mud pump for 100 feet dug wells for sale

Greetings Tim & Charlott, below is a GPS link and information on the well we just installed in the honor of Tim & Charlott King! Your love and commitment has allowed our Clean Water 4 Life ministry to sink over 500 water wells for those in need here in the Solomon Islands! Here is a link to read my current newsletter with lots of pictures! http://www.rickrupp.com/newsletter.php

Togokoba SSEC Church & Community is approx 58 kilometers east of Honiara. It was a long bumpy drive to this village. I had to walk a long way to get to the place where they lived. They explained that their source of drinking water was the stream. They were so happy when I explained that our CW4L team was going to come sink a well right in their village. I tasted the well water several weeks later after our team had blessed them with a water well. It tasted so good! It was nice clean & cold water! It never ceases to amaze me that there is such a nice water table here in the rural areas of the Guadnacanal plains! I counted 10 houses in this community and the population is approx 80 people. Now they finally have a source of clean drinking water! These people have suffered for many years either drinking from an open hand dug well or from the stream. Togokoba SSEC Church & Community is very grateful to our CW4L sponsors.

OK, all y’all air drillers just thumb on over to Porky’s column or something. This is for mud drillers. On second thought, I know a lot of you air guys drill about three mud wells a year, and consider it a hassle to rig up mud. So, maybe something I say will be interesting …

The mud pump is the heart of the circulating system, and mud is the blood circulating in the hole. I’ve talked about mud before and will again, but this month, let’s talk about the pump.

Historically, more wells, of every kind, have been drilled with duplex pumps than any other kind. They are simple and strong, and were designed in the days when things were meant to last. Most water well drillers use them. The drawbacks are size and weight. A pump big enough to do the job might be too big to fit on the rig, so some guys use skid-mounted pumps. They also take a fair amount of horsepower. If you were to break down the horsepower requirements of your rig, you would find out that the pump takes more power than the rotary and hoist combined. This is not a bad thing, since it does a lot of the work drilling. While duplex pumps generally make plenty of volume, one of the limiting factors is pressure. Handling the high pressures demanded by today’s oil well drilling required a pump so big and heavy as to be impractical. Some pretty smart guys came up with the triplex pump. It will pump the same — or more — volume in a smaller package, is easy to work on and will make insane pressure when needed. Some of the modern frack outfits run pumps that will pump all day long at 15,000 psi. Scary. Talk about burning some diesel.

The places that triplex pumps have in the shallow drilling market are in coring and air drilling. The volume needs are not as great. For instance, in hard rock coring, surface returns are not always even seen, and the fluid just keeps the diamonds cool. In air drilling, a small triplex is used to inject foam or other chemicals into the air line. It’s basically a glorified car wash pump. The generic name is Bean pump, but I think this just justifies a higher price. Kinda like getting the same burger at McDonald’s versus in a casino.

One of the reasons water well drillers don’t run triplex pumps, besides not needing insane pressure, is they require a positive suction head. In other words, they will not pick up out of the pit like a duplex. They require a centrifugal charging pump to feed them, and that is just another piece of equipment to haul and maintain.

This brings me to another thought: charging. I know a lot of drillers running duplex pumps that want to improve the efficiency of their pumps. Duplexes with a negative suction head generally run at about 85 percent efficiency. The easy way to improve the efficiency is to charge them, thus assuring a 100 percent efficiency. This works great, but almost every one of them, after doing all that work and rigging up a charging pump, tells me that their pump output doubled. Being the quiet, mild mannered type that I am, I don’t say “Bull,” but it is. A duplex pump is a positive displacement pump. That means that it can deliver no more than the displacement it was designed for. You can only fill the cylinder up until it is full. It won’t take any more. The one exception to this is when you are pumping at very low pressure. Then the charging pump will over run the duplex, float the valves and produce a lot more fluid. Might as well shut off the duplex and drill with the charging pump.

Another common pump used in the water well industry is the centrifugal. You see them mostly on air rigs that don’t use mud too often. They have their place, but are a different breed of cat. They are not positive displacement. Flow is a function of speed and horsepower up to the limits of the pump. After that, they just dead-head. With large diameter drill pipe they make a lot of mud, but after the hole gets deeper, friction losses — both inside and outside the drill pipe — build up. This means that the deeper you go, the less circulation you have. This slows the whole process. Positive displacement pumps don’t do this; they pump the same per stroke regardless of pressure. It just takes more horsepower. Also, displacement calculations like bottoms-up time and cement placement are just about impossible. One way to get around the limited pressure of centrifugal pumps is to run two of them in series. I’ve seen a few of these rig-ups and they work very well for large diameter drilling. They will make almost the same pressure as a big duplex for a lot less money. They are still variable displacement, but they roll so much fluid that it doesn’t seem to matter. And run at pretty reasonable depths, too: 300 to 400 psi at 400 gpm is not uncommon with two 3 x 4 centrifugal pumps in series.

I reckon there are pumps for every type of drilling. It is just a matter of using the right one correctly. I once drilled a 42-inch hole 842 feet deep with a 5½ x 8 duplex. Talk about long bottoms-up time … but we got the casing in with less than two feet of fill on bottom! Took time, but we got-er-done.

If you live in a rural area, the odds are that the water system to your home is served by a well. It’s the nature of living where we do, and having been on a well for a large chunk of my life, I like not being dependent on my locality to keep things flowing to my family and me. But, that also means arranging my own maintenance for the well system, and having the best well pump helps to ensure consistent water supply and rare upkeep.

I remember when my much-younger self first saw the inner workings of a home well system. The gauge at the well head wasn’t deep enough in the ground and froze during a particularly bad winter. Everything came out of the ground as we inspected the whole system to make sure nothing else was damaged. Hundreds of feet of tubing were attached to the tow ball of a pickup truck as we hauled it out of the ground, taking a look at the well pump at the end.

Though the weather didn’t impact the pump that far below ground, it had some damage from banging into the walls of the well itself, and we had to add a guard to keep the pump working for a few more years.

Most experts will tell you that a submersible well pump, like what most rural homeowners and farmers have, will last about 10 to 15 years — hopefully more toward the higher side of that. Replacing these units aren’t cheap, and if you pay for the labor, too, the bill can really increase.

