It's more snow than average this year

North Idaho Wolfman

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I'm scared to think of what it cost to have those wells drilled. Mine is 225 feet at the cost of 10 grand but we do have excellent water with 3 gpm coming out the overflow 24/7. They called me at 7:30 telling me they were ready to start drilling and called again before noon saying they were finished.
Average easy well, $25K
Average hard drill, $50k.

We looked at buying property down the road, it had 6 wells drilled, and only one hit water, and it was a week well, like .5 gallons per min.
We ran from that place.

Also ran into the opposite kinds of properties too, one that comes to mind had 4 active running springs, made the options of building a home pretty limited unless we wanted a running spring under or through the house.
 

Daren Todd

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Also ran into the opposite kinds of properties too, one that comes to mind had 4 active running springs, made the options of building a home pretty limited unless we wanted a running spring under or through the house.
Just think of the water features you could do!!!!! [emoji14] [emoji14] :D :D


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bearbait

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Average easy well, $25K
Average hard drill, $50k.

We looked at buying property down the road, it had 6 wells drilled, and only one hit water, and it was a week well, like .5 gallons per min.
We ran from that place.

Also ran into the opposite kinds of properties too, one that comes to mind had 4 active running springs, made the options of building a home pretty limited unless we wanted a running spring under or through the house.
A lot of wells fail here also due to the amount of limestone or gypsum. They used to mine it here on the island in front of our place and we were warned by the drilling company that this may be the case. It's funny, when we were having the lot cleared they had their excavator here so I asked them to go as deep as they could with it with hopes of finding water which they did not. Then when they were joining my road with the crown road not more than 40 yards from my land they hit a spring which is known as Donnie luck around here.:rolleyes:
 

CaveCreekRay

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DOH! Sean... my bad...

Gallons/minutes... it's all so complicated!

1 gal per min. (We were told it may double as the rock cleans out from the sand and small bits. My filters seem to be running much cleaner after six years.)
60 gal an hour
1440 a day

Average water bill on town water was 14,000 gal a month so we are producing three times what we use.
 

D2Cat

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Our water bill runs between 3500 and 5000 gallons/mo. Often times in the area of 3750.

We have a 4plex on one meter, and the 4 apts do not use 14,000 gallons unless there is a problem.

Ray, you must do a lot of watering of plants!
 

Lil Foot

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bearbait said:
I'm scared to think of what it cost to have those wells drilled.
Two wells were drilled about an 1/8 mile from me 2-3 yrs ago. Both virtually the same depth as mine, but with only 4" casings & smaller pumps. (single family wells) One was $52K, the other was $56K. The material is alternating layers of limestone & sandstone, with some gravel/earth between.
Interestingly, one guy hired a driller who got down about 200ft and hit a 100+ft void, and lost all his drilling gear. He left, & the land owner hired a second driller. Driller #2 moved maybe 50ft all had no trouble down to full depth.
The earth can be funny
 

CaveCreekRay

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Bill,

We do have a fair amount of drip going but our service handles both the house and the barn too. It's seasonal with almost no use during winter. With nearly 7 inches of rain this month, my watering system has been off since mid November. Summer is when we use up the most. And summer doing stucco was the top use. Pools evaporate around 14k gal a year, which is another reason why we avoided one.

Our well driller is very popular in this area. Beeman charges a set-up fee and then $10 a foot drilled. So, every hundred drilled is $1000. The cost goes up if you elect to put a grade level storage tank in, which was recommended for lower flow rate wells like ours. That requires digging and setting the 2500 gal tank and adding in another well pump and the control equipment. At 800 deep, I think my neighbor spent $26k and I spent a little less at just shy of 600 feet. Water rates are going up annually for city customers.

City water in our town is terrible because the pipes are full of years of silt. And, the entire system is electrically powered. (The locals did not want to damage the views by placing a water tank on any of our local mountains.) Drop power and your water pressure goes to zero. When the power comes back, it can take 30 minutes to get normal water pressure back. I avoid that that issue with a well with my own pressure tank. And, I have a generator panel wired into the well shack.
 
