Purchased piece of property approx 2 years ago. The well had ben drilled by the developer. The well report had the well producing 1 gal/min. Poor but acceptable. Minimum is 400gal/day I believe. House is now about 2/3 done and I had the well pump put in–only producing 0.24 gal/min <400gal/day. Looks like will have to drill a new well( or maybe drill this one deeper). My question– who should pay? We had the expectation of an adequate water supply as stated in the well report. Should the developer take responsibility? When the well was drilled did the driller test inadequately? Is it just my bad luck? Share the cost?
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1 gallon aminute around here you couldn't even get a mortgage.
seems like the developer is responsible, but...
It is one of those things that fluctuates. You would have to prove that he deliberately mis-documented this test result to get anything out of him. predicting future water supply from a well is about like predicting the weather or the stock market. The only thing you know for sure is that something will change.
That said, you should have seen yellow caution flags with anything less than three gallons a minite
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<<yellow caution flags with anything less than three gallons a minite>>Lots of wells around here produce a gallon a minute, a function primarily of elevation: the higher on the mountainside you build, the farther you drill and the less you get unless you get lucky and hit a seam in the granite with flowing water. People use buried concrete cisterns of 1-2000 gal. for an average residence. The well i had drilled last year made 2 gal/min - we felt lucky. One of those regional thangs...
How deep did you have to go?
Peach full,easy feelin'.
We hit water at a little over 200', located about 500 feet above the valley floor. We'd stopped originally at 197', with a gallon a minute, but it filled up with sand. We pulled the pump, re-set the drill rig, drilled down about 12 more feet and hit a gravel seam that cleaned up.
Lots of folks in that area have punched dry holes more than once before finding water. On my side of the valley, there's a predictable layer of water at 150' and another at 400', but my well makes 10 gal./min and my neighbor's makes 30. Luck plays a large part in getting water in the West...
And being up there I would suspect that the quality of the water is dang near delicious.
Being in a bottom of the Great Lakes basin and seeing it's pretty much down hill from near Columbus in central Ohio to here
I suspect that the water quality suffers greatly in that all the pollutants gather steam like a snowball going downhill gathering momentum before they splash,
that being just the normal stuff, not taking into consideration the toxic dumps known and those still being discovered adding their two bits to the cocktail.
Me thinks that except for horrendous snows you all have it pretty good in the Northlands.
Peach full,easy feelin'.
They call the water "Bitterroot Sweet". It has lots of minerals in it, though. At the 400' level there's a lot of iron in the water, causing rust stains on toilets, laundry...so there are some drawbacks. Of course, the valley floor has agriculture, so our water is always tested for E. coli and nitrites...not sure what else...every time a RE transaction happens.Not to mention that MT has the largest Superfund site in the nation from the output of the mines in Butte, which sits on top of the Continetal Divide. The Clark Fork River dumped a reservoir of contaminated soil behind the dam just east of Missoula...a hundred miles away from the source. Almsot a hundred years later, its being dealt with. We manage to foul our nests in myriad ways, even out in the sticks.
May not stay that clean as they ramp up the coal mining up that way
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
ya, so much for good water anywhere.
be drinking eons old commercial bottled water from unpolluted frozen ice packs a mile deep in the Arctics.or be Draganic drinking polluted water and not knowing it.
Peach full,easy feelin'.
Edited 3/23/2008 2:26 pm ET by rez
The coal in MT is far to the east of me; we have heavy metals and cyanide leaching on this side. I grew up smack dab in this huge area known as the Boulder Batholith which secreted a large array of metals that caused us to rip the tops off the western mountains. Butte is occasionally under orders not to drink city water, decades since the mining industry collapsed.http://www.butteamerica.com/batholith.htm
OK,I stand corrected. Been living in the east too long
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Either somebody brought you a laptop or you're feeling better... Whichever, good to hear.
Around here there's a belief that going higher elevation means a deeper well. And on the Blue Ridge that tends to be. Entirely dependent on where.
Our property rises 400' in a (Va) mountain and the water table rises with the land. I hit water at 90' (from a drill site up 300'), as is typical at a lower elevation. Contrary to all the advice I got. My next well here will be drilled 80' higher up.