Not everyone knows all the ins and outs of their well system, unless they’ve had to do some work to it. If you buy a home, it’s unlikely that you’re given much documentation on the history of the well. In most circumstances, your well is at least 100 feet deep, and some wells can be upwards of 500 feet down! Of course, a lot of that depends on exactly where you live. Having the pump submerged into at least 25- to 30-feet of water is ideal.

I have two wells on my farm — one is 183 feet and the other is 294 feet (the deeper one produces better-quality water). In recent years, we’ve had to have pumps on both wells replaced, and both required different horse powers to effectively get the water the full length and into my home, as well as get a sufficient number of gallons per minute into my pressure tank.

Having gone through that process, I learned a thing or two about well systems and trying to pick the best well pumps. After going through many options with experts, here are my Top 5 best well pumps. While we’re largely only highlighting one model from each of these well pump lines, know that there are often also similar 0.5-, 0.75, 1-, and 1.5-HP models for a lot of these available — at significantly different prices:

This is one of the best-selling well pumps you can find. It’s made for supplying water to rural homes, farms, and cabins that have 4-inch-or-greater diameter drilled wells to depths of about 250 feet. This pump is powered by a three-wire motor (a control box is included with all three-wire pumps) and has a built-in check valve that prevents backflow and ensures system pressure. It also has a stainless steel shell and thermoplastic discharge and motor bracket. It is is 230 volts.

The Flotec FP3332 4-inch Submersible Well Pump is for use with wells 4 inches or larger. The Flotec well pump is energy efficient and ideal for pumps with average yields. A floating stack design that’s patented ensures that the Flotec FP3332  pump will be resistant to sand locking, and a stainless steel pump ensures that it will be resistant to corrosion. A built-in check valve and easy service control box make installing and servicing the Flotec well pump easy. It’s a three-wire, 230-volt pump.

Showcasing a Franklin Electric, this pump combines a long and powerful reputation in both brand name and manufacturer. The Little Giant is available with a thermoplastic discharge and motor bracket, or a stainless steel discharge and motor bracket, and it has a ceramic bearing sleeve for durability. Behind 230 volts, it also has a hex rubber bearing with an extra large surface to assure shaft stability and multiple flow channels to keep small particles away from bearing surfaces.

The Grundfos 10SQ07-200 96160141 Submersible Well Pump offers a wide performance range. The 4-inch SQ is a compact multistage centrifugal pump that can be installed in a borehole no larger than the pump itself. With their built-in electronics, SQ pumps are very easy to install and operate. Equipped with permanent magnet motors, these flexible and compact pumps offer excellent efficiency levels and will supply pump heads up to 200 meters.

The BURCAM 101131H 230-volt, 2-wire + ground deep well submersible pump is recommended for homes, cottages, and farms for installation in water wells that are 4-inch in diameter or larger. Made of non-corrosive 316 stainless steel with a NEMA standard interchangeable head that includes 12 stages of precision machined stainless steel impellers and diffusers and a hexagonal stainless steel drive shaft, this pump features a continuous duty motor for durability. It pumps up to 900 U.S. GPH and has a maximum head of 275 feet. Best efficiency is between 114 and 198 feet (with a 20/40 PSI pressure switch) or 91 to 175 feet (with a 30/50 pressure switch).

Many wells that we’ve encountered are at least 100 feet deep, and some wells can even be drilled as deep as 500 feet. It depends exactly on where you live and how close your drilling technician can get to a good vein of water within the earth. Having a well pump submerged into at least 25- to 30-feet of water is ideal, and in many instances, they’ll last you 10 to 15 years.

Certainly a lot will depend on your location, and prices fluctuate along with the economy, but it’s likely you’ll end up paying $15 to $30 a foot (so $1,500 to $3,000 for a 100-foot well). And be aware that if the drilling doesn’t strike viable water, you still have to pay for that work. Usually a technician will charge you the low end of their price range for an unsuccessful attempt. Then you pay for the next attempt at drilling. Also note that there may be permitting regulations in your area, which can add to the cost.

Drilling a well by hand is a lot of work, but it can be done with the right equipment. Whether you’re looking to drill a shallow or deep well, this skill is perfect for those seeking self-reliance.

Wells are normally drilled on private land where city or rural water isn’t available. It’s possible to hire a licensed professional to provide this service but you can expect to spend several thousand dollars. If you want to save money, you can do it yourself, but prior to getting started, you need to research local regulations.

Once you receive a green light to move forward, it’s time to learn more about your land. Go to thecounty agriculture extension office to find out what soil type you have. This could include sand, clay, rock, or a combination.

The local courthouse may also have well drilling logs from professional well drillers. These will include things like when they hit ­ first water, what type of soil condition they encountered, and how deep they drilled the well. This could be helpful information but do remember that every property is different. The very ­ first step might be determining how deep you need to drill.

The final thing to do before drilling is to contact utility companies to make sure you don’t hit any underground pipes or lines. Sometimes this information can be found on your original land plot, but it’s always good to double-check.

Drilling a shallow well is a pretty simple task, going down about 25 feet or so when you hit first water (at least in my location). This type of well could be drilled in a weekend by hand using a general purpose, extendable post-hole auger.

This type of well can be cased off with a manual pump and used for irrigation. This would be more of an emergency setup that could also provide water needs at a weekend cabin in the countryside.

Shallow wells have a difficult time keeping up with average water usage. It’s estimated each person uses between 80 and 100 gallons of water a day. Imagine storing 20, 5-gallon jugs a day per person.

Professional well diggers will often recommend a depth of 200 feet or more, but remember, for hundreds of years every well in this country was hand-dug and that’s how people survived.

In addition to the drill, you’ll also need a very powerful air compressor to run the equipment. These can easily cost two or three times as much as the drill. A couple of ways to keep costs down include purchasing a used compressor, or purchasing a new one and then after the project is completed, selling the almost-new equipment for a few hundred dollars less than what you paid.

This brings us to the drill setup. This will require a day of planning before drilling begins. Most home improvement stores will carry almost everything you need.

Step 1: After purchasing the necessary supplies and choosing the drill location, begin digging the main drill hole with an auger or post-hole digger. Dig about 4 or 5 feet. Then, if necessary, cut the 8-inch PVC to fit the hole, allowing 4 inches to stick above ground. In the side of the PVC pipe aligned with the settling pond (see Step 2), drill a hole large enough to insert the 2-inch connecting PVC pipe.

