Well and water

[RayH]

I live in the eastern panhandle of WV. There really isnt a water table here. Its more like little veins of water. You either get one or you dont. Some of my neighbors got water at 200', some at 400'. I hit at 450 but decided it wasnt enough to sustain us through a dry spell. The ironic thing is I live within spitting distance of the Potomac river.
The mountainous topography must cause weird shelves and things underground I guess.

 

[OkeeDon]

I forgot to say that when the well driller was finishing up, he forced air into the well to determine the flow, before the pump was installed. He said we've got about 65 gallons per minute available, enough to support up to about a 3 HP pump if we want more water.

I also failed to get any pictures of the completed well rig once installed; I was pressed for time on this project. It's just your standard submersible pump dropped about 50' into the well casing, and a large (about 5' tall, 3' diameter) pressure tank. The current pressure switch is a 30# - 50#, hasn't been adjusted yet, and shuts off at an indicated 45#. When the water is flowing freely to the pond fill, the pressure is a steady 35 psi. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it works.

As far as water treatment is concerned, we rarely get "sweet" water. It's hard and will need a softener. In addition, it has a very slight sulphur odor that will be removed by treatment. We're fortunate that we don't appear to have much color in the water; the shallower wells have tanin in them that turns the water brown and stains everything. My daughter's well was drilled many years ago and is only about 80'; they are in the shallower aquifer. Their treatment system, with softener, filters, etc., cost $2,800 installed, but their water is now of excellent quality. Ours may be a little less because we don't have the color and odor that they had.

 

[OkeeDon]

Wow, salt water instrusion about as far away from the oceans as you can get! Some of our wells along the coast have salt water intrusion, but most are OK. If you go deep enough, you can get salt water in the central "spine" of Florida, a ridge that runs down the center of the state. (Side note - anyone who has ever driven across Florida from East to West or vice versa may have seen this. About 60 miles from my property, the elevation suddenly changes about 100'. You go up the hill, cross the ridge for about 4 miles, then drive down the hill on the other side. This was all there was to Florida a long, long time ago). "Deep enough", according to my well driller, is about 1,500'. He has drilled wells that deep to get adequate flow for municipal wells.

 

[AndyM]

Wow, i thought we had to go deep at 197 feet. I looked up all of my neighbor's wells on the internet (is there anything that's NOT on the internet?), before we had ours drilled, and theirs were all around 100 feet. As my driller got past 160 feet, I just kept seeing dollar signs, because we based our well budget from the depth of the neighbors' wells.

Anyhoo, I got 10 GPM from it, and they also register the soil types and other interesting information on their website--

YEL CLAY 0 - 15
BLU CLAY 15 - 70
SHALE 70 - 160
WHI SANDSTONE 160 - 197

If anyone else lives in Ohio and wants to look up information on their well, here is the website--
Ohio Water Well Logs

 

[RonR]

I don't know if the salt is from an old ocean OR from salt water injection into oil wells over many years. I know the salt water is a BIG pollution problem. There's a salt water plum drifting toward our city water supply. They've been tracking it for 20+ years and right now, it's within a mile of one of the wells (which are clustered within a square mile).

Ron

 

[TBAR]

Got Wind................ /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

http://community.webshots.com/photo/40489315/40492522owMybp

http://community.webshots.com/photo/40489315/57100671SvXOQd

We have had to deepen 6 wells from 300' to 400' due to a droping water table.


TBAR

 

[OkeeDon]

Interesting you should mention wind. I'd love to have a windmill, but no one in our area (that I've been able to find) has any clues as to how well they'd work. I don't think I'd like to be the guinea pig, spending a bundle only to find out there isn't enough consistent wind in my area, or some other problem. There used to be windmills in the area -- I occasionally see a derelict standing in a field -- but no one knows how ell they worked, and no one knows of an active one. That scares me a little.

Guess I need to do more research, but it will have to wait a bit while I take care of a few more pressing things, like finishing the design of my house so I can pull some permits.

 

[SPIKER]

Thanks for that OHIO well link! I'm lookin at it in a different window now! finding mine! lol Mark M /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[hard_yakka]

Anyone know of where you can find recommended maximums of TDS for irrigation water, I thought I'd searched the internet but found nothing specific, just general terms and classifications. Looks like water with TDS level over 1500ppm and your asking for trouble if your pH and soil are not right.

 

[OkeeDon]

I finally got a picture of the pond now that the float valve has done it's job. The top picture is the normal water table at this time of year; the botom picture is the filled pond. The float valve will keep it at this level. We've been monitoring it, and it appears that it will run from 1 to 4 hours per day to keep it at this level, during the dry season.

I tried to get the pictures from close to the same angle; the difference in lighting is because one was at dusk, taken into the sun, using the palm tree to block the sun, and the other was taken in the morning.