As I didn't think much of that 1 gal/min guarantee, a drill rig lives here. Cost what 1 well would have. 2 more wells and it goes to a new home.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
The water table rises with the land where i sit on the east side of the valley that is a mix of terminal moraine and the lakebed of Glacial Lake Missoula. On the much steeper and rougher mountains on the east side, the source of all these rocks, they have much more variable results. I use a family of very savvy brothers who have been drilling wells here since their dad taught them the trade. These boys had drilled some dry holes not far from the site and i'd been prepared for a much larger sticker price on the job. You have your own drill rig, TOO? I keep saying all the good ones are gone. <G>Thanks for the well wishes and yes, i'm doing better today. I gained enough control during the last week to be able to swing my legs over the side of a tub last night where i soaked for three hours in the hottest water i could stand. The water bouyed me, taking pressure off lying on the hurt spot, and the heat was wonderfully regenerating; i'll be doing more of that, for sure. I've a long way to go since i can't bend/twist at all, but i can walk/sit fairly easily. Turning point today, methinks!
I've just got a little one ... <G> And somewhere in here my beard turned white.
How about this... our little bump is named Israel Mountain (from the War of Northern Aggression era). My first bore hit a 5' void, not supposed to be any on this side of the Blue Ridge. Not knowing better, I eased to the bottom and kept going. Wasn't long before my bit was stuck.
Learned how to extract it, moved over a ways. Encountered an incredibly thick layer of quartz, chewed the hell out of the bit. Kept going. It was a looong week. Hit water sundown Friday night.
Yup, lots of stuff here. When I need something I like to examine alternatives. Buying the drill rig was obvious- to me. Guy selling it had invested $45k, almost lost his house, and then couldn't find anyone interested in the peculiar thing (made in Alabama). Looked to me like $2k couldn't hardly go wrong. Might even be a little profit in resale.
Probably could make a reasonable living with it if I wanted to try. Like much of my machinery.
I trust your critters (and neighbors) are giving you lots of sympathy/help. Diagnosis is serious bruising? Lower back pain's no stranger, but I've worked up to being able to carry 3/4 ply solo again. Just not very many. 90 lb particle board's a distant memory. Never liked working with it anyhow.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
dang man, VaTom has all the toys everyone wishes they had sitting in their back yards.
Peach full,easy feelin'.
Big back yard here. Not even close to filled. Got the motor grader to turn over yesterday, relay'd died. The not-yet crushed Aerostar had one. Maybe I'll let it sit awhile longer. Sure beats a trip to town.
Tomorrow I'll clean the grader points and get fresh gas when I go get seed potatoes. Varoom! Winter's finished, time to get stone on the other 1/2 mile driveway. Verizon's still interested in a tower.
Or maybe we'll sell that spectacular building site. You wanna move someplace with great water, interesting neighbors? <VBG> The Olds cupola's still waiting for the right project.
And morels due in 2 weeks! PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
<<My first bore hit a 5' void, not supposed to be any on this side of the Blue Ridge. Not knowing better, I eased to the bottom and kept going. Wasn't long before my bit was stuck.>>What's that mean? Limestone cave or...? I'm trying to understand why you can't just drill on through. What a cute little rig! I'd be drilling holes all over if that were mine!I'm kind of going the other direction these days from ownership. Someone quoted me $600 to replace my differential years ago. I wasn't sure what a differential was, but i didn't have $600 (or a lift, which would've been handy) so i got a book, pulled the axles, read a couple more pages, took out some more bolts, then removed the differential. I wiggled out with the thing wedged in my chest and then did everything in reverse. Now i know a mechanic who specializes in Toyotas and has all the tools that would have made that an hour-long job instead of the two days it took me.Back pain...this isn't lower back pain from lifting, but my guess is nerves were crushed when the stairstep edge dug into my middle back. I've been googling it and read a term called "electric-shock pain" to describe the referred pain from the spine to the hip area. Good descriptor: it's immediate, immense, and there's no build-up to it so that one can steel oneself. The mental reaction is incredulity, like having someone sneak up behind and toss a big bucket of ice water over your head.Life is also immeasurably better since my college roommate (1975!) just visited this afternoon with two grocery bags full of fruit, several salads, and an Easter basket full of Dove chocolate. I tried to make her tea and ended up starting a kitchen fire that she helped me put out and vacuumed up the box of soda i threw at it. What a sport!