Step 2: Dig a shallow settling pond 10 feet behind the well, no less than 4 feet across. Then dig a shallow 8-inch ditch connecting the pond to the well hole. Connect these spaces with 2-inch PVC pipe and cover. This pipe will transfer clean water from the pond to the drill hole. The pipe opening in the pond will need covering with netting so debris doesn’t flow back into the well.

Step 4: Attach 1-inch PVC pipe to the pneumatic drill using PVC glue and secure with duct tape to prevent leaks. Use a marker every 5 to 10 feet so you can keep track of how far down you have drilled. Rest the other end of attached PVC pipe in the 55-gallon drum. While the drill is running, mud and water will enter the pipe through small holes above the drill and be pushed up by the compressed air, traveling through the pipe into the drum and settling pond to be cycled back into the well hole.

Note: Depending on your soil type, you may not need the 8-inch PVC. Our soil, for example, is hard clay and stable enough to keep the hole from collapsing without the pipe.

Drilling a well with this tool can take anywhere from 15 hours to weeks depending on the soil type, so make sure a chair is handy and you’re working with at least three people. One to operate the compressor, another to drill, and a third for breaks.

The air supply to the drill should never be turned off while the drill is underwater. If this happens, you’ll have to stop drilling and clean the motor before starting back up. This can take time and delay progress, which means it’s important that your drill team understands the process from start to finish.

Begin by filling the well hole with water. Turn the drill on before inserting, and then begin drilling. The bit will drill through all soil types, but when it hits clay or rock the process will slow down. Don’t get frustrated, just keep drilling and, before you know it, first water will be hit.

Move the drill in an up, down, and side-to-side motion as this will help the drill drive through the soil. The motion should be constant but not forceful; the drill will do the work. When you reach the point of needing to add more pipe, pull the running drill from the hole and, once it’s out of the water, turn the air pressure off. As you add pipe, secure each addition with PVC glue.

Add the next several feet of pipe and start again. Once the desired depth is reached, it’s time to case off the well. Casing is a matter of inserting SDR 35 pipe and securing in place with pea gravel and concrete. To do so, drill a hole through both sidewalls of the first piece of pipe, 2 or 3 inches from the bottom so you can attach the rope to lower the pipe into the well. When the top of the pipe is even with the ground, apply PVC glue and attach the next piece of pipe. Let dry for 15 minutes and then continue to lower down and add pieces as you go to meet the depth of the well. The last piece of pipe will be cut about 3 feet above ground level and capped off.

Pour pea gravel between the casing and the dirt. Next, mix the concrete and pour between the ground and casing. This will prevent the well from becoming contaminated from runoff. Once this is complete and you’ve added a well pump, you’ll need to run the well for a couple of days until the water is clear, and it’s always a good idea to get the water tested before using it for drinking.

Drilling a well can be a long process, but if you can save money and learn a new skill at the same time, why not give it a try? It’s a matter of getting back to basics and doing more for yourself.

There are multiple methods to develop a water well, but the common denominator for each of them is energy. Energy must be produced to develop the well.

“Once you know these (rotary screw air) compressors, they’re pretty simple,” says Garth Owens, president of Drill Tech Drilling & Pump Inc. in Chino Valley, Arizona. “It’s not rocket science, but it is a precision unit.”

With approximately 15 rotary screw air compressors (two piston booster compressors) on six drill rigs or as auxiliaries on 10 pump hoists, Owens has learned the mechanical intricacies of them. He has rebuilt the compressors, changed their gear sets, and replaced them on rigs while passing along his knowledge to others in the industry.

“A lot of guys who are drilling don’t even have the right air to develop a well and they’ll throw a pump down there and just try to pump out the mud,” says Garth’s son, Nick, the manager at Drill Tech. “It destroys pumps and you’re never getting that mud wall cake off the walls behind the gravel pack to really get what the well’s producing.”

Nick Owens adds that another common mistake (see shaded box for a full list) contractors make comes down to the drilling products used. “A lot of guys drill with too much polymer and they never get their polymers out of the wells,” he says, “so sometimes you need things like chlorine to break down the polymers.

“You can drill too big of a well to where the annulus is too big, and you can’t get through the gravel pack to get the walls clean. That’s a big problem. A lot of guys think the bigger the hole they go, the more gravel the better, which isn’t necessarily good because you can never get enough annular velocity to get through the gravel pack and get that mud cake off. So, you’ve got to step back and look at the big picture of your annulus to your casing size to your gravel pack.

“Depending on what size drill pipe, what size borehole, what that annular space is between the drill pipe and the borehole determines the amount of your cubic feet per minute,” Garth Owens explains. “And then your pressure is determined by how deep you’re going to go. Every 2.31 feet of water is one pound of pressure you have to overcome, so basically, it’s a 2-to-1 ratio.

Today’s standard rotary screw air compressor rating is at least 900 cfm or 1000 cfm/350 psi. Thirty years ago, the standard was 450 cfm/250 psi or 600 cfm/250 psi.

For example, a 750 cfm/125 psi compressor is half the compressor of a 750 cfm/250 psi compressor because the contractor is compressing the air twice as tight. Therefore, with a 750 cfm/350 psi compressor, the contractor is compressing the air an additional 50%.

“For instance, for a 750/125 compressor, it’ll probably take 125 horsepower to run that. You go to 750/250, it’ll take you 300 horsepower. You go to 750/350, it’ll take 400 horsepower to do the exact same thing because you’re compressing tighter, tighter, and tighter it takes more horsepower to overcome that pressure. So, the higher the pressure, the more horsepower you need.”

To decrease the uphole velocity of 3000 feet per minute, some contractors use drill foam to clean the well at half the amount, 1500 feet per minute. “If you’re using foam and you’re filling that void, you’re taking half of that void away,” Garth Owens says. “You’re using half the air because you’re filling that void with an artificial substance. It’s going to foam up and blow out and then it’s going to evaporate and go away.”

The double-swabbed tool has perforations between the two swabs. Airlifting typically occurs through the drill pipe “from which the development swabs are suspended, so as the swabbing action brings suspended solids into the well, they are purged by the simultaneous airlift system,” writes Marvin F. Glotfelty, RG, in his book, The Art of Water Wells.

“The air comes out of the end of the drill pipe, comes up and hits that rubber swab which is the same diameter as the casing,” Garth Owens says, “and therefore all that air has to go out the perforations, blows into the gravel pack, spins that around in there, and cleans the gravel pack and cleans the borehole. Then the water comes up through the gravel pack and comes back to the perforations above your swab and comes out the top of the well.”

