Not entirely unexpected. We have lived at our farm for 23 years now. We have always gotten our water from a 1.5" driven well. About 2 years ago, we had to pull the point and drive a new one as there was a home in the pipe causing an air leak. Over the winter the well went from it's original 6 GPM down to where it could not maintain very much water pressure at all. If you let it recover, it would refill the pressure tank in about a half hour. this had made doing laundry or watering our livestock a very time consuming affair. Last night, it gave out completely, no water. Fortunately our neighbor will let us connect a garden hose to their outside faucet so we can have water until we can get a well driller in. Good news is that there have been 3 wells drilled within a 1/4 mile of us on our road that have been 65' to 145'. Bad news is the estimate is $6,000 for the first 100' Got the money in the bank so while painful it is not crippling. Now ot wait for the well driller. At least now we will have a deep well with a casing and a downwell pump.

Have you decided on what kind of well you're putting in, pump specifics, etc.? Because we had our 2 in. jet well upgraded 22 years ago, and just had the pump upgraded this year (didn't need to, but wanted to). I can give you my input, if you're interested.

Serious, but probably stupid question: Can ya fill it back up?

^^^^
No. That will not work. There is no resupply of water. I doubt that his well has a crank with a bucket on the end. Will have to drill a deeper well to reach the water table. She explains it better:

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:
Serious, but probably stupid question: Can ya fill it back up?

In a word: No. It sounds like whatever was the source of the water for his well dried up or has been diverted.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:
Serious, but probably stupid question: Can ya fill it back up?

In a word: No. It sounds like whatever was the source of the water for his well dried up or has been diverted.

Or demand has exceeded supply. Wait 25 - 100 years and the aquifer may be refilled.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Have you decided on what kind of well you're putting in, pump specifics, etc.? Because we had our 2 in. jet well upgraded 22 years ago, and just had the pump upgraded this year (didn't need to, but wanted to). I can give you my input, if you're interested.

It will be a 5" PVC cased well with a submersible pump rated at 10 GPM. We had plenty of water at 6 GPM so if we get 10 it will be more than great.

^^^^ The Well Whisperer

Had that happen once. New well went in about 100’ deeper. No problems since. Went from an above ground pump to the submerged pump.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
Had that happen once. New well went in about 100’ deeper. No problems since. Went from an above ground pump to the submerged pump.

Ours gave us a bit more warning than just giving up the ghost out of the clear blue sky.

In our case the old 2 in. jet well's point started failing. Well guy told us "I could try to pull it up and replace it, but that well is thirty years old. In my experience there's a 50/50 chance the attempt to pull it up will fail, than you'll have the cost of a failed repair plus the cost of a new well."

We had a new well driven.

Old well was at 80 feet. New well is at 115 feet.

quote:

watering our livestock

Do you have a local SWCD or NRCS office in your area? If the well is used - even sometimes - as the main supply of water for livestock, there may be financial assistance at your local USDA office.

I have seen them covered anywhere from 50-100% in my area as long as there is a legitimate agricultural reason - such as livestock watering source. Even if that same well provides the home with water, we call that an ancillary benefit.

No different than if we install a pond to stop gully erosion, and the landowner ends up putting a dock and a diving board on it. As long as it stops the erosion for the life of the contract (usually ten years) we really don't care about ancillary benefits.

May not be worth the hassle and time loss to design, contract, and implement, much less dealing with the feds, but these programs exist for a reason. It's not like the government is going to spend it on something wise and resourceful if you don't use it.

We had a 5 inch point (I'm still trying to figure that myself... basically it was a 30ft 5 inch driven well casing with a pitless adapter, pulled by a jet pump), and it kept losing prime in the pump.
Finally got to the point of needed replacing, so I checked the neighbors wells and found most were 350-500 feet and 5 to 7 gph. That would have run 15k, so we prepped as best we could.
The well company drilled and an unknown aquifer at 200ft, and while not artesian, it exceeded their 70gph pump. Talk about lucky! Our only issue is its a bit turbulent so we need to add a line filter.

I wish you the best of luck with your well.

You mean the water doesn’t come from the city water company with a bill attached? Crazy... sorry I’m from the city never had a well, but that sucks you have to drill a new well.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
Had that happen once. New well went in about 100’ deeper. No problems since. Went from an above ground pump to the submerged pump.

Ours gave us a bit more warning than just giving up the ghost out of the clear blue sky.

In our case the old 2 in. jet well's point started failing. Well guy told us "I could try to pull it up and replace it, but that well is thirty years old. In my experience there's a 50/50 chance the attempt to pull it up will fail, than you'll have the cost of a failed repair plus the cost of a new well."

We had a new well driven.

Old well was at 80 feet. New well is at 115 feet.

This was up north at a cabin. It had been getting worse for years. Things like only being able to flush the toilet every 10 minutes.

quote:

Originally posted by Kskelton:
You mean the water doesn’t come from the city water company with a bill attached? Crazy...

Crazy like a fox.

Most of our neighbours are on municipal water. Their lawns have been turning brown. Not ours

When it doesn't rain we expend up to 23,000 gal./week just watering. Can you imagine the water bill?

I had my doubts when I bought this house, but I was telling Mrs. ensigmatic the other day that if we were to move and were looking at two essentially identical houses, and one was on well and septic, that's the one that would win.

Appliance Brad: If you're installing a traditional stop/start pressure-switch system, you might consider popping for a larger expansion tank than will probably be recommended. Less pump cycles = less wear and tear on the pump and some energy savings.

We were pleasantly surprised when we put our well in a our cabin in Cheboygan. Our neighbors all had wells in the 350-400 foot range so that's what I expected. Ours came in at 139. Things don't seem to go my way very often so that was great.


Jim

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by Kskelton:

You mean the water doesn’t come from the city water company with a bill attached? Crazy...

Crazy like a fox.

Most of our neighbours are on municipal water.
Their lawns have been turning brown. Not ours

When it doesn't rain we expend up to 23,000 gal./week just watering. Can you imagine the water bill?

Our water bill is not affected by landscape watering, whether we use zero or thousands of gallons.

"Project Apricot" here in Altamonte Springs, FL, has two water lines coming to each house: the regular water for household use, and re-cycled water for irrigation. The re-cyced stuff is not metered. There is a flat rate charge on the bill for availability, this does not vary with use or non-use.

Our bill for municipal services runs something less that $60.00 / month. This includes metered water for household use, sewer charge, unmetered water for lawn watering, car washing, etc., and trash pickup and recycling pickup.

Our wells in Presque Isle County between Rogers City and Cheboygen are artesian, but that really doesn't help Brad. We're also about 60' from 850 cubic miles of fresh water.

It's interesting that Brad's well went dry as people are having too much water problems all over Michigan. For instance, that 60' from 850 cubic miles of water I mentioned above used to be 200' and three sumps in two houses are running 24/7.

Not all aquifers are rechargable. Some, once emptied, are gone forever.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Appliance Brad: If you're installing a traditional stop/start pressure-switch system, you might consider popping for a larger expansion tank than will probably be recommended. Less pump cycles = less wear and tear on the pump and some energy savings.

Also, if you're putting together a new system, I seem to recall hearing something in a recent thread about selection of a well pump motor controller being worth some thought as well.