What's that mean? Limestone cave or...? I'm trying to understand why you can't just drill on through.
Limestone over the Blue Ridge, not here. I've got schist. Not supposed to be voids. Oldest through road in this part of Va going by, so maybe it's an old shaft. No telling. All I know is it was 65' down. No sign of a mine, I looked.
As the drillers say "when you lose your air, pull out". Lose your air, as in don't have it coming back up your bore at you. Allows cuttings to build up around where you went on down through the void floor. Eventually the pile collapses, trapping whatever's there. Drill stem in my case, and I hadn't yet heard anybody say that.
Common wisdom when stuck is to pull- really hard. Often resulting in losing the hammer and bit and whatever length of stems. Several thousand dollars worth.
Deep Rock, who built my rig, told me to avoid that by flushing the bore with water until it comes clean. I've got 2 engines, one drives a hydraulic pump, the other a trash pump. I ran 3/4" steel pipe down the bore and flushed. Worked great (after I hauled a couple hundred gallons of water up here).
BTW, drillers are licensed in Va. I protested, as a HO. Seems they'd never had anybody ask to drill their own well before. Couldn't hardly believe anybody'd buy a rig without being in business. Changed the rule for me. Took less than a week. IIRC, I'm allowed 3/yr.
Electric shock pain sounds right. When I screw up really bad, there's no warning. Just debilitating pain. My potential is chronic, but I've learned to avoid it. Hope you have... <G> Um, but kitchen fires probably aren't a good agenda item right now. Did you catch that kitchen fire smotherer that Piffin was pitching in another thread? PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
The drillers i use won't extend wells they haven't drilled themselves bec they lost some partz in other companies' casings that weren't welded properly and cracked when they got pounded down farther. The offset sections trapped the steel and heads...then they told me how many $$$$ that would cost. You wouldn't want to do that often.
Your water flushing idea makes a lot more sense that yanking steel out. Have you ever drilled for anyone but yourself with that rig? Does it use the standard 20' lengths of steel and casing or something shorter?
I've normally avoided kitchen fires by not cooking, LOL, but i'll check out Piffin's remedy. My guest was laughing that i literally couldn't boil water without burning something and asked what happened to the sign i used to have hanging in my kitchen that said "Only cowards cook on 'Low'!"
My little rig has everything miniaturized. Stems are 5' long, lots of screwing/unscrewing (hydraulically). But that makes it simple for solo operation, nothing's very heavy. Bore is small, reservoir very small. Trailer's small enough to be towed by anything.
I once considered offering stuck bit service to the half million dollar rigs, but figured that once I taught them the technique they wouldn't need me for anything. So I settled for telling the ones I knew how well it worked. Don't know if they ever tried it.
This rig was designed for not-rock drilling. The pump was to water-flush the cuttings. Probably'd work fine in tidewater. Here, there's no bore without a hammer. Hammers require air. I have to rent a large trailered compressor to make it all work. We're required to case to solid rock and that's the end of the casing. Everybody I know uses pvc.
Over-sized "soil" bit to bedrock, leaving a void around the casing. No pounding, just drop it in. Then pour the bentonite beads around the casing. When I originally asked, the health dept said casing to rock. Great, 4-14" here. No... minimum 20'. I got 30' before I had to switch to the hammer drill.
Guy I bought it from never quite got the whole picture. Took out a large home equity loan, then discovered he needed a hammer, etc. Drilled a number of successful wells (I spoke with a few of his customers before I bought the rig). Apparently he had trouble remembering how to hook up the hardware. Name was Luck, and he was clearly short of it.
Thought about doing drilling for others, license included, but decided against it. Not particularly attractive work, if lucrative. My extremely low overhead meant I could have done fine under-cutting the competition to compensate for the small reservoir. Mr. Luck almost lost his house with too much overhead. He concluded the rig couldn't be used commercially, but assured me that I'd have no trouble drilling my own well.
Hmmmm.... if it'll drill a well for me, why wouldn't it drill one for somebody else? Well, he'd failed at the business and it was clear to him that the rig was at fault. That's logic you can understand... And why I got it so cheap.
