Advice on a Submersible Well Pump

 
Hoytman
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Post by Hoytman » Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 9:43 am

CoalisCoolxWarm wrote:
Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 8:40 am
If I didn't say it before, at only 20 feet or so, it's likely you are getting ground water (like a spring) anyways. You may be wise to install UV filter in your house, if you haven't already.

Most wells I am familiar with around here use a solid casing for at least the first 20 feet to avoid ground water, then it's based on how to avoid water from the coal layers due to contamination. There are some good wells around here, but many are loaded with iron.

Ram pumps are cool, but they bypass a lot of water. The metal ones last, but can be noisy. Some folks like the rhythmic sound in a distance, others don't. Think about it if and where you install one.

If you can use a tank to build some head to help get the water to the house, jet pumps won't care too much.
No place in the house for a UV filter, let alone a whole house filter. Two closets are being taken up now with hot water heater and a water softener, and we'd like to recover those closets for storage space. Another closet was lost to the oil furnace. So, we moved to a bigger house with far less storage space because of the open design. I am considering moving the water heater and the softener out of the house and into the garage across the breezeway. There I have room to make a closet to put them in, but I will have to heat it somehow, likely with electric.

An even better option for those two appliances is on the back of the garage building a a small room for an Axeman Anderson coal stoker boiler and placing the water heater and softener in the same room...say 8'x12' or 8'x20' or even 12'x20' off the back of the garage. A room big enough for the boiler, water heater and softener, home filtration and ... hey ... just thought of it ... everything that would go in the well house plus enough room to work in there and store coal too. That might be my best option rather than building a separate well house further up in the yard, or at least keep minimal equipment in the well house.

What I wanted was a 30" well dug so I could have the well and holding tank all-in-one. Someone mentioned a working "wishing well" also. Not sure if the county would let me get by with that. Plus across the road lives a "permit hawk". :lol:

 
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Post by lzaharis » Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 9:55 am

Hoytman wrote:
Mon. Jan. 24, 2022 3:33 pm
I am currently pulling all water from a 2800 gallon block holding tank I repaired that was a cistern. I'm hauling water, no longer letting rain water supply it...for now at least.

My jet pump is newly replaced under the house...and all water has been coming from the cistern/holding tank since the well caved in. The old well jet pump and air tank are disconnected from the old well.

I have not tried to pull anything from the well because I can't without flushing it with a large air compressor or dry ice. Even then it's only 6ft off my patio...talk about a mess near the house. Besides...I dropped a bolt on a string down and it stopped at about 18 ft...so there's no way anything will come out without using the compressor or dry ice and flushing it all out. The water wasn't very good anyway and only about 5 gallon a minute...which is still a lot of water to supply a holding tank with over 24 hours. No...a new well needs to be drilled. I would like to clean it out, but I'll have to do it myself. I'm not going to spend the money only to waste it because the well can't be used, or the water is bad.
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You could have your well fracked using high pressure water which is how it is actually done but until that is done you will not know how good the water is.

Are you using a carbon filter and a sediment filter?

One way you could reduce your water use would be to use distilled water buying it and filling a water cooler with it or distilling
your own water with a tabletop 110 volt distiller or a stove top water distiller.

Have you had the well water tested by the county healt department?

 
Hoytman
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Post by Hoytman » Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 10:12 am

lzaharis wrote:
Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 9:55 am
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You could have your well fracked using high pressure water which is how it is actually done but until that is done you will not know how good the water is.

Are you using a carbon filter and a sediment filter?

One way you could reduce your water use would be to use distilled water buying it and filling a water cooler with it or distilling
your own water with a tabletop 110 volt distiller or a stove top water distiller.

Have you had the well water tested by the county healt department?
I will look into the water fracking.

No room in the house for any type of filtration. The water softener has been off-line for at least 25-30 years and is just occupying valuable closet space.

We buy lots of distilled water now for cooking and coffee. I also have a reverse osmosis system that I can install later when it's all fixed, but I actually planned on going the Berkey route as well as carbon and whole house sediment filtration system when I build a place to install it that is heated.

