I just had a well Drilled on my property in Arizona.
They hit water at 190 ft @ 3 GPM
at 303 ft it was 5 to 6 GPM
at 325 ft it was 15 GPM
People in the area have some wells at 80 GPM
So I got Greedy and had the Drill Company continue Drilling in the hopes of getting more GPM
I had them stop drilling at 428 ft they estimated 15 + GPM.
Static water is estimated at 200 ft and possibly will jump to 190 ft

Now that you have the Particulars

I am planing on Building a Water house 8 ft X 12 ft with the Well Head inside of the House.
I will make the House disassemble so that if I need to get the Drill Rig back in I can do so with out taking the entire Shelter down
Treated wood foundation & Gravel or stepping stone floor.

I have a Friend in the area that says I should drop the pump at 250 ft.
I was thinking with more water over the pump it may be better for the pump and I was thinking to drop the pump to 300 ft.

For the guys that have Well Experience
Am I over thinking things or do you think that I am on the right track.

Any Advice would be appreciated.

If sand is not an issue, I'd hang that pump deep, everything above the pump will be 'storage capacity'. Now that we are going 3 rd world, you can't count on power and down the road you may want to have aboveground reservoir for when the power is off.. Just sayin'.

^ ^ ^ This.

If the extra funds are available I'd also buy a windmill and tower for possible future use.

We have a 463 foot drilled well, with a 3 horse pump on 300 ft of plastic pipe.

Sound advise here.

15GPM Is quite adequate. You can fill any storage you want slowly, say 1 GPM, and it will fill in no time. I would go with what you have, pump about 10-20 feet above bottom.

What they said.

My well is 505’, with the pump at 490’. I’m at 3.5 gpm but a great static level.

Math says the volume of a pipe 1 foot tall and 6” diameter is 1.47 gallons, call it 1.5 gallons.

So multiply the static level to the pump by 1.5 and that’s the size of your reserve.

Unless you have a big family doing laundry, taking showers, and flushing 24/7 you’ll probably never even need the 15 gpm.

Irrigation might not be a good idea, though.

I Built my own Solar System this Summer
Power is 7 1/2 miles from my property and I will not pay for it to reach my property so I have to supply my own.
I am debating on whether to use what I have Built 30 amp 240 V or (2) poles of 30 amp 120 V.
I can expand my system with little effort to a 60 amp system.
Or
I could go with a full on Water Pump Solar System.
My Friend up there says that several people he knows of are having issues with their Solar System Water Pumps and is sugesting I just use what I built.

I have plenty of back ups at the present time.
an 8750 Watt 220V/120V , 12K Watt 220V/120V Gas Generators and a Diesel 17K 3 ph ; 11 1/2 1ph 100% duty cycle welding machine

Sand is not an issue My well has Basalt , Red & Tan Clay and Red ,White & Black Granite
No Sand if I understand the Geo part of my report to the County

It doesn't matter to deep you are picking up.
Water pressure will equalize level.
If the water level is at 200 feet, that's what you have to lift.
Doesn't change if you are picking up at 300.


Why the worry about gpm?

We have plenty of water around here, but you rarely hear
of that amount of production.
I know folks who aren't neat 3gpm.
The have decent reservoir, and rarely ever run out.

This assumes a single family house.

We'd have less iron with plastic caseing.

The irrigation in the future is my concern and that is why I had them drill deeper in the hopes of bringing the GPM up.
I installed a Composting Toilet so no flushing and I get to generate my own soil for growing stuff.
I already have an 600 gallon tank up on the property that we take water up and dump in for wash and construction water.
I plan on adding a larger tank in the future.
Everything I do up there I try and make expandable for future use because you never know what is going to come up.

Oh also, although 15 gal is damn good, if your driller punched that with a rotary, I'd bet if you pump that down to below the 325' foot several times, where the strata seems to be, you will get a significant gain on your recovery time. Rotary rigs as wonderful as they are ,can pack the fractures with drilling mud and cuttings in certain formations. Black shale and schist are bad for that, but your driller probably knows the geology pretty well.

When they pulled in to drill our well, the knew within 20 ft how deep the well was going to be.

