Some wells produce less water during the hot, dry summer months. This is especially true of shallow wells like dug or blasted wells which depend on surface water. Deeper drilled wells can also be affected but to a lesser degree.
If there is a well flow test available, look at the time of year when the test was done: tests during the dry summer months will be more reliable than tests conducted during the spring at peak water runoff.
Drinking water is scarce is the County so even with a good well, it would be wise to avoid heavy uses like watering the lawn or filling a swimming pool. Finally, if you are buying a rural home and you are concerned that the well may have run dry in the past, a clause can be included in your offer where the sellers warrant that the well has never run dry during the time they have owned the house.
Many homes in the County have wells which produce just over 3 gallons per minute. Im looking at a property with a drilled well at feet. Question is is the flow rate set by size of pump and could i simply get more with a larger hp pump? Or should I be concerned with the diameter of the steel pipe used back then to drill? Wells that deep here are likely to have salt or sulfur in the water. Alternatively the owner might want to watch the well water level increase until the water level has stopped rising in the well.
It might take longer than 24 hours for the water in flow to stop. When the water level has stopped rising on its own in the well, the depth of water in the well is measured and is referred to as the static head - the amount of water in the well when the well is fully recovered and at rest.
You can indeed measure water flow rate in a building by running one or more fixtures into a bucket, knowing the volume of the bucket and just watching how long it takes to fill the bucket. But this approach is usually wrong, as we explain at. People sometimes confuse things by describing what we call the well 'flow rate" as the "water quantity" available from a well. A true well flow rate is not what we can measure in the building over five minutes, it's the ability of a well to deliver a sustained water flow rate over a longer period, usually measured over hours.
When a local health department or building department approve the flow rate of a water well, that rate should have been measured by a plumber or well driller and should represent something more than a five minute test. The standard period over which a well flow rate must be measured varies among communities.
Find out what the standard is for your area. The amount of water that can be pumped out of a well at any given time is limited by the size of the static head and the well recovery or well flow rate , and of course by the pump rate the gallons per minute that the pump itself can or is set to deliver.
Well pumps are usually intended to pump water out of a well slowly enough that the pump and well don't run dry. Some pump systems have fittings that recycle the very last water in the well through the pump, ceasing delivery of it to the building, to protect the pump from overheating. Watch out : For these reasons, we've occasionally found clients dissatisfied with their well after they install a new, more powerful water pump. The owners install a more powerful pump to increase water pressure in the home, but the effect may be also to draw water out of the well faster than ever before, thereby disclosing a marginal well flow rate that they had not understood.
For this reason it's a dangerous simplification to simply assert "we can put on a bigger pump" when water flow rate is poor in a building. Remember that water quantity how much water we can obtain is not the same thing as water pressure how fast water comes out of the tap. Water quantity comes from what the well can deliver.
Water pressure is the amount of force with which the water pump can push water into the building piping and fixtures. Higher water pressure does give us more gallons per minute flow but that's describing a condition at the plumbing fixture.
It's not measuring how much water the well can deliver. But over time, as minerals and debris clog those rock fissures that feed water into our well, and if we started with just a small recovery rate of less than a gallon, our well may not continue to deliver the water quantity we need. A well with a good recovery rate, flowing at say 5 gpm or more, is more likely to continue to give good service over time, and we might get by with a small static head if the flow rate is good enough.
These are the parameters that a well driller is considering when they decide how deep to go in drilling and how much well flow rate is going to be acceptable. Because ground water typically flows into a drilled well through multiple rock fissures or other underground passages, and because these passages are at different depths, the actual total flow rate into a well is made up of flow from multiple individual openings.
Each of these may have its own characteristic flow rate and also flow duration. For example a fissure may flow at a high rate for 20 minutes and then drop to a slow rate or even stop entirely. This is why the flow rate at a new well is typically measured over a long period, say 24 hours. If you measure the flow rate at a well for just a few minutes, you can have no idea of the well's actual ability to deliver water over any sustained time of usage.
On by mod - should you walk from the purchase of a home that has a questionable water well? Anonymous, It is rarely appropriate nor necessary to walk away from a home simply because we've discovered something that is going to need time and money to correct or make functional. Every home needs something; If, for having discovered a probable expense, you abandon a home that you othewise love in a location you want to be, you may simply move on to another home only to discover that the next one needs still more work or repairs.
However, it is important to have an un-biased and thorough inspection of the home and all of its systems, not just the well; IF the cost of necessary repairs would price the home out of its near term value in the marketplace would one be forced to question the economic sense of "the deal". That situation is rare for most homes in most parts of the world.
Get an accurate estimate of the problems at this home, including by having a competent and thorough home inspection NOT by someone recommended by the realtor who sent the "iffy" and non-responsive well test person to you and thus of its true cost to you. What are "Necessary Repairs? For most repairs or home improvements or maintenance chores, you are in control of your money and you decide when to meet each of those needs and costs. Dan's 3 D's : but for things that are Dangerous , Don't work and are necessary, like safe electrical power or heat or are causing rapid costly Damage , the house is in control.