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skeets

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I do wonder if you were to drop a charge of say 2 pounds of black powder a squib of some kind and stemmed the bore , if the shock would fracture the rock enough to open up some voids. Granted the bore might to be re bored to get a new liner down,,, but I wonder:confused:
 

RCW

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Wow - some of the well production numbers are startling.

One thing about the northeast is we do have quite a bit of water. Typical house financing would require 5 gpm for a private well, although a lower capacity is allowed if there is a lot of storage in the well casing itself.

Sometimes artesian wells can actually be a problem if the artesian flow causes freeze-ups in the winter.

Ray, at-grade storage is something I've never seen on a home well system, and I've seen 100's. Some kind of storage is common for a spring system, and those are quite common here still.

I'm out-dated now but we used to figure ~$22/ft with 6" casing, and ~$12/ft without casing (bedrock/open hole).
 

skeets

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Here in the coal country they are required to case all the way to the bottom to with in if I remember 3 feet of the bottom of the bore hole. I have a 3000 gallon tank under the back porch and a Coyote Box on the pump cause the well only make about 2 gallon a min. So when the system seances the water level is up the pump turns on and when it reaches a certain point it shuts the pump off. The water here is so bloody hard we get about 3 to 5 years out of a pump before it is toast
 

bearbait

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Wow - some of the well production numbers are startling.

One thing about the northeast is we do have quite a bit of water. Typical house financing would require 5 gpm for a private well, although a lower capacity is allowed if there is a lot of storage in the well casing itself.

Sometimes artesian wells can actually be a problem if the artesian flow causes freeze-ups in the winter.

Ray, at-grade storage is something I've never seen on a home well system, and I've seen 100's. Some kind of storage is common for a spring system, and those are quite common here still.

I'm out-dated now but we used to figure ~$22/ft with 6" casing, and ~$12/ft without casing (bedrock/open hole).
Thanks for reminding me RCW, I have an artesian well with the overflow line buried under ground which exits at the top of my bank. In the spring I put an extension on and lead it down to the shore to keep my boat landing from staying soupy but last year I forgot and had water bubbling out the well head all winter. On my way now while I remember, thanks.
 

bearbait

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Here in the coal country they are required to case all the way to the bottom to with in if I remember 3 feet of the bottom of the bore hole. I have a 3000 gallon tank under the back porch and a Coyote Box on the pump cause the well only make about 2 gallon a min. So when the system seances the water level is up the pump turns on and when it reaches a certain point it shuts the pump off. The water here is so bloody hard we get about 3 to 5 years out of a pump before it is toast
Hard water here also but not that bad. I put in a water softener when we retired here and a reverse osmosis system under the sink for drinking water. Replacing pumps that often can add up. We've been lucky so far, still on the original pump. Probably just jinked that.:rolleyes:
 

CaveCreekRay

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This is the tank. 1500 or 2500 gal, I forget.



Our grade tanks sit about two feet under ground.



I built a shack to protect the equipment. The boss ordered that it "shall not be visible from the street" so I hid it in bushes and made it shorter than 6' tall. Rather than spend big bucks ordering a custom door, I made one out of a solid core blank and made my own frame and hung it. The roof is from a metal place here in town. I vented it and it stays pretty cool in all but the hottest of summer. Never gets above 105F and it keeps the equipment out of the pesky UV rays and direct solar heating. Most people around here leave everything out in the open and wonder why the bits go bad.

 

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BigG

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I do wonder if you were to drop a charge of say 2 pounds of black powder a squib of some kind and stemmed the bore , if the shock would fracture the rock enough to open up some voids. Granted the bore might to be re bored to get a new liner down,,, but I wonder:confused:
I believe that is called fracking and the green people in this world would not like you for doing that to mother earth.
 

RCW

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That's interesting. Very similar to a spring system here.

While some are pumped, most are gravity-fed to a tank inside (cellar), and are then pumped into the house/barn system. Same net-effect.