r/WaterWellDrilling

On an older home fed by a spring I can not get the jet pump to pull water.

The house is approximately 275’ from the spring house and the spring house is approximately 10’ in elevation lower than the jet pump. The pump is located in the house.

Upon arrival the house was fed by burnt out DAB constant drive pump. The existing suction line had confirmed leaks.

We ran a new single 1” suction line and removed the constant drive pump and installed a new 1 hp jet pump and 20 gallon pressure tank

After completely filling the suction line with water from the neighbors well I still can not get the pump to pull water. I am at a loss as what to do to get the existing set up. Long term solution is to install a submersible pump but I still need to get water back on in the short term.

Many thanks

I'm looking into drilling a well strictly for watering my lawn and trees while keeping the house on city water.

For anyone who has done this:

• How was your overall experience with the process?
• Roughly what did the whole setup end up costing you?
• Was it worth the investment in the long run?

This is in Poway (Green Valley) area.

Would love to hear your thoughts and any pros/cons before I jump in. Thanks!

I've got a ~500 foot steel cased well, about 35gpm. I have a 6 gpm pump in it, which i use to fill a 3000 gallon cistern.

I run the pump every couple of weeks for a few hours, basically pulling ~1k gallons out when the cistern is at the ~2/3 line.

The water is yellow tinged when it starts, and stays that way for about 30-60 minutes. I discharge that into the yard until it's running clean, which i check by putting a white bucket under the discharge and looking at the tinge.

I'm assuming that yellow is rust from the steel casing. Just wondering if anyone else has this, if I'm right that it's likely rust, and if I should just keep on keeping on.

I’m on well water and after watering my grass continuously for about an hour I noticed the water from my faucet is kind of a smoky dark grey/tinted color.

Any ideas?

Our well's running dry, so it's time. The guy came out to install our new meter. His name tag said 'William'.

We call him Water Bill.

I bought a house (NorCal) that shares a seasonal well with a neighbor, and I have three questions. (I'm mechanically intelligent, but completely new to well systems, and have only very rudimentary knowledge of hydraulics and electrical systems.)

As far as I can tell, the well produces up to 10-13 gpm in the wet season, and goes entirely dry toward the end of summer and then for several months, so the well oscillates between say 10 and 0 gpm seasonally. (When I bought in August last year, it tested at about 2 gpm, and I think it's at about that now in August.) It's a shallow well (~25') with a submersible pump, and a pressure tank that feeds elevated storage tanks (my neighbor and I each have two 5,000 gal. tanks). The storage tanks have mechanical float valves. Household water pressure is by gravity feed. (It's all on a steep hill.) I'm guessing, but the elevation difference between the well head/pressure tank and my storage tanks above is probably 80' vertical. The problem is my neighbor's tanks are probably at half that, about 40'. We share the initial supply line pipe, and at some point a line T's off to his lower tanks, and the remainder continues up to mine.

As I understand this system, when the well is not producing enough to meet both our needs, he is getting most or all of the water, since even if my float valve is open, his tanks fill up first, and he uses the water from them, so the pump just keeps filling his tanks, and I get little or none, depending on production. (Our water rights call for equal or equitable use or something.)

Question 1: If I'm correctly understanding the above dynamic (am I?), I am looking for a way to deliver water to us equally if our tanks are not full. A well guy I just had out suggested installing 1 gpm Dole valves at each storage tank, so that we each get equal flow until the well produces below 2 gpm. Sounds logical, but I have a nagging feeling it ain't that easy. (I'm sure there are expensive options involving something like smart flow meters and electronic valves and radio controllers etc., but .... those sound expensive. And 2 gpm isn't too little to give it all to my neighbor, if it's going to run completely dry.) Is a tradeoff with the Dole valves that the pump runs more also? What's a good way to do this?

Question 2: Do some changes the well guy made sound right to you? Previously, the pressure tank was filled at 68 psi, set to 70 cut in / 90 cut off. My neighbor's tank was completely full with float valve closed, my tanks were half empty with float valve open, pump is off, pressure is sitting at 80, and I'm getting no water. I assumed the well wasn't producing. According to the well guy, the well was producing (at least some) but without enough pressure to pump it up to my storage tanks. He manually turned the pump on at the controller with the ball valve closed, built pressure up to 90, opened the ball valve, it started pushing water to my tank, but slowed and stopped flowing at about 80. He said the water column pressure from my tanks was keeping the system above the cut-in, so I have never been getting any water. So he charged the pressure tank to 85 psi, and set the cut-in/cut-off to 87 / 107. Is this right/reasonable?

Question 3: With a seasonal well like this, I have to have some sort of sensor to stop the pump from trying to deliver water if the well isn't producing, correct? I don't know what that is (stumbling about trying to educate myself leads me to a gut impression that it has to be an electronic conductivity sensor down in the well, rather than amp sensor on the pump or pressure sensor in the system.) Does that dry-well cutoff affect either of the first two questions?

Sorry, I know that's a lot, but it feels pretty complex to try to ask a simple question and get it right.

The title pretty much sums it up. I need to install a pressure tank in a mobile home, and it would be convenient to mount it on a platform above the water heater.

It will be in a seasonal home (summer use only), so it needs to be drained for the winter months.

I'm thinking I could mount a horizontal tank, using the pump mounting plate as an anchor to a wooden platform, and add a support for the other end. This way, I can easily drain it down for the off-season.

Any reason why this wouldn't work? Is the bladder installed in a way that precludes this?

Thanks!

So I recently got a 22'x52" above ground pool.... what's the best method/procedure of filling the pool using a well? Hose open 3/4 for 30min (tank stays at around 35-40psi while on) then off for 1 hour and repeat? Or run for 30 min wide open (tank gets to around 20psi after several min) and then off for an hour and repeat? To my current thinking the wide open is better due to, while the pump is running it has less restiance as the tank is at a lower psi while running vs pushing against a higher psi while running?

What do yall recommend?

1hp 12gpm Meyers 3 wire submersible. Installed 11+ years ago. Sat unused for 5 years. Got it going again and it hasn't had any issues. It failed to start the other day so I checked voltage, all good. Filed pressure switch contacts, all good. Nothing. Changed starting capacitor, nothing. Changed entire control box, nothing. Pulled out the ohm meter and yellow to black is 5 ohms, red to yellow is 14.5 ohms, red to black is 18 ohms. Google says that is out of spec so motor is about done. I say about done because I put the original control box on with the original start capacitor and after many attempts, it came back on and hasn't quit again. Would you agree that this motor is just about done?

Hi! I had my well drilled in May and the driller used several whole tablets to shock the well and the chlorine is still not dissolved. When I run my hose overnight to flush it out, my water tests completely clean the next morning (I’m using at-home testing strips for accuracy). About two or three days later the levels have risen again. I was told that this is likely because the tablets are stuck on top of the pump, which is why I’m seeing this clean then not clean pattern after three months. I’m concerned that they’re corroding my new pump. I’d like to avoid having the heavy machinery on my lawn again so I was wondering if pouring water down the central pipe or in the outer casing could dislodge them so they’ll finally dissolve before Winter comes. My well is 100ft. Thanks!

I just got my well drilled 400’ into granite. There is less then 100 of water in the bottom but it is not filling very much at all after 3 days but the insides of the well are wet. We are considering fracking and we are wondering if the wet walls and small amount of water increases the odds of fracking working? Anything else I should consider before making this decision?