Glotfelty writes how this well development method is effective because “it provides both inward and outward energy to break down and remove the wall cake, without forming sand bridges in the adjacent formation.”

“We’ll actually create a vacuum and pull it between sections there,” Nick Owens says. “That’s why there’s a rubber swab above and below the holes. Typically, if you want to do an air swabber, you don’t need the rubbers because you’re just blowing it out through the perforated screen into the formation.”

The company’s high-velocity horizontal jetting tools allow it to adjust the amount of air it needs to push through them. “That way it’s blowing the air through the perforated screen, through the gravel pack, and then we’re trying to develop all that mud off there if it’s a mud hole,” Nick Owens says.

The company has an additional high-velocity jetting ball tool with approximately 20 holes each drilled to 3/16 inches around it. A high-pressure pump is used to pump freshwater down the well at 2000 psi.

“That will not only churn and turn that gravel, but it places that mud thinner all the way back to the borehole to knock off the wall cake,” Garth Owens says, “and once you’re done pressure jetting it, then you’ll come back and re-swab it and RC it all back out of there.”

Drill Tech, which had a backlog of approximately 100 wells and 30 pumps to install as of late July, stresses it all starts with the design of the well, drilling it correctly, using the right products, and not overusing polymers.

“If we’re RC drilling, we’ll mud up the top and then we’ll case the top off,” Nick Owens says. “There’s some wells out here where we live where the top 300 feet is all alluvium and there’s no water in it. We’ll mud those up, we’ll set a 300-foot surface casing, and we’ll RC drill the bottom out with just pure water because it’s just solid rock. So, we don’t use any product.

To drive home the importance of using the correct amount of product, Nick Owens recalls a large drilling company that installed two large municipal wells 10 years ago in central Arizona. It both drilled with and pumped too much polymer into the wells and was unable to get the polymer out. The wells produced 300 gpm.

“We drilled some other wells near them, and we got 1200 gallons per minute out of the wells and the aquifer just simply because of the development and not using polymers,” he says, “so [it’s] a big thing to make sure of the product when you’re drilling and make sure you’re using the right product that you can get back out—that’s the biggest thing.”

“Most guys will just trip their drill pipe straight in, blow it straight up the hole, and they’re done,” he shares. “But you’ll get a lot more water out of your well, you’ll pump a lot less sand, and you’ll have a much better production well with a higher pumping level if you clean that formation out and get every bit of that mud that you put in back out again. The only way to do that is with pressure through the perforations.”

While drilling in July in California, Garth Owens also noticed large amounts of gravel being put into large diameter wells drilled using the mud rotary method. “They think that the bigger the hole is, the more gravel they put in, the better it is, which is not true. What they don’t get is the bigger the hole gets, the worse development job you can do.

Low-cost gravel too has its disadvantages, with it being crushed and therefore angular. These angular pieces all wiggle together and lock together like chip seal on a highway in the well, according to Garth Owens. This causes a slowdown in the production of water.

“Most people don’t use any chemicals to break down that wall cake because it costs $250 a bucket,” he says, “so we’ll go out and drill a well that will make 500 gallons per minute, and our competition literally on the next lot is drilling 100 gallons a minute. And it’s simply because of the gravel pack and the development process.”

“Time is one factor, they want to get to the next job,” Garth Owens says. “Another factor is they don’t want to put a swab in to pressurize the perforations. The third thing is purchasing the cheapest gravel they can because they think they’re going to overcome all that by drilling a hole that’s one or two inches bigger in diameter and now all that other stuff is irrelevant.”

Install the largest gravel to have the most square inches of opening and the least friction for the water to come through but stop the finest particles of sand.

“If you don’t do it right, you can spend three or four days pumping sand because the gravel is too coarse. You put in too coarse of a filter and the sand just keeps flowing. It takes forever, if it ever does stop. Too coarse of a sand and it’ll never stop.”

For a high-pressure compressor, there are three gears in the bellhousing and two low-stage screws and two high-stage screws. The simplicity allows the compressor to last for an average of 10,000 hours.

For years, automatic transmission fluid (ATF) was the standard for lubrication on compressors. Today, synthetic compressor oil is used because they must run at about 225 degrees to 275 degrees to vaporize the water as it sucks moisture out of the air when drilling. “It sucks all that moisture into it and it rusts up all the bearings and gears,” Garth Owens says, “so by turning the thermostat up so hot, it vaporizes and burns the condensation out of it.

“There’s a water drain on the compressor that you drain every day, and it’s imperative that you keep the temperature up on a screw compressor for condensation reasons.”

“Typically, there’s three thousandths max tolerant in a screw compressor, so you really have to keep your air filters clean, your oil filters clean, and your oil good. When that tolerance starts to get loose, when you start getting a bearing wearing out or one of your screws starts wearing into the impeller of the compressor, when that tolerance starts to get loose at all, typically your oil temperatures skyrocket tremendously. It’ll run at 200 degrees for 10 years and then all of a sudden, you’re wondering why it’s running at 275 degrees and trying to cook the hoses off your rig.”

all about well flow rate, well yield, and water quantity: this article series describes how we measure the amount of well water available and the well flow rate - the water delivery rate ability of various types of drinking water sources like wells, cisterns, dug wells, drilled wells, artesian wells and well and water pump equipment.

Is the well on the property being purchased? You"ll also want to know where the well equipment are located: the pump, pressure control switch, pressure tank, any reservoir tanks, and any water treatment equipment.

hand dug well, driven point well, drilled well, spring, stream, (these water source alternatives have implications for sanitation and water quantity as well as safety)

What we really need to know is the total quantity of water that can be drawn from the well and the quality of that water: is it potable, hard (mineral laden), smelly, dirty, requiring treatment for any aesthetic or health-concern contaminant?

how much water, in gallons or liters, can we draw out of the well before we run out, and how fast can we take it out? We discuss these questions in this document after this introduction.

WELL YIELD, SAFE LIMITS - explains the true volume of water that is available from a given well, the role of the static head, the flow rate, the pumping rate, storage tank reservoirs, and other factors that affect well life and changes in well yield.

See WATER TESTING GUIDE for a guide to selecting the appropriate tests to perform when purchasing or maintaining a property with a private water well.

