Well Problems

17 years ago

Hello and Thanks in advance for any help.

I live in Savannah, GA. I have been working for a couple weeks on pushing a well with a sand point set up. I have done fine with getting the pipe down and have reached up to 17'. I think that I am about 40 ft. above Sea Level, if that matters. The friend that I borrowed the set-up from hit water at appx 9' when he pushed his. He is able to run his irrigation system off his with a 1hp pump.

I have a much smaller yard and will probably only have two zones. I hooked a 1/2 hp pump to my well from recomendation of the home depot guy who assured me that it could run up to 8 heads. When I drop a weight and string down the pipe, the water is appx. 5' below ground. I cant get the pump to give me a good, constant flow of water. And, the water is really silty. I pulled the pipe back out of the hole and checked to see if the tip was still there, it was. I reinstalled, this time only going 10' down. The water still sits in the pipe at the same distance below the ground, 5'. I also seem to be getting a lot of air in the line as well because the water is allways surging when it does come out.

I am sure that I have not given enough detail, as I am not too familiar with what you may need to know. Please let me know what you think or what additional info you may need.

Thanks

Josh

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Comments (4)

lehua49
17 years ago
Hi josh,

A couple of questions to clarify the set up. Did you match the type of system with your friends? Does your friend's set up have a name for it? Describe your system. What are the flow rates and pressure ratings of the heads? What type of pump are you using or what does your operating manual label your pump? What is the diameter of your well casing? The only dimension you worry about is the depth of your well and the water table elevation. You have 12 feet of water height to pull against. Should be okay. How deep are you placing the end of your intake hose? Do you use any filters? Check the height of the water when you are pumping and see how far your water level drops. Where is your pump situated in relation to your well(horizontal and vertical distances)? After you answer these questions, I and others can give you some meaningful advice. My gut feeling is you are using the wrong kind of pump to pull water from the well. If your friend is successfully pumping water from his well, maybe he can discover the problem. Aloha.
joshm
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks for responding lehua13-
No, I did not match my buddy's system. Since he has a much bigger yard than mine, I did not see the need (this is where I may have gone wrong). He has a 1hp pump where I only have a 1/2hp. I havent hooked up a system yet, Im just trying to get clear water with some flow and force. I seem to have about 40lbs right now but my flow is only 2.5 gallons per min. I have not used any filters, only the well tip which silt seems to be penetrating very easily. The end of the well tip is around 12' in the ground and the water table seems to be about 7' higher than that when I drop a weight into the pipe. The pipe coming out of the well goes up 30" into a 90 and then another 12" into the pump, so a total of around 42" exposed.

Will the silt eventually clear out the longer I run the pump? I have tried hooking just a common yard sprinkler to it to use the water while I am clearing it, but the holes always clog due to the silt. It seems like I have run the pump 3-4 times for 2-3 hours and I am still very cloudy and stopping up sprinklers.

Thanks again.
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lehua49
17 years ago
Hi josh,

Does your friend's water run clean? The trick is to not pull water faster than the well can supply it because then you start sucking up the surround ground particle. The larger the well the more storage it has available to pull against. It is like you are filling a surface tank then letting it fill up slowly and then drawing only what has been stored in the tank and then filling the tank up again. You can't draw what the tank or well doesn't have. So you need to find out the yield or gpm the well is capable of delivering. What flow are you looking to get from your well. 2 zones of 4 heads each @ 2.5 gpm per head is 10 gpm per zone. You need a pump that delivers 12 gpm @ 45 psi or greater. Your pump has to deliver 12 gpm and pull 15 feet of head. If your pump in not a submersible pump or a jet pump, it will have difficulty pulling up water 15 feet of water. I hope you are using a jet pump. What type of pump are you using? What is it rated for in flow and pressure for a certain vertical height? You might have to install a network of wells hooked together to get the flow you need. Match your friends system. It is better to have too much water than not enough. You just run the system less time. JMHO. Others with more well experience please chime in. There was an earlier post on this very subject. Aloha.
lehua49
17 years ago
Hi josh,

The heading of the thread is Installing a Shallow Well using the Brady Method. Google the Brady method of well drilling and you will get a wealth of good information. Aloha