Thank you so much for your response. My Realtor recommended this company. I am supposed to be buying this home and my due diligence period ends Tuesday. Please let me know if this provides any additional details or changes your opinion.
Thanks again for all the information. This was not a 24 hour test. Since it is a shared well they had to notify and work with all the other home owners and this was all conducted over one afternoon. You are right. I would stir up debris. I want to find a way to remove some of the soft sediment at the bottom of the well. Or I could just pump out gallons a day. The minimum acceptable true well yield properly measured as we describe herein varies by regulations where you live, by various lenders' requirements, and of course by the anticipated need based on the type and number of water users that the well is to serve.
A well yield of 5 gallons per minute of sustained flow measured over 24 hours or over 5 hours in some standards is considered by most authorities as adequate for a one family residence. By any of these measures, your well "inspector" ought to have told you that your well's yield was inadequate and that some significant expense will be involved in providing adequate water supply.
Provided that all of the data we have on your well is correct, this case is particularly egregious considering your report that this low-yield 1. Your "well yield test" report does not describe how the test was conducted, so it's uncertain how to interpret its results; the yield over 24 hours could be less than the already marginal yield reported to you.
Bottom Line: It would be prudent to assume you will face substantial expense to provide suitably water supply. There is no way that flows rate is adequate for 4 or 5 homes. IMO an inspector working for you, not for the realtor, owes you that sort of conclusion, that is, the inspector must tell you what the findings actually mean.
Additional remarks Possibly the inspector is unfamiliar with even the most basic facts of pump operation A true flow test is measured over 24 hours. You should be able to attach an image of the report or you can email it to me using the page top or bottom contact link. It makes one question the very idea of using any service recommended by your real estate agent, who is, after all, not a neutral party but rather someone who stands to gain from the sale.
Thanks again! On by Anonymous - what does this well test report really mean? On by mod - how to read a "well yield test" report. Anonymous, Sorry but the Add Image button only lets you post images, like. Throwing an incomprehensible report over the wall to you is unconscionable and in my opinion worse than worthless as the person got paid for it. Without details I can but speculate based on your limited information 1. The "amperage" readings are not directly useful but are intended, probably, to tell us if the pump is working normally, and in the hands of an expert, can tell us if the pump is moving water or is running dry under less load, current drops.
A static water level of 5. If it's 5. Tell me: are you buying this property? If so, who recommended this inspector who, from the report, doesn't want you know the questionable status of your well but wants to protect herself by being able to say "I gave the information in my report".
Disgusted in Po'Town. Trying to decide if I go through this this home purchase. The only info I have is the well depth is , yields 1. Help what does any of this mean? Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it. On by mod - critical question about well flow rate adequacy: is it enough? Kat You ask the critical question about well flow rate adequacy: is it enough. Some well drillers have equipment to do that. Instead somebody sticks a 5 gallon pail under a spigot and sees how long it takes to fill up the pail.
But delivering water 15 gpm for just a few minutes is a horse of a different color than delivering water at that rate continuously for many hours - if you'll forgive the mixed metaphor. Keep in mind that the depth of your well - ft - does not tell us a thing; we don't know the actual STATIC HEAD how much water is in the well at rest - it'll be something less than total well depth and we don't know how your well's flow rate was measured.
Flow rates vary by duration of use of the well, and by season or time of year, and by long term trends neighbors pumping down a common water table. Watch out : also about relying on any data given to you by even the nicest and most-honest real estate agent.
The agent is not a neutral party to the sale of property, and the agent, in most states and provinces, is not held legally liable for accuracy in property representations - not even for a second.
Bottom line : On the face of it 15 gpm looks great, but we can't yet trust that number; you need to know how the flow test was done, get the original data, or have your own flow test performed by someone who is completely independent from those selling property.
Hi, I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on getting my well serviced? We moved in less than a year ago with the intent to start a small market farm. Our well was built in the late 70's and records show a flow rate of 15gpm. That said, I am still wondering if the 15gpm is enough? Or whether I should have it retested as the flow rate was given to me by our real estate agent, not a recent record? I apologize for the lengthy comment, and I appreciate any advice.
Or less You don't generally want to keep pumping the well all the way down to the very bottom. If a standard showerhead is fit, the shower will likely emit around an extra half gallon of water per minute, so a 5-minute shower will use in the region of The higher the GPM, the more surface area a pressure washer can clean in a minute.
Since most contractors use cleaning chemicals to do all of the cleaning, their job becomes one primarily of rinsing the dirt away. All you need is enough water pressure to get water to the pressure washer, and then the pressure washer pump takes over from there. However, most residential, electric or gas powered, pressure washers require a GPM of 2. Generally, contractors or professional cleaners will find that they prefer a higher GPM machine over PSI since they use cleaning solutions to loosen grime instead of relying fully on PSI, their job primarily becomes one of rinsing the dirt away.
The higher the GPM the faster it will be to clean large surfaces. While a higher-pressure shower head may provide a better showering experience, a 2. Think of GPM as rinsing power. The GPM of effective commercial pressure washers ranges from 2. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Physics How many gpm should a good well produce?
Ben Davis April 7,
0コメント