The answers to this question usually describe the condition of the piping and well pump, not the condition of the well itself, though in some cases deliberate flow restrictors may have been installed at a building which is served by a well that has a very limited water quantity.

Typically for real estate transactions or for evaluating a newly drilled well, the flow rate is measured over a 24 hour period and is referred to as the well yield.

See WELL YIELD DEFINITION for a complete, detailed explanation of the factors that go into a true measurement of the capacity of a well to deliver water.

Watch out: If you are given a well flow rate that was measured over some shorter interval or worse, over some un-specified interval, you cannot be sure how the well will perform in actual use. For example someone may measure a pseudo-well-flow rate by just measuring the well output at the pump for a few minutes, or at a bathtub spigot or an outdoor hose bib.

Because well flow rates for many water wells are not constant but rather may diminish from an initial maximum in gallons per minute to a lower but sustainable flow rate, these short well flow tests can be misleading.

Brief water flow tests may actually just be measuring the rate that the well pump draws water out of the well bore - pumping out of the water reservoir in the well bore itself. This static head pumpout is not the well"s sustainable water delivery capacity.

This sketch, courtesy of Carson Dunlop Associates (found at page bottom, Click to Show or Hide) offers a graphic explanation of well static head. The static head in a well is is not the total amount of water than can be pumped out of the well, it"s just where

We have about 1.5 gallons of water per foot of depth of a well when we"re using a standard residential 6" well casing. Below we show how the volume of a well casing is calculated. If your well casing or dug well or other round well is larger than 6-inches in diameter just adjust the radius or r-figure to equal 1/2 of your well"s diameter in inches.

Based on simple geometry & the formula for the volume of a cylinder: we calculate the area of a cross section, or top, or bottom of the cylinder, then multiply that area by the cylinder"s height.

The height of water column inside the well and available to the pump is less than the total well depth. Except in artesian walls the water column does not extend from the well bottom to the top of the ground.

In this sketch, distance (h) is the height of the "static head" = static head volume - the total volume of water available to the pump when the well has rested and fully-recovered.

The static head volume in a drilled well extends from the very bottom of the pump (since water can"t jump up to the pump) upwards to the highest point that water reaches inside the well casing when the well has rested and reached its normal maximum height.

(c) well bottom clearance: our well pump or foot valve (if the pump is not in the well) was placed 5" off of the well bottom © in the sketch, a distance to avoid drawing mud into the pump

In some circumstances such as deciding how much water to flush out of a pipe for certain water tests, it is useful to know the volume of water required to fill well piping or water piping.

For long runs of well piping there may be a significant volume of water in the piping itself. Using 600" of plastic well piping as an example, we need simply to calculate the volume of a cylinder (the inside of a water pipe) into cubic inches per foot.

Below we are repeating the well casing volume calculation, just changing the diameter or radius number to the inside diameter of the piping, and for h or height we use the length of piping.

Since the "recovery rate" of a well describes the rate at which water runs into the well, a well recovery rate also defines the rate at which water can be pumped out of a well without pumping the well down so far that the pump "runs dry".

over a 24-hour period) run from a fraction of a gallon per minute (a terribly poor well recovery or flow rate) to 3 gallons a minute of water flow (not great but usable) to 5 gallons per minute (just fine for

Watch out: So you could pump water out of a well very fast pumping rate, say at 10 or even 15 gpm. But if the well recovery rate is less than the well pumping rate, you"re going to run out of water.

How soon you run out of water depends on how much water was in the well casing when you started pumping (the static head), and ultimately on the well recovery rate.

That"s about what a well driller does to determine the effective well flow rate when a new well is drilled. Pulling water out of the well (using a variable-rate pump running at a rate set by the well test professional) integrates all of the different rock fissure flow rates into a single quantity of water.

Answer: We can calculate the well flow rate from the reader"s example above, using the formula for the volume of a cylinder and a constant to convert between volume of well water in cubic meters and liters or gallons.

This well water flow rate calculation case provides exactly what we need to calculate the quantity of water in a well from direct measurements of the well diameter, depth, and water depth, presuming that the well, a dug well in this case, is round. We just need the depth of water and the diameter of the cylinder formed by the well.

Then we use the formula for volume of a cylinder - which in turn means we calculate the area of the circle formed by the bottom of the well (or the well"s cross-sectional area) and we just multiply that area by the height (or depth) of the water.

Now we can also obtain the well flow rate - the rate at which water is flowing in to the well - though this will change seasonally as well as change if the well is dug further or other steps are taken that affect well yield.

Actually we can draw water out of a well faster than WFm, because the well pump has available to it the reservoir of water already in the well when it starts pumping - the well"s "static head".

In this case that"s a weak, marginal well flow rate. In the U.S. most building or health departments who must approve a private well water supply when issuing a final certificate of occupancy for new construction want to see 3 to 5 gallons per minute or 3-5 gpm.

While a hand dug (or drilled) water well fills as water flows into it, the well water in-flow rate will slow down and eventually stop. This is true except for artesian wells.

We prefer to simply measure the water in the well at the end of 24 hours and calculate the 24-hour flow rate. When the well is a drilled well rather than a hand-dug well, the well driller may measure the well flow rate by use of a well pump whose output is adjustable.

The well driller measures the well draw down rate in the well opening while the well pump is running, and compares that to the rate at which the pump is removing water from the well.

But a true well flow rate, whether obtained by simple observation or by use of a calibrated pump, should be measured over a 24 hour period, not a shorter interval.

Alternatively the owner might want to watch the well water level increase until the water level has stopped rising in the well. It might take longer than 24 hours for the water in flow to stop.

You could have a great well water flow rate - say 20 gallons per minute - but if it the water will only run at that rate for five minutes before you run out, the well has a very poor water quantity (5 minutes x 20 gpm = 100 gallons of water) and it"s not a satisfactory well.

Well pumps are usually intended to pump water out of a well slowly enough that the pump and well don"t run dry. Some pump systems have fittings that recycle the very last water in the well through the pump, ceasing delivery of it to the building, to protect the pump from overheating.

Watch out: For these reasons, we"ve occasionally found clients dissatisfied with their well after they install a new, more powerful water pump. The owners install a more powerful pump to increase water pressure in the home, but the effect may be also to draw water out of the well faster than ever before, thereby disclosing a marginal well flow rate that they had not understood.

