Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for the input. I am out today but will be back this evening and will respond soon. Thanks again. -Gadgetnut

 

[nessmuk53]

Gadgetnut

I live in Central Va. Five years ago our well went dry. It has since come back, but I don't trust it for heavy use. We had to do a new roof so we put together a rainwater collection system with 3000 gallons of storage. Since that day in 2002 we have used rainwater for eveything but cooking and drinking. It has worked out just fine for us. I had to plumb it all in myself because I couldn't get any plumber interested in doing it though.

I would highly recommend the rainwater route.

Nessmuk

 

[hitekcountry]

Seven acre lake- is it full of water all the time or does it dry up in the summer?

What feeds the lake- rain or stream?

What is the quality of the water in the lake?

What water treatment system do you have?

Realize that even sewer water can be cleaned up to the quality of drinking water.

You could put together quite an effective water treatment system for what it would cost to drill another well that you already know would be a big gamble.

I put together an Ozone system that works great. The Ozone equipment I purchased but the overall system is my design.

 

[scott_vt]

My questions are: has anyone had any experience with hydro-frac?

Afternoon Gadgetnut,
A few years ago I began to have problems with my well at my Ct property. When I built the house in 82 I had the well pounded to a depth of 165 ft approx. We were running out of water after doing a few loads of clothes or if the kids were taking multiple showers, I believe this all happened around 97 or 98. Anyway my buddy who is in the well pump business suggested I drill the well deeper. I had a rotary job come in and he went down to 450 ft. No volume was found and they suggested hydro-frac. I was sceptical because I had spent a good deal of money already ! Im very glad we did because I know have a viable well at that property and 350 ft of reserve, my normal static level is at anywhere between 30 to 50 ft. It worked well for me but it may not for everyone. Feel free to ask any other questions !

 

[Egon]

Gadgetnut:

Maybe the first thing to do is find out more of the geology of your area. Look at this carefully and then make some decisions from there.

 

[sawdust_maker]

Gadget,

Rather than drill a new well or waste money on an existing dry hole, I'd rather spend my money on rain water collection with a buried cistern. It will be fairly clean, so easy to clean up for drinking. If this source is inadequate, then either have water trucked in, or use the pond, filtered and maybe chlorinated, as a source of water. If its too hard to clean up, split your water system so that drinking water comes from a different source.

We use lake water for all our uses. In late summer, it can be bad looking stuff. Very green, plus a fair amount of iron and hardness. After cleaning up, it is arguably higher quality water than we used to get from the municipal water system at our last place. We do use a reverse osmosis system for drinking water.

John

 

[dmccarty]

If you have to get a permit to drill a well then I would expect the county would have information on how deep one has to drill to get water as well quality and volume. Also what do the well drillers say about the area.

In my county most of the wells are 200-300 feet deep. It is a toss of the coin how much volume you get. I'm at 15 gpm. A nearby neighbor is 32 gpms! His nearest neighbor a couple hundred yards away, well to well, gets about 5 gpm. I know of lots of people with 5 gpm. The well driller said that he does not drill many dry holes in our area but the GPM varies.

When I lived in KY a guy built a really nice house on a hill with great views. A creek that never ran dry was within a few thousand feet of the house. He could not get a well with water! I have always wondered if it was because of leaky limestone but anywho they had huge cistern under the house/porch. It looked like a basement and it normally would have been but it was to hold water.

When I see the amount of water pouring off our roof in a rain I wish we had a cistern to use if for no other reason than to use for the garden.

Good luck.
Dan