Never argue with a seller's logic if it's working for you.
Almost had a good setup with a buddy needing employment. I'd lease the rig to the HO, require that they hire my buddy (who I trusted), and everybody'd make out fine. Then he decided to go in a different direction.
Low overhead is us. With all my toys.
But I'd rather do some tractor driving or furniture repair or something else that requires a little more thinking. Consulting is nice. Driveway surveys are a favorite. Lots of ways to support yourself, no point in pursuing something you don't mostly enjoy. Although I've gotta admit, it's very exciting when you hit water and take that mud shower.
LOL Sounds like I want you nowhere close to my stove. Cooking's something we take seriously. Pasticcio di patate con le salsicce for last night's guests, substantial, as it snowed off and on all day (no accumulation). That's mashed potatoes with a lot of fresh grated nutmeg, combined with sausages off the (charcoal) grill, asiago melted on top. On the side, lightly sauteed broccoli with a bunch of garlic. Salad after, greens from the roof. We're partial to arugula and cilantro.
Going to plant my seed potatoes this morning.
DW was readying a road trip, got 3 new lines this week (who spends $250 on a hair brush?), so I did the cooking. Guests brought a bottle of raki rrushi apertif, new to me. No anise, as I expected from the name/origin. Horrible thing to do to a grape. Or maybe it was just the grape seeds. I've drunk some pretty bad homemade grappa, but this was worse.
Oops. Wasn't this thread about well production? Maybe we'll get an update today. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
if you dig a well for someone and dont get water would you still get paid???
here they do..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Guaranteeing water is pretty much a thing of the past here. Common when we moved here and I drilled my well. Drillers make a hole, if it fills with water, great. In point of fact, most areas here if you drill a hole you'll get at least 1 gpm.
Dowsing is usually left up to the land owner. Never heard of a dowser who never missed. Would be able to sell his/her services very high. I had 2 up here, who didn't agree. I went with the advice of a university geologist who came out with aerial photos and an explanation I could understand.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
<<Oops. Wasn't this thread about well production? Maybe we'll get an update today.>>I'd like to know, too. Once woodscreek mentioned the sulfur smell, i'm pretty sure i nailed the reason for his diminishing returns, but it's always nice to find out for sure when/if someone reports back. The great part about my proposal was, it would only require $4 worth of bleach and just possibly pulling the pump to clean the screen of slime first. Sure beats heck out of more/deeper drilling!About your drill...where would you get the drill stem (they call it 'steel' here) made? Is that item off-the-shelf or does the length make it a made-to-order item? <<if it'll drill a well for me, why wouldn't it drill one for somebody else?>>As to blaming the tool...few of my stationary woodworking tools were new; they mostly came from folks who couldn't get them to make any money, either, LOL. Still, i can see your seller's point: there are lots of things i do for myself that i'd starve to death doing professionally. Take roofing: I'd be still laying out a pretty pattern in three colors when Piffin or Hazlett would be coiling up the hoses to go to the next job. Nevertheless, doing my own rooves made buying the tools for that job a no-brainer. Your point about overhead is key. Lots of my artist friends didn't come out of the halcyon days of art fairs in the 80s and early 90s with much bec they got caught up in staying in nice hotels, driving motor homes, and eating at fancy restaurants on the road.
Stems come from the manufacturer, Deep Rock, or made up locally. I've not bought any but I understand there's a shop just over the mountain that made several of what I have.
Just steel pipe with special ends welded on. I weld pretty well, but would prefer somebody better to do that.
High overhead isn't necessarily bad, just bad for me. Requires too much organization.
An old Denver friend now has 130,000 sq ft of mfg/storage and no telling how many employees. Makes/warehouses booths for trade shows. We became friends when he was a hungry small remodeller I fed work to. The Ohio guy I sail with sprung $21k for a well-used CNC router. He mostly makes shipping crates. Started out in Denver with a 3 hp Makita router, Rockwell 14" bandsaw, in a 2 car garage manufacturing hobby horses. He's up to about 11,000 sq ft now. No more hobby horses.
