Dumb questions. What do they do with the dirt they remove, especially for a 300' well? Are wells lined with anything or is it dirt walls? Do they put gravel at the bottom of the well?

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Dumb questions. What do they do with the dirt they remove, especially for a 300' well? Are wells lined with anything or is it dirt walls? Do they put gravel at the bottom of the well?

I expect it varies from situation to situation but here a drilled well uses a metal casing, usually 6" for residential wells, until the drill hits bedrock.

My well is at least 165 feet deep (not sure how much deeper than that), but the water level is about 15 feet from the top of the well casing. The pump is down about 150 feet.

Not sure if my water is coming from the bedrock strata or if they hit a water-bearing gravel layer, but I do know the water originates well below my pump. I've never pumped my well dry even when neighbors have.

Another oddity is that two wells within 200 feet of mine have REALLY nasty water, full of iron and undrinkable. In one case, undrinkable even after treatment.

Mine is perfect right out of the well. I can only assume mine is deeper and is drawing from a different aquifer. With luck, it will stay that way until long after I care about it.

quote:

Originally posted by SBrooks:
I can't imagine drinking from a well that shallow. Seems like it would always be under influence from surface water and therefore liable to contamination from runoff, septic, etc.

Mine is 48 feet deep and we have water 12 feet from the top. Just had it tested and no issues with water quality at all.

Dumb questions. What do they do with the dirt they remove, especially for a 300' well? Are wells lined with anything or is it dirt walls? Do they put gravel at the bottom of the well?

With ours the dirt was spread around the area and the well has a concrete casing dirt bottom.

quote:

We're in extended drought conditions

Gibb, are you in any way working with agriculture? Any livestock?

If you are, a visit to your local USDA office may be in order. Depending on your drought conditions, there may be some assistance available to help pay for a new well.

 
Ours is 600 ft deep. Initially the pump was placed at 500 ft. We had a couple of pump failures over the years, and it was mainly attributed to sand getting in the pump. With the last pump replacement, when they pulled the pump up, they were able to determine that water had been seeping in at higher depths. They said that is normal for a well out here, over time it "fills in". So they were able to raise the new pump up to about 425 ft. where it won't be sitting near the sandy bottom. We did just have to have our top pump replaced (the one that is inside the 2500 gallon storage tank buried at the surface. That was the original pump, they said. It had lasted 16 years.
 

Update

Our well was drilled Wednesday. They came yesterday to install the pump/plumbing.
200 ft well, 140 feet of casing. They hit a reservoir pushing 80 gallons per minute! Not an artesian well, but unless there is a drastic change to the water table, I would be hard pressed to run this well dry.

Ran it for a few hours yesterday, was quite dirty. Was told to run it a while, and it's getting cleaner bit by bit. Hopefully it'll be clean enough to test next week.

Grand total so far is $9,090 (temp water supply, drilling, pump/plumbing). I was hoping for under 10k, funny how the universe knows when you have a number in mind...

quote:

Originally posted by bionic218:

quote:

We're in extended drought conditions

Gibb, are you in any way working with agriculture? Any livestock?

If you are, a visit to your local USDA office may be in order. Depending on your drought conditions, there may be some assistance available to help pay for a new well.

No ag use here (yet) but looked into RD assistance but we exceed the threshold.