The Well has a 6" sch 40 Steel Pipe for the first 25' and a 4 1/2" sch 40 PVC Pipe the entire 428' down
I do not have to worry about Steel pipe rusting in the static water.

What part of AZ and what would you be looking to irrigate?

They Drilled the hole with little water and a Huge amount of air.
The dust was flyin everywhere and I commented to the Operator that if he was in Commyfornia he would be shut down but there was nothing stopping him in Arizona.
When he hit water the dust went away and he blew the water and muck out with the air.

No foam? All the air-hammer holes we drilled used a tub of water with basically soap in it to blow out the cuttings.

North Arizona up in the Hills about 5400 ft elevation not the Sand Box
Some day I would like to have my own Orchard with a wide variety of Fruit & Nut Trees. & a Large enough Food Garden so that we would not have to go the hour and a half each way to town to get stuff very often.

I plan on digging a fish pond as well. I have already started it but it is a very pong way from water yet.

If I got real desperate I would have to find a way to possibly Drill another Well but I need to get this one up and running first to see exactly what my Well can produce and what my real Water needs are going to be.

I have been involved with a 100 or better Auger drilled Caisson Footing holes that used Bentonite Gell to hold up the hole walls while Drilling.
This Drilling for my Well was a first for me being a Dry Hammered hole.
They had a very small water tank on the Drill Rig that when the Bit heated up the Operator would squirt some water down the shaft to cool it and after it was cooled off back to the dry Drilling until he hit the water then I think he turned his water tank off.
Not sure but I think that is what he did.

Having spent 36 years drilling wells and setting pumps and having every license available, I do have some advise. Ditch your plans for a well house. They are nothing but trouble and actually outlawed in many places. They are dirty and insects infested. Every single time I had to get a drill rig back over a well in a well house, major problems and expenses followed. If a person absolutely has to have a well house because that is what grandpa had, for Gods sake place it well away from the well itself. Well houses were made obsolete in the 1960's by a $45 dollar pipe fitting call a pitless adapter. Fitting name for a product that made well pits obsolete. Simply dig a ditch from the well to the house and bury a water and electric line and forever forget about it. A small pressure take in the utility room, where it will be convenient to replace in 20 years, and you are set and have a clean installation without the cost and trouble of installing a home for rodents and insects.

Orchard is going to be a challenge. I'd use the hardiest, dwarfiest trees I could find, lots of mulch. Wind will be an issue, as will late frost. Garden, forget about traditional rows and go with sunken pits or raised beds with solid walls to mitigate evaporation and provide the best opportunity for custom soil amendment. Again, lots of mulch. If you're in juniper-piñon woodlands, chipmunks will be public enemy #1. Rabbits too.

Separate your grey water plumbing from your sewage and use as much of that to irrigate as possible. Most states/counties have some sort of legal guidelines. Get Brad Lancaster's books Rainwateer Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond Vols. 1 & 2. These detail passive ways to multiply what rain you get using earthworks, etc.

I was thinking Raised Planters boxs
The Black water is non existent.
I will run my Gray water over to a compost pile when I start one up and keep it wet. If I get to much Gray water on the Compost I will rethink my situation

Thanks for the lead on the book

^ ^ ^ What he said.

Might want to rethink that now, save yourself some trouble. Too much water is no good. There are a lot of good resources on that subject. Don't recall what climate he was in, but I believe Geoff Lawton actually composted a dead goat in one of his piles. He knows quite a bit about earthwork dams and ponds and such too.

funshooter, what's the diameter of your casing ?

Correct method.

http://www.weberwelldrilling.com/wells.htm

Have no idea why you want an 8 X 12 enclosure at the casing top.

Run your feed subsurface through a conduit to the house to protect your line

https://www.amazon.com/Water-Source...&hvtargid=pla-313308531966&psc=1

If it was mine i would hang the pump about 20ft off the bottom.

That would give you a good rathole if crap starts coming it the well.

With the solar pumps the problem might be the pumps are over taxed at that depth or there was something else that was not right in the system.

