Water Well Output--How to Increase?

[npalen]

Someone mentioned hydro fracking in another forum. What is the process and what does it accomplish? My lawn and garden irrigation well has been in service since '76 and puts out about 10-12 gpm depending on how dry the year is. It's 31' depth and 20' to water using a 1/2 HP submersible in 5"pvc casing. I could use another 5 or so gpm output cabability so my question about fracking. I've heard of shooting a rifle down into the well so the concussion opens up clogged inlet holes. Old wives tale?

 

[Carl_NH]

Fracking water wells works but your well is too shallow (not a lot of surface area) in my opinion to make a big difference. Getting 10-12 GPM is pretty decent for your depth so I would live with it.

The process is they put a pipe with a rubber boot or two on the pipe, then inflate the boot to seal the well then inject water at high pressure 2-3000 PSI, which hydraulically fractures the surrounding strata. Essentially, the pressure rises then when the fracturing occurs it drops quickly, In deeper wells they typically fracture at multiple depths to obtain the best flow.

We had a 410' deep well in granite got 1.5 GPM, they fracked and we got over 10 GPM so it worked great. Normally they charge $3000 but the well driller reduced that to $1500 over the total cost of the well drilling.

In your case, drilling deeper or a new well nearby may be a better less expensive option - I think drillers get around $10-12 a foot so to add 150' is less than the cost of fracking.

Talk to a driller and see what they say.

 

[Egon]

Move over a short distance and drill a new well. See if that has an increased capacity.

Or, drill the other well farther away and pump from two.

 

[adamrobinson]

If you want to increase your output capacity of water flow from well then drill a new well with a short distance..If you will do this then your water flow increase!!