Both make a lot more than I do every year, have toys I wouldn't want to pay for, but I wouldn't trade. Pretty sure they wouldn't either. That's what makes it an interesting world. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Gee, maybe there is hope for the little guy.
be small. Very small.
Peach full,easy feelin'.
Of course. Just gotta decide what you want- and be happy with your decision.
Lots of choices.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
It looks like neither of us are doing our share of consuming to get this economy going. It's funny...i can easily stay home for a couple weeks without needing to go anywhere to buy anything. 3 weeks ago i needed a certain color of paint for my solarium and vestibule...so i just mixed it up from what i had on hand. I've noticed woodscreek is peeking back occasionally, but not saying anything. I guess his/her problem must be fixed. <G>
Maybe not yet resolved. I got the impression a new well from the developer was preferred. Sounded good to me, if it's available.
DW asked what we were going to do with our part of the coming stimulus package. Like every other check that comes in, stick it in the bank. While she's on the road in WVa, selling to struggling stores... Very selective, but we already buy what we want. Have reserves if something special comes up. Big auction on Saturday that my machinist wants me to drive him to.
Went to a memorial yesterday in town. DW of a good friend, GC, who now gets to decide what to do with 5000 sq ft of collectibles, overflowing. The house runs him ~$7k/yr utilities on top of high maintenance paint (everything, roof included).
He's given lip service to living more how we do, no maintenance/minimal utilities. Not to mention that a second floor bedroom isn't exactly best for his frame after a couple of very nasty ladder falls (couple inches shorter than he used to be, will never walk normally again).
Sell that money pit to somebody else and build something better. I believe it was him who pointed out to me how common it was to spend 1 month's income on creature comforts every year.
We don't. PAHS in the style of Frank Gehry's Santa Monica house? I've got just the spot... <G> Needs a well, aim for the aquifer that feeds the spring just down the mountain. Worked on this peak. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
What does DW sell to stores? I just got an order from a store i told three years ago i was out of the woodworking business....i guess i was wrong! Such loyalty must be honored.I used to take all the checks and 'collect' property with them. After Ian passed, i'm pretty much in spending mode now. My lifestyle hasn't changed, but i adore not having to think about deadlines and commitments, employees and show applications. The goal now is to live well until the money runs out. To that end, i just seeded one flat with lavender and another with double pink poppies. They're both perennials, and not by chance. <G>(A painted *roof*???)
Apparel and accessories, lines in constant flux. Apparel is generally waning so she just picked up some premium skin/nail care products. I think I overheard her discussing yet another sock line, 4th maybe. That mention of $250 (retail) hair brushes was real. E150 is stuffed with samples.
She dragged me into a local drugstore (locally owned) to meet the buyer and get a tour. Seemed like half the non-prescription merchandise they had was from her. Including 2 sock lines. Which have become a destination item for the drugstore, for the (large) medical community. Whodathunk? Novelty socks.
Not particularly lucrative, but she really likes the work. Kinda like me. The challenge is finding non-chain stores still competing. Amazingly, The Greenbrier http://www.greenbrier.com/site/ cancelled her appointment last week, buying's frozen.
Lotsa roofs are painted here. That's what you do with terne or rusty galvanized. Which is why I used copper on my lumber shed. Metal roofs uncommon there?
Sure glad the Denver toy store never tracked me down for more block sets. I used to devote a few weeks every fall to them. They loved those blocks, a no-battery toy store. Didn't mind paying my premium for better blocks. I did, booooring.
Hope you aren't treating your life expectancy/cash like pumping a well dry. Wells are more predictable. See, I got back to wells! PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
$250 hair brushes just makes me giggle. It'ss a good thing for your DW and me that the world was full of people who believe the more you pay, the more it's worth. When i began selling a line of small tables, about plant-stand size, i figured i'd do OK at $125. None of them sold. A standing joke at art fairs is that we mark things up until they sell, so at $400 i could sell all the little tables i could make, or about 10/week if i buckled down. There are metal roofs here, but mostly Delta-rib with the outbuilding cachet that goes with. I've seen very few standing-seam rooves, and certainly never saw one that wasn't factory painted. It's pretty much asphalt as far as the eye can see...I actually think of life expectancy as a lot more predictable than wells. I developed some fairly inflexible judgments about the medical profession after helping my partner make his exit. God help the person who tries to come between me, my bottle of schnapps, and a snowbank when i decide to hang up my spurs.
