GMC girl

Can anyone tell me about getting water from a well? I believe it is about 26 m deep & there is some form of electric pump that can be got??

Will try to add some photos & grateful for any information & advice. Really want to put a traditional wooden well cover over it too, even if it is to disguise the current arrangement.

wolfi

You better ask a specialist imho!
There are two possibilities:
Either a pump on the bottom (with a very long cable ...) or a pump that takes in x meters of water, kind of sucking it in.
Don't know which would be the cheaper/easier solution in your case.

Peter_in_Hungary

If it is 26m deep you will need a submersible pump. (You can't suck water up more than 9m).

What type of well is it? There are 2 types, dug and drilled. A dug well is about 75cm wide or more and can be of concrete rings, brick or stone built, but has to be wide enough for someone to get in and dig with a short handled shovel. A drilled well as the name would suggest is drilled and all you get is a tube disappearing into the ground, usually about 100mm - 150mm diameter.

If the well is 26m deep, is that to the bottom of the well or is it to the top of the water? And how deep is the water?

For what do you intend to use the water? This will determine the pump size and the infrastructure you put in alongside the pump. Also a determining factor is the amount of water the well can produce over a period of time and its recovery time after the extraction.

So a bit more information is needed to advise. (We are off the water grid and have 3 wells, 2 drilled (120m and 30m deep) and a dug well, now disused, 6m deep)

jetsam1

Quality is important too. We get through lots of bottled water as the water from our well isn't particularly high quality, indeed, it's borderline potable.

Out if interest do you know what is charged these days for a drilled water well? I think we would have to consider a second well at our new place so as to run irrigation and a house. Yep it gets more and more expensive but it will all be worth it in the end? Won't it?

Peter_in_Hungary

If it is a dug well then it can never be regarded as drinking quality as it can't be sealed properly so the opportunity for mice and other things to fall in and contaminate the water will always be there (either down from the top or through the well wall).

I don't know about current costs for drilling a well as ours were done too long ago to be relevant for costings, however last year there was a grant for farms to install wells so it may be worth looking into that aspect.

Well drillers usually have a reasonable idea of where the water will be in a given area but there are no guarantees as to either how deep or what type of water will be found. (some areas have high iron content and other places have high arsenic levels. (iron can be filtered but as far as I know arsenic can't be filtered (safely))

wolfi

I don't want to start a panic but I have to tell a story (maybe I've told it before):
In one of the Zala villages several years ago (less than 10) a doctor found a surprising number of intestine cancer cases ...
The authorities realised that the reason was the aluminum works which for many years (around 20 years ago) had just put their sewage into the ground, poisoning the wells ...
The cancer hit also the husband of my wife's friend, he had always drunk well water instead of mineral water.
Luckily for the village it had introduced a water supply some years ago and everybody switched to it because that well water really didn't taste so good, so the younger people were safe.
But all the older people were asked by their docs to bring stool samples and quite a few more cancer cases were found.

Carrot_Cruncher

Hi,


We have a dug well, brick-lined, 18m down to the water level and around 2 - 2.5m of water usually. The water is very clear, but I wouldn't want to drink it regularly. Would like to be able to hook it up to supply the toilet or washing machine one day.


We use a simple submersible pump, the type you can buy in Tesco for around 12,000 HUF (ElPumps VP300). That is sufficient for us to raise up the 18m and a further 25m along at ground level to a container near the orchard. At that price point we can only expect to get about two years use out of them, but it's cheaper than replacing the trees.


Regards,
CC

Peter_in_Hungary

Those pumps are cheap and cheerful, fairly indestructible and should last several years and depending upon the type can pump to a max of about 60m (with diminishing output with increasing height).

However these pumps SHOULD NOT be used in wells !! They operate with a vibrating membrane and by virtue of their operation put a 50Hz resonance into the water and this vibration gets transmitted through the water and can cause the collapse of the waterways feeding the well and can cause a loss of supply which can be fairly irrecoverable. These pumps are fine for cisterns and other rain water tanks but PLEASE don't put them down a well!

The only submersible pumps that should be used in a well are the rotary impeller type, which unfortunately are a bit more expensive that the vibrating membrane type.

GMC girl

Thanks Peter, the only information I have comes from our neighbour who has lived here for about 40 years ( brother in law of previous owners). It was him who told us the depth etc. He said it is not drinking water.

It is a dug well & we want to use it for the swimming pool in the summer & the garden. Also possible use for the toilets.

I have photos of when we took the cover off but cant get them on here for some reason.

Peter_in_Hungary

The first thing to do is to assess the flow of the well. you need to measure depth water surface, pump out some water over some time then measure the depth of the and from the diameter of the well calculate the amount removed, then measure the water surface again periodic intervals until it has regained the original level. From this you can workout the flow of the well. Once you know this you can plan what you can use it for.

Wells 101 - There are 2 types of wells dug and drilled, (Artisan not covered as they are too rare)
Water is in the ground in layers. water sinks until it reaches an impervious layer then goes horizontally. If a fault is in the impervious layer then the water can go down again. Changing strata can also mean other impervious layers (over distance) can be above the first layer so the first layer can become the second ect.

You can dig a well to the first layer but you can not dig lower (because the hole floods). After the first layer you need a drill to go deeper.

The first level water is essentially last years rain and in dry years these wells can have reduced flow or even dry up. Second level water (and beyond) is older water and the lower the level the more stable the flow tends to be. Also layers 2 and beyond tend to be biologically cleaner, the chemical content depends upon the strata the water has flowed through.

Our deep well (120m) is at the 3rd level because the 1st and 2nd had too little flow. (This well was estimated to have a flow of 200lts/min) The other drilled well (30m) is 500 mtrs from the deep well (down the road) and is at the 2nd level and produces 17lts/m (about a 1/2" tap on full chat) the dug well (6m) is silted up and not in use (it is also biologically contaminated)

Once you know what the flow of the well produces you can plan your usage and this will drive the infrastructure needed to manage this usage.

It is important, when drilling wells, to ensure that the various layers are sealed because you don't want to be mixing the layers.

Low producing wells can be cleaned and if a well is not used for some time (years) then the flow will be reduced. Using the well can increase its flow rate over time.

GMC girl

Now that is all very technical ....can I message you some photos as I can not upload them. ?

Peter_in_Hungary

To upload pictures you 'Go Advanced' (bottom of the quick reply box) then you get the option to attach files at the 'attachments' button (top line, 6th from left) this gives a box that allows you to select a file from your computer. This should allow you to attach photos

GMC girl

Thanks Peter but this doesn't work either, I got a message about a security token & contacting the administrator. Will wait & see what the problem is.

Peter_in_Hungary

The photos will be an interesting aside. A dug well will be a round hole in the ground going down x meters. If it is concrete rings then it will be of the most common type, brick or stone are less common (and a lot more expensive the build). What is important is that the hole is not (too) distorted, which implies structural stability. What is on top of the hole is optional and usually fairly flimsy.

What is important is the flow of the well. Once you know that you can move forward to decide how to use it, whether to clean it (could help the flow but you won't get a guarantee) and what infrastructure you want based on flow and usage. The infrastructure can vary from basic (that would be a bucket on a string) to a fully automated pressurised delivery system - with steps in between to suit.

GMC girl