We need water!

So, we have a well on the property we purchased, but we really didn't know what kind of shape it was in. There's just a PVC pipe sticking out of the ground with a PVC cap on the end. I checked some plats on file with the county, and it looks like it showed up sometime in the late 80's. I opened it up, and can see water reflecting my flashlight back to me, so I know there is water down there. The question is, how deep is it and how fast can you pump it out without it going dry (recovery rate)? Back in February, we decided to find out.

To figure out the recovery rate, we needed a well pump, but we didn't have any electricity on the property yet, and I don't own a generator (well, I almost bought one second hand, until I asked the guy selling it to plug something into the generator to test it. Nothing. I said, "That was kind of a feature I was looking for in a generator...the ability to generate electricity." He apologized profusely and admitted that he never tested it. It was his father-in-laws and apparently the motor didn't start until he fixed that. He assumed that was all that was wrong with it. So, no generator...yet). We also wanted to know the state of the well, so we hired Paul Fonzo, owner of All Purpose Well Drilling, to come out and take a look. He was happy to give advice on how we could determine the depth of the water and the well on our own, but to determine recovery rate we were going to have to pump it. It always impresses me when a contractor is willing to explain how you can do the job yourself, rather than hire him to do it. I'd recommend All Purpose Well Drilling to anyone needing their well serviced in the area of Cumming, GA.

Paul has an LED camera to scope the well, so you can tell if there are any issues with the casing or the walls of the well itself.

Take a look inside our well. You can see cracks in the stone that look sort of tan. This is where the water seeps into the well.

Using the meter on the camera, we determined that the static water level was 35ft and the well was 330ft deep. Now for the recovery rate test. Paul's team has a pump on a coil of pipe on a trailer that they can lower into the well and run off a generator. Here's what this process looks like:

So, we pumped at about 30gal/min, and pumped the well dry in 15 minutes. I think I remember Paul saying that a well that was roughly 6" in diameter holds about 1.5 gallons. Since your well was 330 feet deep with the static water level of 35 ft, we had 295ft of water in the well. This equates to 442.5 gallons, give or take. Remember, we pumped about 450 gallons in 15 minutes, so that means in 15 minutes we gained about 7.5 gallons, or a recovery rate of 1/2 gallon per minute. That sounds pretty bad, but when you do the math, that's 720 gallons a day or ~21,100/month. Looking at our water bill, the most we've used was 15,000 gallons, and that was because we had a leak. About 8,000 gallons is the norm for our active family of five.

Now Paul recommends we shoot for at least 5 gallons/minute recovery rate, to get you through the drought, when the water level can drop. He suggested we go down another 200ft to see if we could get better flow, but warned that "you never know." This well drilling business is a bit like gambling. He told me what trees would need to be taken down to get the drilling rig into position.

After the family and I cut down the trees and cleared the spot by hand, we scheduled him to come back out (about a month later, in April). This time, we got to see the big rig!

Here's some footage of the drill in action. The first one is of them lowering a section of drill pipe into the well:

Here's one of them adding another section of pipe to the drill. Basically, they have a thing that holds several sections of drill pipe along side the drill boom/tower. They just rotate it over and connect another section of pipe in. It's pretty cool to see in person, but if you squint real hard, you can see it:



Well, around at around 410ft, they started pumping alot of sand. Paul stopped the drilling and just ran the pump for a long while, waiting for the sand to clear. Apparently, sand is not something you want to hit while drilling. Not really something you want to drink, either. He suggested we shutdown for the day and try pumping it again tomorrow, after everything settled out. The next day, we pumped a little more sand, then it ran clear. We did some recovery rate tests and determined that we were right at 5 gallons/minute. Done!

He'll come back later, when we have the property cleared and electricity to set the pump and a temporary tank for the construction phase.