The idea of the water House was to make it easier to control how I route my water on the property. I would like 3 fingers going to different areas of the property and want to be able to turn each area off as needed.
So I need a type of Valve manifold system that I have in my head.
One finger going to my living Quarters , Kitchen Ext. , One going to the Garden and Orchard area and one going to the Critters that I raise.
Also Storage for all of my Plumbing supply's.
It Freezes up where I am and I need to protect the system from that.
I plan on Storing water in Tanks rather than having a Well Pump turn on and off when we are using the water.
The actual Well PVC Pipe is 4 1/2 inch Pipe That is what was printed on the side of the Pipe.
They welded a Steel cap over it before I thought to measure the actual diameter of the PVC so I do not have that dimension right now.

The Freeze depth as I was told is 12 inches yet everyone up there has had their pipes Freeze and Burst creating a huge mess for all of them.
I plan on going a Minimum of 2 ft. with my Piping. and the ground is Fractured rock with clay mixed into it. It is like digging threw Concrete unless you soak it for a day or two before you dig.

The Water House will be more than just for the Water Pipes.
I am not afraid of work I have worked hard my entire life and it just seams to me to be a hassle to dig threw the Concrete containment that the Driller put around the Steel upper liner , Drill or Cut a hole into the Steel pipe. ( I am a Steel Worker and have all of the equipment to do the job) and then cut a hole into the PVC Well and try and line up my pump Feed line with the Pit-less Adapter and try and keep all of that crap dropping down the well into the water that I plan to drink.
If I just come out of the top of the Well Head with Water Pipe & Wires Then I have to figure out a way to keep them from Freezing and keep the Critters from chewing them up. Hence the Water House to cover everything up making it accessible to work on and organize my supplies

build the water house away from the well, if you are dead set on having one. but don't listen to the pro's.....

I was thinking that
now I have to think about Digging a 3 ft deep hole in Concrete next to the Well to put the Pit-less adapter in below the Freeze Level and dig the trench over to where I will set up the Water House.
I really hate working under my feet these days. It really kick my butt.
I have a lot of Equipment to help me out but Digging that so called dirt is real tough.
My friend up there is a dirt guy and has done some work for me several times with a very large Backhoe and his Backhoe has a hard time with my area it takes him 5 times longer to do a job than in other areas with better ground.
I have better ground on my property just not where the Well is located.
It took me 6 hours to dig out 2 holes 12 in diameter and 16 in deep with a 35 lbs Makita Jack Hammer for my Chain Gate Posts

It would be a lot easier to just build the building over the Well Head and disassemble the Entire Building if I had to to get to the Well than to dig in the dirt.
I am still going to have to dig in it for all of the underground Piping but that is just trenching I do not have to work down inside of.

Float valves at each terminus ?

I would have quit at 300.

Our well is 220'. It's very much like Stuv suggested. It has 1.5" stainless in the hole and 1.5" poly buried from the well to the house. The pressure tank (actually 2 short ones side by side) are in the crawlspace. It's been running great for over 25 years now.

About the tanks in the crawlspace - there was no suitable place in the house for one. I thought I'd need a well house for it but the well driller said that he'd set up many of them like this. As long as the crawlspace never freezes, it's out of way yet still easy to get at. 2 short tanks piped together are every bit as good as 1 tall one.

I do not know how to make a Float Valve work for that application
I was thinking Ball Valves
Well Pump to Water Tank , Water Tank to Manifold (3) Ball Valves (that I have to protect from Freezing) Water is directed to the area of my property that I want it to go and I can turn each finger off for servicing the particular line without turning everything off. all from a central hub. Thought about Color coding each finger as well so that anyone other than me could figure out where each line went on the property.

Wha?


Iowa Hydrant.

This is good advice. I've seen wells under decks, in the corner of the garage, around the back next to cliff, innaccesible places. My own well was down an embankment where I was sure the truck rig couldn't get to it, but they did somehow. I worked with a well guy in the sixties and pulled out shallow pumps by hand using 2 pipe wrenches. Not fun when ice forms on the pipe!

6 GPM seems to be the norm around here with a 300 ft well. Why would anyone want to set a pump with 50 feet of water below it. 10-20 feet is more common

I put my Well in a Wide Turn Around portion of road I cut threw the trees on my property with no plans of ever building in that general area.