Edited 3/29/2008 9:22 pm by splintergroupie
That said, you should have seen yellow caution flags with anything less than three gallons a minite
consider yurself water rich here at a gallon of min..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Hindsight is 20/20 and blame will get you nowhere.
You need to talk to people who know how to find water on your property. Make it your priority. It's not easy to find people who really know what they are doing with issues like this. Most people are just guessing.
I've found that usually when I really get after something it gets done.
I hope it turns out well.
Our area is extremely variable, but I know of a 2 bedroom house approved/built with a quart/minute well (large well reservoir). That 2 ac lot had 5 dry holes before getting the quart. Bad area.
When drillers here used to guarantee water, it was 1 gal/min. Considered adequate with a 200' reservoir. Want more? That'll cost you another well.
Which is what you're looking at, 2 yrs later.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Thanks for all the input on my well situation. In casual conversation the developer said "we need to take care of the problem". Sort of a half encouraging sign from them. I'll be talking to them tomorrow about what the next step is and what they're willing to do.
"That 2 ac lot had 5 dry holes before getting the quart. Bad area."That is the understatment of the year!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
You don't need another well, regardless of who's at fault.
All you need is a large holding tank, say 1000 gallon or so, that the well pumps into. Then water goes from that reservoir into the pressurized tank that feeds your house. Simple and effective.
Could be far cheaper (and more predictable) than drilling a new well.
I'll eat your peaches, mam. I LOVE peaches!
we did install a 650 gal holding tank. Even with that if we exceed 300gal/day we'll run out eventually. 400 gal/day is the required minimum here. When it was drilled it was supposedly 1 gal/min(1440 gal/day). Now it's a quart/min--it's heading in the wrong direction. Also water has a strong sulfur smell now and clarity is poor. Well is 212' deep. I'm learning more as this issue drags on. The drillers used a pnuematic rig- from what I'm told can drill 150-200'/day. Experienced people tell me that they can blow right thru a seam of water and not know it. Whereas the old "pounder" type rigs are much slower but the "old-timers" knew when they hit a seam. In talking to the drilling company they said that they quit for the day and came back the next with water in the casing and the assumption was that they had passed a seam of water and that it had seaped down to the end of the casing.. As I've talked to more people I was surprised at the number that asked if the property had been 'witched". Lot of them swear by it. I don't buy it. Falls into the category of "couldn"t hurt".
>Experienced people tell me that they can blow right thru a seam of water and not know it. Whereas the old "pounder" type rigs are much slower but the "old-timers" knew when they hit a seam<
I've heard this a lot but I think there's different/newer drill heads to solve that problem. The last one I had drilled had a head (which I didn't get a pic of even though I knew I should've, got pics of everything else) that I've seen before but wasn't inquisitive enough to ask quesitons before. It looked like a flat bottomed coffee can with carbide knobs on the bottom. The drilling face supposedly didn't move due to the weight of the drill stick sitting on it but when the stick spun it rode on cams or something to create the hammer action at the head.
I think you may be stuck on this. Had the problem been realized soon after the purchase of the land it wouldlve bene easier but wells & aquifers change over time and there's no way to prove which is causing the problem (fraud or aquifer changes). If you're finding sulfur now you're in for a lot fun (not!).
What kind of rock is it? I missed it if you already mentioned it.
"pounder" type rigs are much slower
aint that the truth - but a rotary may have breezed thru the layer of sand over a few feet of blue clay without knowing it would give over 30 gpm (biggest test pump)
Wish Ida bought a pounder I saw for sale 30 years ago on a truck for $600, would have saved a lot of trouble building one.
Those poundrs don't get far in granite
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>Those poundrs don't get far in granite
Neighbor here has a pounder he's been using for at least 30 years drilling mostly thru granite. Slow, but biggest pain/expense is if he has to go through significant amounts of soft stuff before he hits bedrock, placing casing as he goes - have to pull the head, screw on another length of pipe, pound it down, then drop in & keep going.
Once he hits solid granite, he doesn't have to mess with casing again.
Years ago, I helped him a couple times to move the rig - tear down, move to new job, place big heavy cribbing beams.
