Where should we locate the well?

[stumpfield]

I found an interesting paper from Penn State. Water Facts #5. by the School of Forest Resources. It's interesting... It says the fracture zone is usually under surface depression. Not on a ridge or hill.

http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/pdfs/sfr5.pdf

Interesting reading...

 

[EddieWalker]

I just skimmed over it since it's not something I'm dealing with, just curious about it is all.

The very first picture shows it clearly, or at least that's how I thought it worked. Sure you can hit water on a ridge or in a field, the water table travles horizontally from the source.

It just makes sense to me that rivers, canyons and lakes would be the best source of water for the aquafier's.

It also makes sense that drillers will tell clients where the best place to drill is, even if it's not the best place for a well. Getting the truck to the very best place could be completely impossible.

Eddie

 

[LarryD]

<font color="blue"> Our wells here on the valley floor between Mt. Rainier and the puget sound are several hundered feet deep despite our ground elevation of 60 feet above sea level.
</font>

According to my GPS, I'm 11' below the highest point on Whidbey Island, 501' (USGS maps sorta concure), and my pump is at 72', just goes to show where you'll find water.

I rented a house from a guy that knew a geologist who surveyed an area for a developer to find the best place for a well that could support a 10 home development. The geologist identified the most likely place to drill and 5 holes later, not enough water.

My landlord has him come up to his parcel as a favor to point out the best place to drill and it's on the side of a hill, across a salmon spawning stream. Now we all know (at least in the northwest) that's going to require 14 agencies to sign off on that, so Andy paces off 101' from the septic leach field and says drill here.

50' and 200gpm (best guess) later the driller finally gets his rig off the artesian well and caps it. This all took place less than 50' from the creek, about 25' above it.

If I was looking for water, I would give serious thought to a witcher. I have never made it work for me but I've seen it work. JMHO

 

[MarkV]

Something else that could come into play, as I read the different options for the well placement, is running the pipe. It sounds like you have solid rock close to the surface and difficult access to much of the property. Here in the south, without much worry of freezing, we still set our water lines 2’ below surface. As I hear mention of ¼ and ½ mile pipe runs I have to wonder if that is possible or practical. Guess anything is possible but it could cost more than the well drilling itself.

Could be worth looking into what the trenching would cost and see how that compares to drilling deep closer to the house site.

MarkV

 

[Egon]

Just did a little looking.

Seems the San Andreas are basicly formed from a fractured Granitic Batholye. As said water will be in the fractures. Finding the fractures may be a hit and miss afair.

Farther west in the valley there are deposition sediments making for a completly different aquifier structure.

web page

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[ByronBob]

I'm with Mark. What about freezing temps and the mtns being solid rock. Can you bury the lines to begin with?

You need to get a driller up there and walk the property and show him what you've got going on first.

 

[turnkey4099]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( </font><font color="blueclass=small">( He said the canyons and ravines that carry water are the worst to drill because the rock in those places have been squeezed together so tight that there are very few fissures in those locations. )</font>

OK, call me slow, but this just doesn't make sense to me. Ravines and canyons are caused by erosion, not movement of the plats. What would cause them to be sqeezed together?

I'm of the opinion that those locations are where the magority of the underground water suplly comes from. Rain doesn't come down heavy enough saturate the land down hundreds of feet. It just travel down there along a path of some kind. I always though this happened in the mountains from the crackes in the rock, and the the vast majoritiy of it came from lakes and rivers.

Could it also just be a story that well drillers tell to avoid having to deal with the absolute most dificult location for the to get their drilling rigs to???

Sorry for my ignorance,
Eddie

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Same here. It looked like an old wives tale to me. I think the well driller is full of it.

Surface water is no indication of aquifers except for active springs. A spring by it's very nature is the outflow from and aquifer. A running stream (unless spring fed) is only draining off surface water.

To show the nature of underlying geography. Both me and my neighbor just across the highway from me both drilled wells.

Mine hit 20 gpm at 60 ft. Went through mostly clay, loam and fractured rock. No solid bed rock until near the source.

His hit solid beadrock 9 ft below the surface and remained that all the way down. Don't recall the figures now but he went something like 180 ft and only hit 4-5 gpm. Those wells are only a few hundred feet apart on opposite sides of a small valley with a running creek down the middle.

Harry K

 

[stumpfield]

Just want to add that I'm at about 3000' elevation. Ground freezing is not a problem. The temperature rarely fall below freezing. It may snow a few times a year, but usually melt when the sun comes out.
Although it's all rock underneath, there's 10-20 feet of soil before you hit solid rock. Certain spots we may see rock on the surface or just 1-2 feet below ground in eroded area along the creek. The soil is sandy loam and very easy to dig. So, we shouldn't have any difficulty trenching and burrying the pipes. We already cut a 1/2 mile driveway and the building pad. So we know the soil condition along the driveway. That's where the pipe will be buried.

We are hoping for a high yield well and use for irragation as well as demostic water use. We just want an educated choice of a well location with a higher probability of finding a reasonable amount of water. Well drillers just want to drill. They don't want to get involve in other stuff or make suggestions on what's best for you and I don't blame them. That just part of the business.

I rather build a road and grade a level pad for the well driller if the location is more favorable. I don't want to just pick a spot just because it easy for the driller to setup his rig.

The reason I was a little skeptical was because when I met the 1st well driller (before we cut the driveway...) He suggest to drill right at the entrance. I guess that's the only place he can drill at the time.

The 2nd well driller came later (we have about 500' of driveway and a turn around area at 400'...). Now he can drive his truck in and stop at the 400' turn around area. He suggest that's the spot to drill. He didn't even go past that point.

I'm sure there are all kinds of well drilling stories and many non-scientific methods to find water. It's like the lottery. People hit the jackot every week. If my goal was to to make a million buck, buying the lottery definitely not the 1st thing I would try.

I'm still researching whether drilling near a lower elevation ravine/creek with known year-round springs below is a more favorable location than on top of a ridge or somewhere in between. It will cost me $2000 of dozer work to cut a road and grade a pad there. At $15/foot drilling rate, I can recover that cost very quickly.

 

[stumpfield]

Here's a better picture of the diagram. It makes a lot of sense to me. What do you think?

 

[3RRL]

Well, I don't know what to tell you guys other than what I was told by my driller. And in my case he suggested the right spot. I too thought that drilling in or near the ravine would surely get water but he told me no. Don't know what to tell you about his statement that the rock is "squeezed" together tightly in a ravine such as mine. He said geological movement had pushed the earth around and the recessed areas were "squeezed" tight together and the ridges were force up. By doing so, the ridges had more fissures in them by being pushed up and shifted.

Like I said before, I'm no well expert and he is. He must know something because of the 3 or 4 drillers in our area, he is the only one reccomended by everyone there.

I read that link to the well locations in PA and it makes sense to me, like it did before he told me...so now what? I don't know? Maybe Eddie is on to something about drilling in a ravine is **** near impossible? However, in my case there were several spots I could have made easy access to in the smaller, narrower sections of the ravine. It is about 100' -150' or so and parallel to the current wellsite. But again, he suggested an area where I later pin-pointed the wellsite by witching and I had to level that area anyway.

Wonder if it has anything to do with impeding the natural flow of water in some way? Or maybe he just knows that area? Experience is the best teacher in many cases.