I will take the advice and not build my water house over the well head. I will build it about 20 ft away from it.
I am pretty thick headed at times and still want my water house.
My 300 sq ft Bedroom is about 500 ft away from the well the future kitchen is 15 ft from the bedroom. I am not planing on ever Building a true large home. I can build up to 300 sq. ft buildings with no permits and no code enforcement harassment. I can plainly tell them to measure my structures and get off my property.
The future garden area is 500 ft+ from the well head and my critter corrals will be about the same. All in different directions from the well head.

The well head is pretty much in the center of my property so it is a great location to branch out from.
I did not realize how center it was until I got the location map from the Drill Company.

Your driller should have a pumping depth for you. The surrounding static will hold a certain level in the case while pumping. Get below that.

Well houses are a PITA for plumbers, drillers and homeowners. Pitless on your well case and frost hydrants or curb stops for runs that you might want to shut off. Keep it simple and use a modern, proven design.

5 or 6 years ago we were considering an older house. It needed a new well so this wasn't an issue but they'd added on to the house and the well was under the living room floor.

I am my own Plumber at the present time.
The Water House will have a Treated Wood foundation and a dirt floor with possible stepping stones for the floor.
It will be a combination of water House/Storage.
I have already ordered (3) Hydrants with a (2) ft bury depth for the run to my Bedroom and I will more than likely add others
When I dig the run down to the Critter Corrals I will have at minimum of (3) Hydrants on that run and the Garden area (2) or more depending on how big I get the Garden area.
I will be feeding the system with storage tanks not directly from the well.
So I can fill my tanks during the day as needed and use the water around the clock.
I do not know for a fact but having a pump turn on & off constantly in my opinion is harder on it than turning it on and letting it run for extended periods of time. Again that is just my thoughts and no facts to back that up.

You have it mostly right. We have months of -20*F so well houses are troublesome. If the heat fails for more than a few hours it is a huge deal. We bury at 8'+ and I still occasionally have to repair broken water lines for customers in the winter.
Dig deep under those hydrants and add rock for storage. I normally cover the rock with drainfield fabric before backfill. You are probably aware but they drain every time the handle is cycled. If they don't drain they can freeze. I usually install a ball valve on the hydrant outlet if it's one that will be cycled frequently so the ground doesn't become over saturated.
Good luck!

I like pit run gravel better than rock.

You can save yourself a lot of trouble and pain if you just set the well up with VFD controls and pump. We have three wells on the property for three houses plus a big one for keeping the fish pond full.

All four are on VFD controls. When you turn a faucet on, the pump spins up to deliver the amount of water demanded. The one on my house will spin up to run a dribble into a glass, or if asked to, it will run several sprinklers on the lawn.

There is really no need for a pressure tank. But I put in a little one to absorb water hammer.

We have stock water delivery out 100 yds from the well in three different directions. I installed "stop and waste" 1/4 turn valves on those lines three feet underground with a 2 inch PVC riser for the shutoff tool. Just in case you blow a line and need to repair it.

Frost free hydrants are inexpensive and solve the issues of freeze at the end of your runs.

My Son in Law owns several drill rigs and drills wells from 4 inch to 36 inch for Ag, industrial, municipal, and residential. It is his expertise which set up the wells on our properties.

Funshooter: I highly recommend an "underground" cement walled and floored "well house". Then have it spray insulated.
Then build a removable roof for it.
Mine has worked out wonderfully for 24 years now and it never freezes up like my friends in the area sometimes do.
And buy the higher powered well motor for it to begin with.
Best of luck with your project.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

One of my wells has a pitless adapter and then 500 feet of pipe to a buried well house.


That way all my electrical and plumbing are in the pit....and the well is still easily serviced by the driller.

Interesting.
Never thought of a vault situation for a well house, but see how it could work.

Ours is above ground, concrete floor, conventional framed/insulated walls. As I recall, first winter we were here it remained unheated and outside it got down to -25F one morning. Last few years, because it now serves as reloading and paint storage area, it has a milk house heater set on low, just in case. Approximately 15' from the well head, pressure tank, now has a transfer switch on it so if the power is out from the co-op for any length of time I can just hook up the generator with no fear of backfeeding the grid.

funshooter, maybe get in touch with your county/state ag advisor for which "flavor" trees might work where you are. Your climate there is similar, but warmer most of the year than where I'm at, and there are still bearing fruit trees here that are 100 or so years old. You may want to look into some heritage varieties, and a variety of them with different bloom times to try to beat the late frosts there.

