WELL WATER QUESTIONS...

[TractorLegend]

I live in the city so I'm rather inexperienced with wells.
My recreation property has a well we had drilled/installed 6 yrs ago.
It has a 80 gal surge tank, 1 hp pump and some pump controls and 1 inch pipe.
Its 175 ft deep at was tested to 1/2 gal a minute. The gpm specs sounded anemic to me at the time but it is at our recreation property and fairly intermittent use.
I have not had an issue with it till this weekend running out of water in spite of operating a sprinkler continuously now and then, showers, watering tasks, and I've had up to 10 people over the weekend on occasion.
This weekend I think for a spell I ran out of water for a short time.
I was running an impact sprinkler on a single garden hose and it stopped flowing after about an hour.
I checked the inline cartridge filter and it had some sediment, but not plugged. The pump would run for a spurt and stop, start, stop- dribble. Then after a while it appeared to be back to normal. Thats what leads me to believe water table is low...
I would assume an electrical problem would be consistent.
The well company was closed- but the emergency service tech said he could review our "build sheet" and see if the pump could be submersed deeper-then get back to me after the 4th.
So assuming I am running on the edge of not enough GPM:

Is there a way to increase GPM?
We had that year 2000 earthquake here in WA 6.1 ish and i noticed sediment then---maybe it reduced flow? No problem till now.
Is there a screen down there that needs cleaning or the well vacuumed out?
Any ideas appreciated!

I know TBN has experts "out standing in their fields" on about every subject!!

 

[JJT]

How much standing water do you have in your well? If the water table is low, you don't have much of a reserve. At .5 gallons/min I wouldn't be doing much watering. I have neighbors that get by with a similar yield and a 40' well. They have a pair of 500 gallon tanks in the basement, giving them a huge reserve. It's a pain, you have 2 pumps and you need to flush and clean the tanks at least once a year.

 

[KYErik]

You could add another large captive air tank (surge tank). This would double your water reserve (or triple it if you added 2 more). You would still need to cut back on the sprinkler use because any time you exceed .5 gpm usage, you are "exceeding your water income and going into water debt". Your surge tanks are your savings account that will keep you from going bankrupt while you are overextending your water budget.

 

[heehaw]

the thing i would be most worried about, is not having a low pressure cut off for the pump: if the water level dropped below the pump, then its running without any water: i would assume that will really shorten the life of the pump. with a low pressure shutoff, if the water pressure drops below a set level, it kicks the pump off: and you have to reset the cutoff before it will start again:
heehaw

 

[John47]

0.5 galls per minute is the flow in to the well of water. Thats pretty low!! You could have a well driller in and drill deeper to see if he can increase that flow. You could also have a large tank, either poly or construct a rock/brick tank of a couple of thousand gallons, as a reserve.
I had a 100 foot well in the foothills of the Sierra's in California, it was 10 gpm at the start of summer and dwindled to about 2-3gpms during the summer.
Here in Missouri, my well is 550 feet deep, it was rated at 10gpm by the well driller, it is yielding a lot more now it's "mature" though.

Although the pump is not pumping water when you get the level down in the well, there is sufficient water in and around the pump to cool it, not wise to leave it running too long though when the well is low! The pump should have a thermal cut out to prevent it overheating, check the paperwork for it!

 

[TractorLegend]

I believe my well system has a low flow/pressure cutoff switch. I think thats whats going on. The pump was cutting off.
Just curious if wells get less flow over time.
I dont have any uphill neighbors, Im out in the woods.
The storage tanks could be an option, but in my limited use cleaning would be a chore likely from stagnant water, plus the job of freeze protecting them.
I don't have endless indoor storage there.
I'm not sure how much standing water there is---possibly I'll have the well company come review options.
They thought maybe pump could be put lower in the hole.
I'm wondering about drilling deeper and if they can get their truck in now where my trailer is jacked up on blocks.
We'll see.

 

[TractorLegend]

After talking to the well installers the man at Moerke & Sons informed me the well is 6 GPM as opposed to the .5 GPM I thought it was---so thats good news.

He said one garden hose sprinkler normally uses up to 5 GPM max so he thought likely that shouldn't run the well dry.

theres a pump control box that senses amperage that possibly could be faulty.

we will monitor situation and have the company do a service call if situation persists
I may get a spare pump control box just for peace of mind.

 

[Highbeam]

TL, you can go to the washington state DOE website and view all the well logs in the state. You will need to find yours by address or zooming in on a map. It is really cool since the well log has info such as flow rate and each soil horizon encountered as the well was drilled. You can also look at your neighbors and see how deep they had to go for what yield and see if they are drinking the water out from under you.

This tool is very helpful when looking at property to buy since you can estimate water availability and also indicate the soils in the area.

 

[gordon21]

Does anyone know if there a similar website for North Carolina?

 

[depasseg]

An alternative to drilling a deeper well is a process called hydro-frac'ing (as in fracturing). The well company pumps pressurized water like a jack hammer into your well. This helps open up the rock fissures and allows water to flow to the well quicker. We had it done here in NH and our well went from 3GPM to over 20GPM.