This is why the flow rate at a new well is typically measured over a long period, say 24 hours. If you measure the flow rate at a well for just a few minutes, you can have no idea of the well"s actual ability to deliver water over any sustained time of usage.

The well quantity did not change but suddenly wells along this section of roadway had red silt in their water - it has remained a problem for some home owners in the area.

Permanent water level shifts & Global Warming: Local ground water tables may drop permanently. In some areas of Florida so much water has been pumped from below ground that salt water has begun to intrude into the aquifer. Changing sea levels due to global warming can be expected to affect coastal drinking water wells by raising the level of salty water.

WATER PRESSURE MEASUREMENT - with what force does water exit at a fixture or faucet (dynamic water pressure), or what is the water pressure in a system when no water is being run (static water pressure)

So in 26 minutes your 8 gpm well pump will exhaust the well. There is in my OPINION nothing at all gained by that high capacity well pump; It will run for less than 1/2 hour and then probably needs to be off for at least 3 1/2 hours to let the struggling well recover (at its 1 gpm flow rate).

I don"t know nearly as much about well pumps as your onsite well pump expert. Still it seems to me that it"s probably better for the well and the pump both to pump a little more-slowly and less dramatically.

Watch out: as I argue in this article series, because we know that a well"s flow rate usually will deteriorate over time (mineral clogging, water table dropping, global warming, pumping by neighbors tapped into the same aquifer), when we start out a new well with a really weak water flow rate, you need to be prepared for a reduced well life.

Question 1: is your well driller confident that we"re not actually losing water by having drilled the well so deep down past the point where water flows into the well? I"ve seen that happen before: digging past the water entry point led to water leaking down and out. The installer ended up plugging the over-drilled well bottom to raise it back up.

Donors in Canada, the U.S., and Europe sponsor water projects to keep them affordable for the local villages that contribute a token amount of money plus "sweat equity." We rely on in-country teams that we have trained and equipped to drill wells and repair broken pumps. The teams also train and equip local Well Caretakers, and host Health and Hygiene workshops to enable villagers to prevent water-related diseases.

After the polyphosphate solution is surged into the screen (see Footnote #4), water should be added to the well to drive the solution farther into the formation.

Mechenich Christine & Byron Shaw, DO DEEPER WELLS MEAN BETTER WATER? [PDF] (1996) University of Wisconsin-Madison, Polk County Extension, - retrieved 2022/06/17 original source: https://polk.extension.wisc.edu/files/2010/12/Do-Deeper-Wells-Mean-Better-Water.pdf

@InspectApedia-911, Ah, perhaps my well is an oddity? The well driller hit 3 water fractures at 350", and kept going because they only measured 1 GPM (using blown air). After 350" more feet of drilling in granite, the recommended we stop drilling, as the well logs for the area didn"t support drilling any deeper. They said they found no more water from 350" to 700".

But that 350 ft of water on top of the pump is a question. When the will has been at rest 4 hours or longer, to what height does water actually rise in the borehole?

At 8 gallons a minute that means that you"ll pump that water out in about an hour. What"s your pump doing for the rest of the time? Waiting for Godot.

I"m not sure there"s a real advantage to putting in a high-capacity pump and such a load delivery well and there"s some risk that a control fails and you run the pump dry which of course kills your pump almost immediately.

We have a new well that was just completed - water fractures found at 350", drilled to 700" and found no other water. 1 GPM in 350" of granite (the top 350" was mostly sand), steel-cased to 420" with 6". So we"re buying a cistern for the well pump to pump water in to.

The other provider said that with 350" of water on top of the pump when it starts, limiting that pump to only 1-2 GPM puts a lot of stress on the pump and it will suffer a much short life.

He suggested a 1.5 HP pump that would support 8 GPM initially, and 2 GPM before an automatic shutoff device would detect no water and shut the pump off.

It seems like letting gravity and the pressure help the pump do its job is a good idea, but if pumping the well dry increases the risk of damage to our very limited production well, then I"d rather trade pump life for well life.

Any suggestions on the above? We were planning on the cistern calling for water after 300 gallons or so, so if the well has fully replenished it would have 500 gallons, so in theory it wouldn"t actually run dry.

I suspect you meant 2 GPM or two gallons per minute, that would also be unacceptable (insufficient) for most mortgage lenders and not so nice to live-with.

There"s no free lunch, here; the well driller is in no position to promise you what they"re going to find when drilling into the ground, nor can they keep drilling wells for free. So I"m not sure of an equitable way for you, the homeowner, to avoid that cost.

Your well driller may be expected to know from experience what water they"ve been finding at what depths and at what flow rates for wells in your area, but they can"t guarantee any specific flow rate in advance.

Watch out: in my OPINON, if we force a contractor to guarantee what is basically an unknown, if the contractor is going to agree to do so, she will have no choice but to set a cost to you that can cover the absolute worst case and thus the most-expensive possible case. That higher cost is sometimes, but not usually, necessary.

You haven"t given, and it would be helpful to know, the country and city/province/state of location of the well. You might then also look at the geological and water data for that area.

Also our GPMS was logged as 2 GPMS. Needless to say the water totally cut off after 15 minutes. Now the builder and well drilling company wants us to pay for a whole new well and they can not guarantee that they will not get the same result. We are hoping we have that there can be some resolution that will not cost us!!

Every home needs something; If, for having discovered a probable expense, you abandon a home that you otherwise love in a location you want to be, you may simply move on to another home only to discover that the next one needs still more work or repairs.

However, it is important to have an un-biased and thorough inspection of the home and all of its systems, not just the well; IF the cost of necessary repairs would price the home out of its near term value in the marketplace would one be forced to question the economic sense of "the deal".

For most repairs or home improvements or maintenance chores, you are in control of your money and you decide when to meet each of those needs and costs.

Dan"s 3 D"s: but for things that are Dangerous, Don"t work (and are necessary, like safe electrical power or heat) or are causing rapid costly Damage, the house is in control.

Thank you so much for your response. My Realtor recommended this company. Attached [shown above] is exactly what I received and I cropped out the company’s header.

I am supposed to be buying this home and my due diligence period ends Tuesday. I am in the process of asking for an extension because as I stated I don’t know what to make of this report that I paid over $700 for. Please let me know if this provides any additional details or changes your opinion. To say I’m concerned is an understatement.

