My well was put in 2002, 24 years ago before I started building the house so the pressure tank is buried. I didn't want to build where I chose until I was sure there'd be water and as it turned out there was plenty at 100', they drilled to 120' for a reserve. The water has been good most of the time but occasionally would have discoloration from iron. Running the water with a yard sprinkler for a couple hours would clear it up when that occurred.

But it's not been without problems. The pressure tank was replaced 3 times, the pump once, and the pressure switch 3 times. And after the last bout of discolored water earlier this summer I decided that's it I'll connect to public water before I have more well problems. In 2017 they ran water line down our road to my driveway even though it was 1/3 mile beyond the last house (which I'm very thankful for now).

PSD put a tap and meter near the road in September but my excavator who was backed up all summer finally showed up a few weeks ago to start. A 500' roll of 1" water line *just* made it to the house by taking up part of my stone sidewalk so no splice. And it was run in 2" conduit. In the crawl space we put in an expansion tank along with a pressure gauge before and after to monitor.

So after a 4-month wait, $6,650 spent, plus $29 every month, I have public water and finally no more well problems!

Deep enough so it won't freeze in the winter?

Fine time to ask.

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:
Deep enough so it won't freeze in the winter?

That was my first thought. Doesn't look near deep enough.

Hopefully it should be fine since it's in conduit. Where he crossed under my driveway near the road he put it double conduit. The problem here is ledge rock under the clay.
The old water line to the house from the well was only 16" deep under the driveway laying on ledge but never froze even down to 0 and below with the drive cleared of snow.

Will you run the lawn sprinklers on the well still? That will keep the water bill down and you really don't need city water to keep the grass green.

What's the white conduit/pipe crossing the ditch in the second picture?

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Will you run the lawn sprinklers on the well still? That will keep the water bill down and you really don't need city water to keep the grass green.

No HRK and for two reasons; one I don't water the lawn I only did so occasionally to flush out the well rather than letting it flow directly from a hose. The other is because the well is disconnected now and plugged off to permit water from the house to feed my shop. When the shop was built in 2019 they tied into the water line somewhere between the well and the house. So at the well I removed the pressure tank, cut a section out, and plugged off both ends, to the well and house, leaving the 2019 connection free to feed the shop. If that makes sense.

*Edit for a 3rd reason; the minimum water bill is $29 a month which is for up to 3,000 gallons. There's no way I'll exceed that amount even counting washing my car, motorcycles, porches, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:
What's the white conduit/pipe crossing the ditch in the second picture?

That's not conduit but the sanitary line running from the shop that connects to the house line between the house and septic. Fortunately I knew about where it crossed so they were able to hand dig there. The water line conduit laying over top of it was just temporary so they could see how to route where the line needed to curve to the house. After marking the ground they pulled it apart, made the sweep, placed the line under the sanitary line and glued the conduit.

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:
Deep enough so it won't freeze in the winter?

It needs to be below the frost line which is about 18 inches but really depends on where you live.

Here in Chicago its 66" below finnished grade.

quote:

Originally posted by armored:
Here in Chicago its 66" below finnished grade.

Thankfully not here, and I can run it as deep or shallow as I choose, there are no regulations, permits, or inspections. If it freezes it's on me.
To dig through the ledge rock to go deeper would have meant removing a *lot* more material and large rock, and required a much bigger excavator than the 14-ton Cat he used here. He said even his 28-ton probably wouldn't have been able to get through it in places and it would have required removing a lot of trees just to use it. It's all deeper now than it was when run from the well to the house which never froze.