Lots of wells around here go 300-500', so he could often be set up for weeks on one job. Tough to be competitive with the rotary rigs which can be in & out in a couple-three days.
Don
Mine is 177 feet deep. First 22'in soils, then five feet of junk ledge, then granite the rest of the way. Done in eight hours rotary drilling
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Hey that was someone else I quted that you quoted from me so the credit goes elsewhere.
But the punding head that I described ate through 230' of granite in a matter of hours.
Biggest isue is the kind of rock the site has. Granite won't make a slurry/paste that will reharden whereas limestone can.
Ah, the plot thickens. If your water smells sulfury, there are two causes i know of: water flowing through sulfur-bearing rock or sulfur-producing bacteria. In the first case, you're stuck. In the second, there's a chance you can rescue your well and lines by bleaching out the well and killing the bacteria. Google <<sulfur producing bacteria water well>> and read some of it. The bacterial slime can clog pipes, which sounds like a good guess in your case. Here's a pdf to get you started: http://www.hhs.state.ne.us/enh/IronSulfurBacteria.pdfI was told i could probably never clear my well of the bacteria, but i did, HA! I poured four gallons (yes, sounds awful, but it's called "shocking a well" for a reason). No scientific estimate on the amount, but i didn't want to have to wonder if i'd done all i could. If you have a hydrant, connect a hose to the output, then run it into the well casing. You want to let the water run, flushing all sides of the well casing in the process. Take your time. Flush the casing cap, too, and anything else connected with your well. Turn off the hydrant without draining the well. Go into your house and turn on both H&C taps until you smell chlorine at each fixture. Don't forget the laundry, room, irrigation, toilets, the sump pump, etc. Wash down the insides of your toilet tanks, too. Once every pipe in your house if full of chlorinated water, let it sit overnight. Now go out and drain your well of as much chlorinated water as you can via the hydrant to some place you aren't concerned about. The reason is that you don't want to dump all that chlorine into your septic tank, if you have one. Then flush the house pipes until they run free of chlorine. I did this just once and my problem was solved and never returned. I learned afterward that i probably introduced bacteria with drip lines i left attached to the hydrant without using vacuum breakers. I used vacuum breakers now and have no issues with drip lines. It's not unlikely that the drillers introduced the bacteria into my well from other sources, too.Then make darn sure your well cap is securely fastened, and also your cistern cap. I had to shock a friend's system twice because a few bits of grass fell in the cistern after the first shock treatment.
It's funny about the witching thing. Talk to the guys that do the drilling and they'll tell you it works great, except when it doesn't.
This is what I did when I built this place......(no inspections or code to speak of)I have a great spring but it fluctuates (never lower than finger width though)I buried a new ceptic tank below spring (1500 gallon if I remember right) pipe my spring water into it and overflow it into the creek....the water into the house is under-the-sink filtered to become the sweetest water you can imagine.If I had a low producing well I'd do the same thing........
Yeah, that sounds great. Do you ever treat the water in the tank with any chemicals? We have a low producing well at our new house and a big above ground tank - I think it's 1200, maybe 1500 gal.
I kind of worry about the water not cycling through the tank often enough to stay fresh. Should really do some research on the subject.I'll eat your peaches, mam. I LOVE peaches!
JJ's likely got some coliform. Common with springs. Virtually every spring in Va, according to the health dept. Not necessarily a health risk, but not ideal. Here, treatment's required.
If your well's free from bugs, you probably won't have much ill effect from somewhat stagnant water. Less, obviously being better. Testing is reasonable.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
JJ's likely got some coliform...........That's probably possible as they frown on springs around here also, but most everyone has one. I'm pretty deep, but who knows.
Normally, except in August I have a pretty strong flow, but just to make sure I placed a filter as the water comes into the house and another good filter system under the sink for drinking water.Still you never really know for sure with water these days. I may do a bleach flush of the tank every July from now on, but first I need to research it a bit..........
I worked on a system with a 2000 gallon tank that fed another 1000 gallon tank. The E. coli, i was told, is not that harmful, but it's an indicator that there's a problem in the system of ground water entering somewhere, though in the case i mention case, it was from grass that fell into the cistern when the cover was removed. A subsequent shocking - after weed whacking! - fixed the problem. I'm under the impression that the tolerance for E. coli here is zilch.