Thanks again for all the information. This was not a 24 hour test. Since it is a shared well they had to notify and work with all the other home owners and this was all conducted over one afternoon. At this point I’m trying to decide if I should pay for a new inspector or walk away.

You are right. I would stir up debris. I want to find a way to remove some of the soft sediment at the bottom of the well. I will look for ways to restrict flow w/o hurting the pump. Or I could just pump out 110 gallons a day.

A well yield of 5 gallons per minute of sustained flow (measured over 24 hours or over 5 hours in some standards) is considered by most authorities as adequate for a one family residence.

And another example: home buyers seeking an FHA-mortgage will have to show that their water well yield is between 3 and 5 gpm. "Each home must simultaneously be assured of at least 3 GPM, (5 for proposed construction), over a continuous 5 hour period."

By any of these measures, your well "inspector" ought to have told you that your well"s yield was inadequateand that some significant expense will be involved in providing adequate water supply. Provided that all of the data we have on your well is correct, this case is particularly egregious considering your report that this low-yield 1.75 gpm well is serving 4, potentially 5 homes that could therefore involve having to support 20 people in daily use.

WATER SUPPLY WELL CONSTRUCTION DESCRIPTION for North Carolina [PDF] original source, NC DEQ, https://files.nc.gov/ncdeq/ Water Quality/Aquifer Protection/GPU/WaterWellConstructionFoldout-20100331.pdf

IMO an inspector working for you, not for the realtor, owes you that sort of conclusion, that is, the inspector must tell you what the findings actually mean.

It certainly sounds crazy to have paid $700 for a useless report and for that fee it certainly seems reasonable to me that the inspector should be willing to answer questions.

Attached is exactly what I received and I cropped out the company’s header. I am supposed to be buying this home and my due diligence period ends Tuesday. I am in the process of asking for an extension because as I stated I don’t know what to make of this report that I paid over $700 for.

I am in the process of asking for an extension because as I stated I don’t know what to make of this report that I paid over $700 for. Please let me know if this provides any additional details or changes your opinion.

Start by putting a stop payment on your check or leaving your "well inspector" a message that you will meet her or him in small claims court as s/he is doing nothing to earn the fee charged. Throwing an incomprehensible report over the wall to you is unconscionable and in my opinion worse than worthless as the person got paid for it.

1. 1.75 GPM is not adequate for most purposes, and won"t meet well flow rate minimum requirements of at least some lenders; that can be a hurdle in buying or later selling a property and more-practically it means that at normal usage levels you

The "amperage" readings are not directly useful but are intended, probably, to tell us if the pump is working normally, and in the hands of an expert, can tell us if the pump is moving water or is running dry (under less load, current drops).

If it"s 5.5 feet then your well is practically dry and useless now as you have both a very weak flow rate (of water into the well) and a close to zero reserve of water in the well (5.5 whatevers) when the well is at rest.

Tell me: are you buying this property? If so, who recommended this inspector who, from the report, doesn"t want you know the questionable status of your well but wants to protect herself by being able to say "I gave the information in my report".

Received an inspection report which I don’t understand as I’ve never had a well and the inspector has nothing responded to calls or emails since for help.

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it. You are right. I would stir up debris. I want to find a way to remove some of the soft sediment at the bottom of the well. I will look for ways to restrict flow w/o hurting the pump. Or I could just pump out 110 gallons a day.

At 15 gpm, ***IF*** the well could really deliver that rate continuously for 12 hours straight, would let you draw 10,800 gallons of water over a 12-hour period, giving the well a rest for the next 12 hours - or some variation on that theme.

But delivering water 15 gpm for just a few minutes is a horse of a different color than delivering water at that rate continuously for many hours - if you"ll forgive the mixed metaphor.

Watch out: also about relying on any data given to you by even the nicest and most-honest real estate agent. The agent is not a neutral party to the sale of property, and the agent, in most states and provinces, is not held legally liable for accuracy in property representations - not even for a second.

Bottom line: On the face of it 15 gpm looks great, but we can"t yet trust that number; you need to know how the flow test was done, get the original data, or have your own flow test performed by someone who is completely independent from those selling property.

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it. You are right. I would stir up debris. I want to find a way to remove some of the soft sediment at the bottom of the well. I will look for ways to restrict flow w/o hurting the pump. Or I could just pump out 110 gallons a day.

You were pumping at more than 20 gallons a minute which is very likely to exceed the flow rate of many Wells. I agree with restricting the pumping rate.

However I"m not sure I want to divert water back into the well after having pumped it out because of the education impossible string up of debris from the bottom of the well. It would be better to put a flow control on your pumping system.

!975 well, new to me property. Depth 60 feet to soft sediment. Water level at 36" in a 12" bore. I pumped 110 gallons in 5 minutes. Well dry. Turned submersible off. Fresno end of dry season, no rain yet. 12 hours later level back to 36". Can I divert water, using a T, back into the well so as to reduce out put to 5 GPM, which would be fine with me. Should I try to remove sediment? Appreciate and comments.

We had the piston pump replaced on our standpoint well system and less than 48 hours later we had air in the pipes and water and loss of water (dirty water coming out - rusty and smells like iron.

Pump guy says that’s from the bottom of the pressure tank which he installed less than 18 months ago). The pump guy says it’s not his pump or installation causing this - says it’s the well source. Up to this time we have always had enough water for daily use - couple of showers a day, run the dishwasher and a load or two of laundry along with flushing toilets etc. Rarely we would “run dry” but recovery would take less than 4 hours.

I"m disappointed, too, to hear that you bought a new property, spent all your available cash, and thus got bad advice along with failing to have basic inspections and tests performed. That exposes you to just the risk of discovering expensive surprises.

About the well: that sounds to me as if the well has poor or no water in-flow (recovery) rate. There could be a different (and less costly) problem like a bad well pump that quickly overheats and jams or shuts-down.

Water flowed from pipe coming out of ground ( where i would be hooking to main pipe on mobile home) for about 5 minutes. Then it stops. If you stand there in about 3 minutes it flows great again to fill from 5-7 gallons and stops,again etc.

I"ve installed one,well pump. Piping and bladder tank before. Im stumped here. Only thing i can say is the pump i put in once before sat on top of the well pipe.

This one,seems to be in the bottom of the well pipe. Also. i do not see a pressure switch. Would this still pump if it didn"t have one? On a submergible pump is the pressure switch down there on the pump?

