Wells and Well Water

We are looking at a property with a well and I have never had one. Can someone share with me what a minimum GPM would be? Two of us, and there will be a couple sprinklers. This will be primary residence.

I saw something in the pump house that said 6GPM I was not sure if this was the filter, pump, or a rating for something else (few things in there).

What is important to know about a well? Depth? Has it been re-dug to make it deeper? I've read http://www.wellowner.org/ so I have a brief under standing.

I will say this: test the water BEFORE you buy. Find out if the neighbors or other nearby neighborhoods have had contamination problems. Check with the city, etc.
Our well is now on the supercleanup list from the EPA... and they wonder how I got to be like this...

We have a well. TEST TEST TEST before you buy - and DON'T LET THE SELLER TEST FOR YOU!

I strongly advise you NOT to use a sprinkler when you have a well, save rainwater if you MUST water a lawn, plant something that needs no watering otherwise.

Important things I know:

- Flow rates from 6 to 50 GPM are OK, but it's also a factor of how long you can sustain the flow.

- Go easy on your well. Don't fill a pool and then take hour long showers. Your well needs time to recover.

- A Deep well is good - IF deeper = more water. Not always the case.

- People around you - far around you - can kill your well by running the aquifer down or poisoning the water. Local gas and oil drilling can both inject toxic materials into your water AND can drop the water table.

My step mom had a well that was 1.5 gallons per minute but
had a LARGE holding tank, 1000's of gallons. When came time to sell the house, that low a flow rate made it very hard to sell.

What do you do if
there is a fire?

100 gallons per minute won't do you any good if it is full of
arsenic or iron.

I was raised on farms with wells. No neighbors, it was the 50s and 60s, so no consideration of contamination. I have no idea what the flow was, but I'll guarantee it's possible to run it out of water. :-> It fills back in, eventually, and you may need to turn the pump off after you've run it dry so the pump doesn't burn out. You may also need to reprime the pump, depending on whether it's self-priming.

You don't wash several loads of clothes and shower at the same time. I doubt I'd ever water the lawn from a well, but you may have a gem that has all the water you'll ever need.

You need specific information about this well. I assume there are experts listed in the Yellow Pages that you can hire to tell you what information you need to know , then who will find out what you need to know and tell you.

MINIMUM NECESSARY - If you are getting a loan, the lending agency will have a lower limit. If you are writing a check for it, you get to decide.

If you were here in Idaho, wells are controlled by the state. When a well is finished a complete report is filed about depth, casing type and how many GPM the well could pump THAT DAY. The pump installer can tell you what pump he installed and its expected performance. Talk to the well driller and the pump installer about how the water level varies over the year and over dry years.

I have a 6" well 100' deep with lots of water at 50'. I water 2 acres 5 hours a day. I use 12 GPM 50% of the time thru a ground water source heat pump to heat and cool 9400 square feet. Normal household water is above and beyond that. We have no holding tank.

Check your water bill on what you use now and then double it.

Well Pump - self-test at least weekly, send a sample to the local test lab at least twice a year. Learn how to treat the well water.

Tank - As big as you can afford sized to how long you want torun your well pump; set up to gravity feed as and when necessary.

Water supply pump - figure out your domestic and other needs for pressurized water, then at least double the capacity of the pump.

Pond - Consider creating a retaining pond for a large reserve of water already pumped. Even a small pond with its own distribution filter/pump to distribute low pressure water to conserve and extend your high pressure system. Catches rain water as a secondary water source. Add some cattails and fish as survival food sources. Set up so when your tank is full the sytem pumps to the pond, and a float switch to turn off the pump when the pond is full. You will need to consider testing, filtering, and treating the water for domestic use.

Consider a separate grey water system to conserve your expensive potable well water.

Edit: look into roof catchment systems to capture rainwater.

Thanks everyone for the information!!!!

Everyone says 'test the water'. Well, you'd best know what you should be testing FOR. If you just take a jar of water into the local water-testing place and ask for a test with no specifics, they'll charge you about $8 and check it for bacteria. Period.

Call the place that tests the water and ask for advice. What kind of contaminants are generally found in the area? What would they recommend testing for? Certain businesses can contaminate water for many miles around. If you live below (aquifer-wise) a mining area, you should test for the stuff they use around mines. If you live in a ranching area, you would probably want to test for bacteria and nitrate levels. If you live in a farming area, check levels of the chemicals they use: chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides.

You can't judge what the water might contain just by getting a web overview of the businesses currently within a hundred miles or so. Montana and Colorado (to name a couple) still have contaminants from the mining of 150 years ago. The stuff doesn't just evaporate and disappear. It's still there.

I read about a place in MA that was a livery stable for about 65 years. Many, many years (like 50-60) later, it was still contaminating the groundwater for quite some distance.

The labs test a lot of water from many local areas, so they could probably give you a lot of tips.

Sue

Thanks Sue