poor producing well

Depends on your set-up. Had a well that when it pulled air, pressure from the pump would drop, and would trip the safety. had to manually reset it after verifiying everything was ok. protected from broken main feed line as well as overheating pump from running dry. well became a slow producer and started silting up. switched to a very low gpm pump, and a large holding tank, and that one monitered pressure/flow with a controller. it would shut down on low pressure, then try again at 10 min intervalls. after 5 fails it would switch to 30 min intervals then shut down completely. Jacuzzi pump from the holding tank to the house. both these systems still ran off a panel with a switch arm, wich is what I WOULD THROW when leaving town.

Have seen system with two pressure switchs, one after pump, before one way valve, and one after one way valve before irrigation heads. they told pump when water was needed, and when water wasnt available.

Sting said:

Sounds like what I need

Can you help me with a source or a part-number or a Grainger link?

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Wish I had that info handy! This set up was in the house I sold in AZ, and being that I am no plumber, had no hand in setup of system. Just an understanding of its intended operation! I can tell you that it cost about 4 thousand to complete, but a large portion of that was the holding tank. (way oversized, but one drought year provided 2 months of water for 2 houses)

Sting said:

Pineburner said:

Have seen system with two pressure switchs, one after pump, before one way valve, and one after one way valve before irrigation heads. they told pump when water was needed, and when water wasnt available.

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ok I get that

but how do you once again signal the low pressure switch to close and let the pump pick up again?

Without the controls you first wrote of???

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Manual overide, to establish primary pressure in the system/purge the air/operate pump in emergency situation when the pressure sensors fail.

http://www.amazon.com/Square-FSG2J2...essure/dp/B000FKBY8W/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Picture doesn't show it but it will have a small lever on the side you hold until your pressure is over 20 psi. After that it operates like a normal pressure switch, if your pressure goes below 20 psi again because of low water it will shut down the pump and have to be manually reset when water returns.

Here is another option if you have a submersible pump.

http://store.waterpumpsupply.com/pumptec.html

It might not trip if you have low pressure from too much water running but enough in the well.

Is this a shallow well or deep?
Whats the depth?
Well-point?
Drilled with casing or in bedrock and if shallow whats the subsoil like?
Have you had this problem since the well was first dug/drilled or did it develop over time?

You may want to look into solutions to improve the gpm flow of your well if its possible rather than focusing on the pump. That's to say, the problem might be with the well and if it can be remedied it'll be worth it.

There's solutions that don't involve jeopardizing your source. If it's a shallow well that was producing fine in the past it could be that it's silted up and you only need to clean it out. Same could happen with a deep well. If it's in bedrock the fissures may be getting blocked and you can rupture them to get the flow going again. You won't lose the access to the aquifer by improving it's ability to migrate to the well. A reputable and knowledgeable well driller can offer a wealth of good advice. That good clean water is precious stuff.

I was watching "Delta Farce" last night (featuring the very talented Larry the Cable Guy).

Their amazing solution to a dry well was to fire a rocket propelled grenade to the sump...

Your results may vary...

We have used several M-80's in the past to resolve this sort of difficulty, we did however remove the plumbing components from the well first ( not the casing). The results were favorable in our particular conditions.

I have heard of using dry ice and then capping the well and let the pressure clean out the well. If it is a point you might just have a clogged screen

Sting,

It sounds like you are getting decent advice. I would say that rehabilitating your well would be the better option if the budget permits.

If your well has a screen on it, such as those wells that are in loose sand, the well screen may be clogged. There are ways to clean that up. Sort of like pressure washing the screen.

If you have a well drilled in granite, you may want to look into something called "hydrofracking". Well drillers in the granite country offer this service for about $1800. It accomplishes the same thing that dynamiting used to, only safer. It cracks the granite up which allows the water to flow into the well more freely.

If you are in sandstone your well may have filled with sediment or simply mineralized shut. There are remedies for this also.

None of the above mentioned solutions involve drilling deeper, and won't jeopardize your aquifer.

If, on the other hand, the low yield is part of the nature of the aquifer you are in, then these switches are the best way to go. You may also build more storage by using large pressure tanks. This way your well can fill the pressure tank during the night when you are not using water. Then you'll have a nice large tank of water to supply your morning needs. But then you have to either drain it or heat it to keep from freezing.

Do you have any idea how many gpm your well yields?

Black Jaque Janaviac said:

Sting,


If, on the other hand, the low yield is part of the nature of the aquifer you are in, then these switches are the best way to go. You may also build more storage by using large pressure tanks. This way your well can fill the pressure tank during the night when you are not using water. Then you'll have a nice large tank of water to supply your morning needs. But then you have to either drain it or heat it to keep from freezing.

Do you have any idea how many gpm your well yields?

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This is how I went with my well not because of low production but because I'm using a low flow dc pump. I put in a diaphragm tank that gives me a 26 gallon drawdown between cycles. There are much bigger tanks available. My pump only pushes 1.5 gpm so with the big tank I enjoy having when I need it.

Well yield is a technical term.

Without getting too technical - I'm just trying to get a rough idea how long it takes for the well to recover after pumping it dry. So if you pump it dry at 50 gallons, how many hours do you need to wait until you can get another 50 gallons out in one pumping period?

If it's only two or three hours, then building storage by having big pressure tanks should work well. If you sleep for 8 hours, the well should have provided 133 to 200 gallons of water to the pressure tanks. That should be more than enough to get you through the day.

If it takes more than 8 hours, then you may have difficulty. BUT if you can keep the electricity on, and protect the plumbing from freezing, you can have the well stockpile water during the week while you are gone. To do this you may only need to wall off and insulate a small part of the garage or basement to store the pressure tanks in. Then place an incandescent light bulb in there to keep the temperature just above freezing. Then set up a two valves so that one can be close to hold the water in the pressure tank and the other opened to drain the rest of the plumbing in the cabin.

My water comes from an ancient spring with very nice water, and extremely reliable, but not very abundant flow. I accumulate water in a 325 gallon holding tank (with float valve) and then use a shallow-well jet pump to pull from the tank to provide pressure to the house. A bonus of this arrangement is that there's nearly always 300 +/- gallons of water down cellar even if the power goes out- and large unpressurized storage is a lot cheaper and more foolproof than large pressurized storage.

Re: Hydrofracking- a word of caution- some friends of mine once had it done to deal with a low-yield well; while it increased output, the more abundant water had very different and less appealing characteristics (odor, etc).

If you get another 30-40 gallons after waiting for 15 minutes you should be able to get all the good water you need for vacationing. Unless you start in on some serious irrigation projects you're set.

Just protect the pump with one of those switches. Then if you decide you'd rather not run out in the middle of a shower - you can build storage by adding a pressure tank or two (but then have to freeze protect them).