New well questions.
My son wanted a hand pump well to water the chickens. We use a post hole method to dig a 6in wide 20ft hole. Started to find water after 12 feet. We placed in the 4in well casing that had 5ft of slits cut into to let the water flow. By time we got the casing in the sand filled in about 2ft so we have 18 ft below ground. I filled the whole outside the well caseing with river rock pea gravel.
I then hooked up a shallow well pump vertically using a 1 1/4 pvc pipe and pumped away to start flushing out the sand and settlements. I needed to support the flow with a garden hose to keep up with the gal per min. I ended up pumping for 24 hours. I went out every few hours to add riverrock pea gravel to replace the sand that has been removed. It displaced about 25 bags of .5 cube feet. We removed stupid amounts of sand. We ran till we were getting very little sand pumping out. Then hooked up the picture pump. And pumped away.
The next day we used the hand pump. It worked great and the water was clear. The foot valve worked great. Things were perfect till about 25 gallons. The water started getting murky again then more sand. Keep pumping to get as much sand out as possible. We pumped another 25 gal out and as we pumped it keep getting thicker amounts of sand. I told my son to stop pumping because it will just get so thick that we might clog the 1 1/4 pipe.
Its been a week now and I figured we would have pumped out all the loose sand by then. We would get out first 5 gallons of very clean water for the chickens and dogs. Then pump it as hard as we can to sick out as much settlements and sand as we can. We get about 25 gal before it starts getting thick. Then we stop. And try again in a few hours.
I logged the amount of sand per gallon. First 2 days were getting 1.75 gal to 25 gal of water. Day 3 1.25 gal to 25 gal of water. Day 4 and 5 1gal of sand per 25 gal of water. Day 6 and 7 it dropped to about a quart of sand per 25 gal of water. It has been leveled out about there. This is Day 9 now and I got about the same.
Question time.
How much longer will it take to become sand free and not murky after 5 or so gallons?
Should I change my technique to removing sand and or settlements?
What could I have changed during my installation?
And any other facts or ideas you would like to share?
Thank you all and this was a fun project me and my son to learn and grow with.