Locating Water Wells

[beenthere]

Most likely it also has to do with Sequim, WA 

I asked about drilling a new well vs. punching this one down further, and it was $8k for new, and about $1.5k to set up and push this one down. That is to 350' or so. 

They get what the going rates are, and different parts of the country can run quite differently. Just like the cost of housing. Same house one place isn't the same price everywhere.

[SwampDonkey]

Up in this area, there are only a couple well drillers they drill in a 50 mile radius, Connors and Simonson. They come from town here. All the other towns, even our biggest town, doesn't have a well driller. Don't know, maybe that's all the market will stand. But, hope they both don't retire the same time. We have lots of people into the cement business and the gravel business, every town has those.

[junkhound]

Radar67,
Being a new sawmill owner, and an old well driller there are some points to consider.
1. I would tell my customers to put the well out of the way.
2. Close to a hard surface.
3. Look up, don't put it close to any powerlines, or under the edge of a tree canopy which will get bigger with time.
4.If possible locate it uphill from point of usage as water will lose .43 PSI per verticle foot of height ( 30 ft. vert. = 13 psi loss). Booster pumps add to overall investment and operating cost that is not usually necessary. A properly sized submersible pump and properly sized pressure tank should meet all of your requirements.
5. Use the next size larger service wire that the cable selection chart calls for from house to well, and this with a proper sized press. tank will increase the life of the system greatly.
Bury service wire because overhead lines tend to attract lightning strikes.

I hope this info helps some, I hold a State of Texas Master Water Well Driller/Pump Installer Lic.
Toby Miller

[Radar67]

Thanks and welcome to the forum. Most of the points you covered I have already considered, except for the bigger wire. I don't have to worry about power lines as everything will be underground. The power company is suppose to do the build in the next couple of weeks. The spot I want to put the well is uphill from the house, but I will have to do some cutting to get it out of the tree line. I suppose that is to keep the area clear if the pump has to be pulled later? As for the hard surface, it will be next to a gravel road, the same surface as everything else around the house.

I'll be calling the driller in the next few weeks.

[junkhound]

Radar67, I appreciate the welcome.

Junkhound

[tughill]

In this part of the world the well cost is on a per foot basis, plus setup charges.  I have a family friend who is a well driller, and he mentioned that a lot of drillers determine the depth based on how much of a pain in the rear end the customer is.  Difficult customer gets deeper well, more $.

[ksu_chainsaw]

Locating the well up-hill from the house is the best thing to do, but also with the least amount of pipe to the house also.  I grew up in a house that had the well downhill with about 30' of lift to the house.  It took a fair sized pressure tank under the house to keep the pressure up so we could take showers.
At my grandmothers house, the well had over 75' of lift to push it up, and it was a good 1000' of distance to push it.  We were glad that they installed 1 1/4" thin-wall PVC because when it cracked, we couldn't always find where it was leaking from but we could easily push 1" PVC through the other pipe to re-seal the pipe, just reduced the flow- glad she now has Rural Water- no more chasing down breaks in the pipe.

Another factor- build the building around the well a minimum of 8'x8' with a "sump pit"- 4' road culvert works good on it- then when you add more buildings to the well, it is much easier to tie in the pipes- you just have to punch a hole in the block wall to put the pipe in, instead of digging up the well head and running the risk of pushing dirt into the well or hitting it with the backhoe.  You can also put shutoffs on each line so one building can have the water shut off, but not all the other buildings.

Another point- try to minimize the amount of traffic over your supply line- if it has to go across the driveway, try to put a sleeve over it to minimize the damage to the pipe if you have heavy traffic- ie semi-trucks or large tractors. 

Charles

[PlicketyCat]

... the first site will be next to a firm road/drive and about 100 feet from the house site. Other water needs will be down hill at 300 and 900 feet. ....  Electric will go right by the second location.

Getting water to flow downhill is usually not a problem, and if there is significant fall you might not even much of a pressure system lower down (in fact, you might get too much pressure down at the end of the run depending on what you're supplying).

Another option, if you're really worried about the downhill sites is to have a small horizontal drilled into the main vertical well and put a separate pump at location 2 since you've go electrics there. I don't know if that's an approved well configuration in your area, but that's what my grandfather had to do to get water to the barn on his lower 40 (about 200' elevation change) because he couldn't run enough water up to the house, across the field, and then down... burned out 3 pumps before deciding it was cheaper to drill sideways.

[Qweaver]

I see several remarks about water witching/dowsing in this thread.  There have been several well documented controlled tests of this technique and it every case the dowsers failed. 

"Typical is what happened when James Randi tested some dowsers using a protocol they all agreed upon. If they could locate water in underground pipes at an 80% success rate they would get $10,000 (now the prize is over $1,000,000). All the dowsers failed the test, though each claimed to be highly successful in finding water using a variety of non-scientific instruments, including a pendulum. Says Randi, "the sad fact is that dowsers are no better at finding water than anyone else. Drill a well almost anywhere in an area where water is geologically possible, and you will find it."

I'm a firm believer in the "scientific method"
I (on purpose) planted my half of the garden on all the wrong days according to the Almanac and my wife planted hers on the "right days".  Our yields were exactly the same.  Why do people believe in this junk??

[SwampDonkey]

I agree with ya. I've seen many TV documentary programs dowse their claims using them themselves as participants.

Only thing I go by on the planting is the temperature and frost free days, and that is a crap shoot because we can't predict the future weather too well beyond a couple or three days and not precise enough off the TV for your back yard when risk of frost is still in the air in spring time. Can be 2 or 3 degree difference either side of the freezing mark, depending where the garden is.

[Paul_H]

I'm one that has dowsed and have had the bark from the willow twist off in my hands.I found the water line in our yard even though it was contrary to where we thought it was(EW instead of NS)
I won't even try to convince the scoffers but I just wanted to be counted as one that has seen it first hand.

[LeeB]

So, go get that $1,000,000.

[Paul_H]

Like I said Lee..