Well has been caved-in for likely over 30 years. It was tested when it was drilled and that was it. As it stands now a bolt on a string will only go down the well about 18ft...meaning an additional 27ft has been caved in for a very long time.


 
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Post by warminmn » Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 11:05 am

Ive used a gravity filter similar to a Berkey for years and love it. The only problem I had was mine came with 5 holes for adding filters. i only use 1 filter. The supplied plugs were a joke. After a couple years I bought some rubber bung plugs and that finally really sealed up those holes. You can get filters with carbon but the carbon only really works about 3 months. (your results may vary) Any of the filters Ive used last roughly a year. The taste really goes downhill when the filter is done.

The taste of the filtered waters seems to depend a lot on the taste of what you put into it. Spring water would likely taste the best.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 11:13 am

Heated outbuilding has many uses - make sure you build it big enough. :-)

As for the well, I really do not understand why your local well drillers do not case the entire bore with a screen at the water level.

 
Hoytman
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Post by Hoytman » Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 11:35 am

Rob R. wrote:
Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 11:13 am
Heated outbuilding has many uses - make sure you build it big enough. :-)

As for the well, I really do not understand why your local well drillers do not case the entire bore with a screen at the water level.
We're in the same boat. I can't believe it wasn't cased all the way down. I could see only casing some of it if it was truly solid bedrock, but it it's not...and I made that point with one well driller who gave an estimate...of $3600 up to 90ft if needed. The next was $12,000 to 60ft.

Most well logs around me say about 5-6 gallon/minute. Two have 10 gallon a minute. All shallow except the neighbor across the road who lives on the top of the hill. His well is till only about 70ft deep which would actually be less than mine when you consider him living up on the hill. However, on my neighbors property across the road and up on the side of the hill about 40ft up...and about 75-100 yard from my house is a spring coming out of the side of the hill. He didn't even know about it until I mentioned it. There's even a pipe drove into the side of the hill, but it's steep there. That spring is directly across the road from my own property and if I walk to the upper end of my lot and stand in the middle of it looking towards that spring on his hillside it is about 55 yards from where I'd be standing. There has to be water there...too many trees finding water even when the creek is bone dry.

A 1/2 mile west of me up on high ground one family had 3-200ft wells dug...all bone dry. Not even a gallon/minute.


 
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Post by McGiever » Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 12:22 pm

Hoytman wrote:
Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 1:11 am
I thought about that, Larry. It’s still a thought. I’m just trying to figure out how to get past all the rock. There’s plenty of rock down deep, but also lots of rock just below the dirt level most of which my grandpa had trucked in. I had trouble driving “T” posts more than 8” in the garden and up at the wood pile. Even with a 50 lb. driver.

I am very tempted to try drilling a well myself if I thought I could get through the rock and down 20 ft or more somehow. I’m not sure how those driving points would hold up. I guess I need to research it more, but somehow one of those well kits at TSC doesn’t seem like it would last long in the rock. I’d sure try it if I thought it would or if someone knew it would hold up.
Bill, Lots of ways to drill your own water well besides driving one of those TSC well points. Like I said lots of You Tube videos of different techniques. I stumbled across one last week that impressed me. Guy used an big and slow electric drill motor with a cleverly designed bit. I won’t go into description as you’ll do better watching the video. And again there are many more ways…

See what you glean from this lesson.

 
Hoytman
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Post by Hoytman » Tue. Jan. 25, 2022 12:49 pm

Yeah I’ve not seen that video but have seen a few others, some using water which with the right point could work if you could get it through rock.

Problem is I’m not sure drilling my own well is legal. I need to research that more. What I found earlier indicated it wasn’t but I didn’t do a thorough search and I didn’t try to confirm or deny at the county level. Ideally, I wouldn’t mess with getting a permit, but I may be bound to by law...and then there’s the neighboring “permit hawk” tattle tail to consider also.

I will certainly look more into this. Would be optimal for me and by-pass all the BS I seem to be getting from drillers.

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