E. coli bacteria are a subgroup of fecal coliform, which are present in the gut (and consequently ####) of mammals. Most are harmless, but the presence in drinking water is a sign of surface water (once in a while sewage) contamination. So, when E. coli are present, pathogenic bacteria, viruses or parasites can't be ruled out, so the acceptable level of E. coli in drinking water is "none".
IMO I think I'd rather ingest a wee bit of deer shid than all the chemicals they put into city water..........Course then there was the time in AK when I went down to the river to see how my pump was doing and found it surrounded by dead and dying dog salmon.............
IMO I think I'd rather ingest a wee bit of deer shid than all the chemicals they put into city water..........
Me too. But when I was building I ignored the spring down the mountain, which the health inspector would have let me develop (as an existing water supply for a house razed 50 yrs ago). They would have required either chemical or UV treatment.
So I drilled to the same aquifer source and got great water.
Our Arizona mountain property just got a well installed last year. For 4 decades we went to a nearby Forest Service campground to get drinking water from the spring there. Then one year they decided it was a bad idea and demolished the spring box. A decision we sure didn't appreciate. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
thing is with a spring it can be great one minute and not so good the next.......right now my spring is a fast flowing creek, but it's pretty deep in the ground and I doubt any ground water is getting into my system the way I have it set up.............but it's really sweet and tasty......like melted snow.......
Yeah? The springs I'm familiar with are more constant, flow changing slowly over the course of weeks or months.
Or maybe I wasn't paying enough attention and didn't notice. The spring I briefly considered developing here would have required pumping 300' elevation up the mountain to our house. 100' more than where the pump's now set. And would have been a challenge to either bring in a spring box or cast one there.
Only one of the options I considered here. Resulting in my purchase of that small drilling rig.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
A couple of my buddies developed perpetual intestinal hell after getting a wee bit of giardia in their personal plumbing without being able to get rid of it; not everyone can take the pills and be done with it. I'm a lot less cavalier about drinking water since learning from their experience. However, i grew up drinking spring water, too. I recall my father coming back to the cabin and musing over how that rat could have gotten in the spring box in the first place... <G>
I have a well on one side of my yard i can see the water at 12 feet down, On the other side my neighbor dug fence posts and hit water at 2 feet down and had trouble putting concrete in the hole. So the water table is close to the surface, The old couple that used to live here used the water for there house but also dumped old cars and metal right next to the well , They both had all kinds of cancer and died, I use the well to water the lawn sometimes, I might test it one day.
water table and ground water are two different things in some places.I can open the cap on my well and see water somewhere from 7' to 20' down the casing, depending on time of year. wouldn't suprise me if it is only 5' down next month.But drilling I had to go to 150'plus to hit the aquifer.The old hand dug wells were all ground water, but most all of them are polluted now, so everyone is drilling down into the bedrock. Water is mostly better there.But even at that, we can have radon in our deep water from the granite. That is a suspected source of cancers too.Where I grew up, in WNY, the well was an old punched well 54' deep and it was good spring water
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I built a house 20 years ago, putting in the septic tank, uncovered 5 springs.
dug it down to 25 feet filled with some gravel, never ran out of h2o
cheap too!!!
I'm hoping you picked another location for the septic tank . . .
Did you buy from the developer or from someone who bought from the developer?
got any updates?
I've heard of people dropping a quarter stick of dynamite down the well to "shock the system" and get it flowing. You probably wouldn't want to do that unless you are at the point of giving up on the well and starting over.
Edited 3/26/2008 9:07 am by nater
In some areas, how deep the well is is a critical factor.
I lived in a house for 17 years that had a flow of 1GPM (I built the house and drilled the well). Minimal flow of course but the upside is we hit water at 200'. I kept them drilling for another 400' in the hopes of hitting more water but no luck. The upshot was the well stored water at about a gallon/LF so I basically had a 400 gallon underground storage tank with the pump at the bottom.
Always had great flow and pressure. The single incident we had was when I planted the lawn I had four sprinklers going all the time and the well couldn't keep up but that's a situation that will tax any well.
Runnerguy