I just reclaimed a shallow well that had been unused for over 30 years....and that got me thinking... we provide a lot of discussion on storing water, but in my brief association with this forum haven't seen a topic on hand digging a shallow well to have a dedicated source of water...the water table here in Florida is not typical (I'm at 32' elevation but the water table is about 20'), but a brief search of YouTube vids provided several interesting solutions throughout the country... be it jetting with a double hose boss, and length of PVC, or pounding a sand well point down with a fence post slip over driver, on a steel pipe .... hand pitcher pump, or one that I used, a deep piston bicycle style pump.... as long as the water is not salty, I can run it through my .1 micron Sawyer filter, and add Clorox, or use it untreated to flush toilets...the well provided fresh water to the house in the 50's, and as soon as I purge the pick up tube, will have the water tested....a lot of peace of mind, for not a whole lot of expense...any thoughts?

I'm guessing since for most of the US, the water table is no where near that shallow? In parts of CA for example, it's well under 200 feet down.

i have a feeling that getting decent water by a DIY method is very tricky and hit and miss.i recall seeing ads for home well drilling in the back of Pop whatever magazine's but never any feed back on how it worked out.my Leamans non electric catalog came the other day and i see lots of gear for driving a pipe so some places must have a water table that can be tapped.the only ones i have seen that worked were at summer cabins next to lakes.

If it's whitish in color,most likely a sulphur spring source,If it's greenish-clear in color,that's Lake Okeechobee water,1st class drinking water! Good Luck!

In Florida the water from a shallow well isn't as "filtered" as deep well water. But having said that the shallow well on the property here was used for all household uses, including drinking, for years before we put in a deep well. Shallow wells usually have more dissolved iron and calcium, causes the water to leave red rust and/or white stains. The real worry of using shallow well water is the risk of chemical contamination, but as long as you are having the water tested for that you should be fine.

You might look into Bio-sand filters. They can remove all kinds of pollutants and would be a great non energy intensive first step in water purification.

"Turbidity

Results for turbidity reductions vary depending on the turbidity of the influent water. Water with high turbidity looks dirty due to sand, silt and clay floating in the water[3]. Feed turbidity in one study ranged from 1.86 to 3.9 NTU. In a study water was obtained from sample taps of water treatment plants from three local reservoirs. It poured through a slow sand filter and results showed that turbidity decreased to a mean of 1.45 NTU [2]. In another study using surface water a 93% reduction in turbidity was observed [8]. As the biofilm above the sand ripens turbidity removal increases [2]. Although biosand filters do exhibit a high reduction in turbidity, slow sand filters show higher removals due to a slower filtration rate [2].
[edit] Heavy Metals

There is limited research on removal of heavy metals by biosand filters. In a study conducted in South Africa, the filter was found to have about 64% removal of iron and 5% removal of magnesium[8].
[edit] Bacteria

In laboratory studies, the biosand filter has been found to have about a 98-99% removal of bacteria [8]. Over a time period of about two months it was found that the biosand filter may increase in the removal for E. coli due to biofilm formation. The removal after this time period ranged from 97-99.99% removal depending on the daily charge volume and percent feed water amended with primary effluent to the filter daily. The addition of primary effluent or waste water facilitates the growth of the biolfilm which aids bacterial die-off [2]. Research in the field shows that implemented biosand filters reduce fewer bacteria than ones in a controlled environment. In research conducted in 55 households of Bonao, Dominican Republic, the average E. coli reduction was found to be about 93 percent[9].
[edit] Viruses

Lab tests have shown that while the reduction of E. coli from these filters is quite significant, the attenuation in viruses is significantly less due to their small size. In a study using to bactiophages the removal ranged between 85% and 95% after 45 days of usage [2]. A recent study has suggested that virus removal increases significantly over time, reaching 99.99% after a period of approximately 150 days[10].
[edit] Protozoa

In one lab test the biosand filter also got greater than a 99.9% removal of protozoa. In tests for one type of protozoa, Giardia lambia had a 100% removal for 29 days of usage. Another protozoa, Criptosporidium oocysts, showed to have a slightly lower reduction (99.98%) possibly due to their smaller size. This removal showed to be comparable to that of the slow sand filter[11]."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioSand_Filter

Provided that the casing is still good, an old shallow well can often be brought back to life. Ongoing pumping, perhaps a pro clean-out using compressed air to blast out accumulated sediment, shock chlorination done properly, more pumping, and then regular testing.

I'm on a shallow well (about 40') but I have 39' of good, dense prairie clay, which is a first-class filtering medium. Testing for bacterial and drinking-water-chemistry standards looks fine. I really should have a few more layers, considering active farmland (herbicides) and oilfield (??) in the area.

The big worry is an entry point where biological or chemical contaminants can enter a clean aquifer. This is a "pioneer legacy" concern in my area, where old cribbed wells have been abandoned but not properly sealed. I think the same concerns would apply whey digging an improvised well. Know your onions.

In a different thread ("deep well hand pump"), LesSnyder said:
"...a 3/4" foot valve attached to a short section of pipe (for weight) coupled to a length of 5/8" garden hose could probably be dropped down a shallow well casing, raised and lowered a couple of feet at a time, and be used to pump non potable water that could be treated..."

Based on hands-on experience, there's a practical nugget in this. So here's my 2¢ (in a more searchable thread).

Background: In many shallow well systems, an impeller pump or vacuum hand pump is installed at the surface. A foot valve is a one-way valve that is often installed at the bottom of the pipe that goes down into the well. The foot valve stops the pipe from emptying after pumping stops. This prevents wasted energy (and a great deal of cursing) when trying get the pump going again (priming).

This all works fine, until a bit of sand, coal, or other debris gets into the valve, causing the pipe to slowly drain. The options are to either a) fill the entire pump and pipe through the tiny 1/4" priming hole, accompanied by cursing, or b) vigorously stroke the vertical pipe up and down, which pumps enough water up the pipe to prime the pump, accompanied by the smirk of cleverness.

So, based on hands-on experience, you can actually pump a useful amount of water with nothing more than a pipe and a foot valve.

The practical problem with the garden hose idea is this: the pipe used in well systems is rigid (metal) or semi-rigid (potable-water-rated ABS). The rigidity is important, because it takes a vigorous "down-stroke" to cause the foot valve to open, forcing water in and up the pipe. It's not like a siphon setup, where a small amount of easy jiggling gets the flow going. You need to overcome the weight of water inside the pipe, and sometimes (depending on the design) a fairly stiff "hold-closed" spring.

Hope this long-winded blather makes some kind of sense (it's late).

Thinking of doing the same here. Glazed tile liner about 24" around, water at 14' down. Needs shocked, tested and a little block building over it. I wanna put a manual pump in/on it for emergency use. I have a few old belt drive pump units from the 1940's around, I might try to "rig" one of these to a bicycle to use to pump. There was a slaughterhouse on our property back in the early teens. This cistern/well supplied the slaughthouse via gravity and lead pipe (all gone now) but the cistern remains.

Ironwood

We had a shallow well in the basement of the house I grew up in. We used a bucket to draw water, when the power was out.
As a kid, I worked at a place where the demand for water was higher than the system was designed to supply...thanks, lowest bidder...the pump ran often enough to stir up the sand at the bottom of the well. We raised the footvalve a few feet and got SOME relief from the problem of sand entering the system.