Does the rate at which water flows into a well vary depending on whether the well is "full" or "empty". In other words, will lowering the pump help increase the recovery rate, or simply add to the static quantity?

In sum, water flow into at least deeper wells and even some shallow wells from a variety of water passages, typically rock fissures, that occur at various depths in relation to the well bore. The total well flow rate is the sum of all of these smaller individual flows.

Even more complex, not all of the individual flows into a well flow at the same rate, nor do they necessarily flow continuously at a fixed rate over time. For example

Fissue A may flow at 7 gpm for 20 minutes then diminsh to 2 gpm for a longer or even indefinite interval, while fissure B may flow at 3 gpm for 12 minutes, then fall to 0.5 gpm for a longer interval.

An exception are artesian wells whose aquifer feeds into the well bore at sufficient pressure to actually push water out at the well top and even to higher levels.

On the other hand, if a well is running out of water and the pump is not shut off, the pump or controls can indeed be damaged - more likely for an above-ground pump.

We have a submersible pump in our well and have periodically been having a problem with losing water - no water coming into the house. Yesterday morning, no water, and the pressure control was not working. Replaced it and water pressure built in the tank to desired level and all was good.

Frankly I"m having trouble believing it. 80 gallons a minute is a stunning well flow rate if that can really be sustained, and doesn"t sound very credible as a sustainable well flow rate when you"also report that your well recently ran dry for 10 weeks.

What is the minimum acceptable WFm for an "artesian well" for passing a water flow test? A point of sale inspector ran a hose from an outside faucet at 7 WFm rate and after 13 minutes the well was empty and he said my well failed. He said its required 7 WFm for 30 minutes.

Greg, it is common for a well installer to include a flow rate limiting device in the well (usually at the pump) to prevent the well pump from pumping water down low enough that the pump motor lacks water and overheats and is damaged.

My discharge rate exceeds my well"s recovery rate. This is what I have. I have a well that is 100 feet down, with a pump that will pump water at depths of 200" at 22gpm.

The line from the pump is reduced down to a 1" pipe. Can I put an angle cock on the pipe coming out of the well to reduce water flow and if so will this hurt my pump.

Note: appearance of your Comment below may be delayed: if your comment contains an image, photograph, web link, or text that looks to the software as if it might be a web link, your posting will appear after it has been approved by a moderator. Apologies for the delay.

Only one image can be added per comment but you can post as many comments, and therefore images, as you like.You will not receive a notification when a response to your question has been posted.

Australian supplier of: Greywater systems, Solar power to grid packages, Edwards solar systems, Vulcan compact solar systems, water & solar system pumps & controls, and a wide rage of above ground & under ground water storage tanks: concrete, steel, plastic, modular, and bladder storage tanks.

Grove Electric, Typical Shallow Well One Line Jet Pump Installation [PDF], Grove Electric, G&G Electric & Plumbing, 1900 NE 78th St., Suite 101, Vancouver WA 98665 www.grovelectric.com - web search -7/15/2010 original source: http://www.groverelectric.com/howto/38_Typical%20Jet%20Pump%20Installation.pdf

Grove Electric, Typical Deep Well Two Line Jet Pump Installation [PDF], Grove Electric, G&G Electric & Plumbing, 1900 NE 78th St., Suite 101, Vancouver WA 98665 www.grovelectric.com - web search -7/15/2010 original source: http://www.groverelectric.com/howto/38_Typical%20Jet%20Pump%20Installation.pdf

Penn State, Water Fact Sheet #3, USING LOW-YIELD WELLS [PDF], Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences, Cooperative Extension, School of Forest Resources, web search 07/24/2010, original source: http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/pdfs/XH0002.pdf

Thanks to Alan Carson and Bob Dunlop, for permission for InspectAPedia to use text excerpts from The Home Reference Book & illustrations from The Illustrated Home. Carson Dunlop Associates" provides extensive home inspection education and report writing material.

Special Offer: For a 5% discount on any number of copies of the Illustrated Home purchased as a single order Enter INSPECTAILL in the order payment page "Promo/Redemption" space.

TECHNICAL REFERENCE GUIDE to manufacturer"s model and serial number information for heating and cooling equipment, useful for determining the age of heating boilers, furnaces, water heaters is provided by Carson Dunlop Weldon & Associates

Special Offer: For a 10% discount on any number of copies of the Home Reference Book purchased as a single order. Enter INSPECTAHRB in the order payment page "Promo/Redemption" space. InspectAPedia.com editor Daniel Friedman is a contributing author.

Special Offer: For a 5% discount on any number of copies of the Home Reference eBook purchased as a single order. Enter INSPECTAEHRB in the order payment page "Promo/Redemption" space.

The Horizon Software System manages business operations,scheduling, & inspection report writing using Carson Dunlop"s knowledge base & color images. The Horizon system runs on always-available cloud-based software for office computers, laptops, tablets, iPad, Android, & other smartphones

A: Well drilling completion times vary from a half day to three days or longer.  Drilling time is affected by many factors including time to set up, difficult drilling formations and weather.  All of these factors vary from site to site and well to well.  These are also factors that we have no control over.  In addition, the time it takes to develop each well is different.  Because of these variables there is no way for us to give a fixed time for well completion.

Q: Yes. Artesian and Floridan Aquifer wells are permitted in your area. They can be drilled for several different purposes(home use, geothermal, irrigation, etc.). PWD drills many Floridan Aquifer wells and keeps a record of each one. Call our office for more information on Floridan Aquifer wells in your area.

A: Florida is fortunate to have one of the most porductive aquifers in the world, the Floridan Aquifer. When drilling a Floridan Aquifer well, PWD can guarantee the quantity of water the well will produce.

Unlike Floridan Aquifer wells, shallower wells access aquifers that have unpredictable characteristics. PWD will guarantee a minimum of 10 gallons per minute from wells other than Floridan Aquifer wells.

A: PWD has over 100 years of records of wells drilled in Northeast Florida. With your property address, we consult our records to see what wells are availble in your area.Floridan Aquifer wells are availble in all areas of Notheast Florida.

A:  “Salt & Pepper” wells, or  Intermediate wells are normally 3″ or 4″ in diameter and are drilled to depths of 220-320 feet. At this depth water is withdrawn from a aquifer that consist of clays and sands that resemble salt & pepper.