I hunt down that way every few years, in Feb/March, at about the same elevation and have had 75F days or snow..............all in the same week, so finding something that's reliable might take some work. Look into a caterpillar or high tunnel too. Popular up here, and it's on my list to install on the 7AcreRANCH!

I should be down that way in Feb for a HAM javelina hunt. I miss it and I'm somewhat jealous of you.

Well bead in a pit? Definitely against code even even in "rustic" Idaho. Surface water, storm runoff, and irrigation water could run into pit, then into well and contaminate every well feeding from that source.

Around here, wells must be "above grade" and for good cause. That is not to say that all of the old pits have been converted.

Don't pour bleach into the adapter!

I Have tried to grow Fruit trees here in Southern Commyfornia several times. It just does not get cold enough for them in the winter.
My dad had Fruit Trees do very well in SLC Utah and a good Seasonal garden as well.

I need the storage area and it does get cold up in that part of Arizona. In January and February when I was up there it snowed for 5 days straight & it Snowed 24"s over night up in the area last Winter (I was not up there at that time).
I have a lot of inside work to do with my Bedroom and when that is finished I am starting the Kitchen , Electrical Room and a Room Buried under 2' of dirt for a cool room (root cellar type room).

The water Well and water house are in my opinion Vital Necessity's. Some people up there truck there water in as I have done since I have owned the property.

I can not see trucking in water when you live at a place year round but that is just me. I do not live there full time yet but hopefully soon.
The area up there is not like Wisconsin, It does not get -30 deg. it gets in the single digits and I would expect 0 at times so heating an insulated water room above freezing should not be very hard if i keep diligent and do not neglect it when it gets cold.

I tell everyone that I am taking Baby Steps towards getting projects started and completed.
This Well was a big step and was scheduled for mid to late Spring of next year so I am a bit ahead thanks to the Drilling Company.

15 Gomes would be a gusher here. My well is one gallon per min.. my neighbor is one quarter gum, he has a tank in the house that slowly fills for reserve. I believe his was the 6 th hole drilled before he hit that. Edk

I had a Brain Fart and decided that when i get the water House completed 100% (sealed and insulated) that I can place my portable Solar System inside the Water house in the winter.

This will accomplish (2) things.

(1) It will help keep the Lithium Battery's above freezing so they charge properly.
(2) The Inverter and Charge Controller are always warm if not hot while under the load of feeding my power where I need it.
So the Solar System will act like a heater inside the Water House when I put the System inside the Structure.

Down Side is that the Solar System will take up a good deal of space when it is inside of the Water House in the winter.

The Water House that I built (not finished yet) is 10' X 12' 6' walls at the low sides and an 8' peak. With the Water Manifold on one of the 12' sides and I will have storage benches on the other 12' side for all my Plumbing and Electrical stuff. Leaving the center open for my Battery/ Inverter cabinet that I made for the System.

Hopefully I will be going u in a couple weeks to do more work on my place up there.

My well is in the NC mountains. For being on top of a mountain, I hit a gusher at 450 feet, 35 gpm. The well is 505 feet deep, and the pump is at 460.
It has worked well for me for 25 years.

If freezing is not an issue bring in 2500 gallon storage tank, pump water to the tank and you can have a garden and plenty of water storage. I have 2 2500 tanks always filled and i only pump water from the well once a week at the most.

My plan is if I ever get this far is to have (2) maybe (3) 2500 Poly tanks and bury the bottoms of them about 2ft in the ground for the short freeze times we have were I am.
I have already plumbed in the risers for the tanks with their own Ball Valve to be able to separate them from the system if needed.

Right now I have a 600 gal. tank that had the PVC Ball valve split on me during a freeze.
Hornets and who knows what else crawled up into the tank before I replaced the Valve with a Brass Valve.
So I use what water I put into it as wash and construction water until I spray it out and clean it real good before hooking it up to the system until i start getting the 2500 gal. tanks.