Well--distance from home

[logguy]

I have a well on the property already--already in use by another dwelling on the property.

I assume one well will support another home or two because one of the builders I had recruited to build a home for me looked at me like I was nuts for wanting to drill another well. This well is over 700' deep--big bucks.

Anyway, does 2000' sound like too great a distance away from the well to build?

Thanks,

John

[StressMan79]

is the cabin site up hill at all?

the reason I ask is that you may want to have a "shallow well pump" or something to act as a reservoir for pressure and flow for your existing well. you are talking about running almost half a mile of tubing. I would suggest using 2" PEX buried underground, to get the flow you will want. I don't know what that will run you, but it won't be cheap for 2k ft. You might see what the county uses for their water distribution pipe. Maybe get them to come out with their trencher and do it for you, if you ask nice and pay for their time and trouble...

Long story short, 700' well is going to be expensive. Laying 2000 ft of water line won't be cheap either.
Weigh your costs and if it is close, dig another well, you will have less to maintain (auxiliary pump/2k ft of line) and it will work better (you'll have the flow you want).

[patrickandbianca]

In my area (coastal NC) it costs $2 per foot for 3/4 inch water line. Thats trenching/materials and labor.

I was told that a 1 inch line would be neccessary to run 700 feet to my house. That was another .50 a foot.

2 inch line 2000 feet would be ~ 5 dollars a foot?

The problem I had with all the quotes I got was the unknowns. If they run into roots theres a surcharge. Rocks? Thats a surcharge. I could see it getting expensive quick.

Patrick

[logguy]

A friend and I went in on the purchase of a nice used trencher a while back. :) The deal was that I'd use it for what I needed it for and he could have it after that if he did all of the maintenance. I have yet to use it, however, as 3--count 'em 3--builders have pooped out on us! Thank God, now that I've found LHBA! I think the problem is that the home my wife and I had wanted to build was too complicated for them--no one in this area uses plans!!! NO KIDDING--NO ONE!

Anyway, I digress...

The building site is slightly down hill or level from the pumphouse. I have unlimited use of a trencher free, I own a tractor with a bucket, and I know what the 1" recommended pipe costs for 2000' (or at least I did--gotta re-check since it's been so long, but I'll wait until after class to do this, I think).

I just need to know if 2000' is too far away, slightly downhill or level, from the 700+ ft-deep well/pump.

[patrickandbianca]

Wish I could help.

When I was almost forced into hooking up to county water, I called the engineering department. They wouldnt give me a firm answer on what size line was needed to go 700 feet and still have sufficient pressure at the house. 2000 feet is a long way, but since its level I dont think it would be a problem.

[logguy]

I wonder what the fix would be if I didn't have enough pressure--would I have purchased and installed 2000' of pipe for no reason--or is there something that would be affordable that I could install to bump the pressure? Larger/faster pump way out at the pumphouse?

[StressMan79]

I have used an online calculator. I assume 4 gallons/min, and a 2" diameter pipe. I get a pressure drop *edit* of 1.23ft, quite manageable. If you halve the diameter, you get a rather huge pressure drop--32.5 ft H20. You can play yourself. http://www.efunda.com/formulae/fluids/calc_pipe_friction.cfm#calc

Anyway, that is why I suggested having a reserve tank near the house that the well pump would trickle into, and a shallow well pump to pump out of this tank and repressurize the water... Not the most elegant, but likely cheaper than running 2kft of 2" pipe.

-Peter

[loghousenut]

Getting the water to a spot 2000 feet away is easy compared to getting it up 700 feet out of the well. Like Peter says there is loss in the transport and the extra money spent on larger pipe will have a quick payback. Once the water is at the house and you have a tank filled up, a small pump and pressure tank makes domestic use very easy. Did you say you have electricity or are you making it yourself?

[logguy]

I will have electricity.

Wow--I know nothing about designing an additional pump system like you two describe. I'm going to have to pay someone to do this for me. That's scarey.

[exsailor]

My first house had a deep well. You should have the water tested to make sure it is still safe for drinking. When I sold my house it was a requirement to complete the sell, so it might have been done for you all ready. Also when I sold it was a requirement to have the well tested to make sure I had an adequate water supply. I have no idea how they could tell me the amount of available water from my well was, but they did. Since your feeding two houses from one well ask a local drill how the test is done. If you are on a well, remember without power you have no water pressure, except what is holding in the pressure bladder. First thing I always did when I lost public power was fill up all of my safe drinking water containers. That way I would have water until the power came on.
I wouldn't think you will have too much of a problem designing or installing a two pump system. Actually you only have to look at one water pump system, and a booster pump to send it down 2k worth of water line. Bug your people at the local hardware, Lowes, or Home Depot. Even web search manufactures of water pumps sold locally, there is information available for there. You might even be able to sweet talk a little pump information from local drillers, after all you maybe talking to them about other things as well. It will still require two pump houses. One close to the deep well which should all ready is servicing the other house. Add a booster pump to the pump house there for sending the water down hill or level to the local water collection point. The local point can be a cistern or tank close to your house. You will need a second shallow well pump to provide your house pressure. You have two things to look at shallow well pumps and booster pumps which might be called water transfer pumps. You might want to consider using a DC pump for the shallow well, if you want to plan for self generated power. As part of your shallow well system, you will need a pressure bladder to provide house water pressure. They typically can be adjusted for high and low points to maintain your house pressure bladder.
StressMan79 did excellent work on the piping design, everything else is digging the trench and hooking things up once you decide on pumps. Since you have unlimited access to a trencher put as much fall in the line that you can, let gravity help you out. It might mean setting your local storage system a little deeper, so that would be a cost trade off. Have fun, remember it is only as bad as you make it, and every big job is a lot of little jobs. Sounds silly but it is true.

[loghousenut]

If you are worried about a booster pump, let me assure you that it will be the easiest part of your system. Go to your nearest plumbing supply store and ask how they would boost the water pressure in the house if it were only dribbling out of the shower head.

If I remember correctly, the original problem partly offered the question of a new, closer well that would only service this one building. Is this a well that is shared with other people or is it your well that is servicing a residence on your property that you will have control over? IF it is your well and you are simply moving the homesite to a better location and IF it is a good dependable well and IF the new well would be prohibitably expensive, it seems like an easy decision.

1... Start trenching at the wellhead and quit when you get to the building site.
2... Lay your pipe. I'd use as big a pipe as I could get and I'd make sure it was good enough pipe that it wouldn't be a maintenance issue down the road. The only time I have done something like you are describing, it was a gravity system and I buried about 600 feet of 2" schedule 40 PVC.
3... Hook up a garden hose and see how the pressure is when you wash off the tractor. There are more sophisticated methods of testing but if you can't run through a 5/8" hose, your wife won't enjoy her showers.
4... If there is not enough pressure you can either put in a storage tank (cistern) or try a pressure pump and bladder tank without a cistern. I would like to have a storage tank but depending on how much gravity help you have from your water line you may be able to simply boost the pressure.

Each step of this problem is easier than building the floor in your log house and each step can be done somewhat independantly from the other steps.

I would add two more things to think about.

1... Plan to have one or two low spots in your water line and put a cleanout valve (just a T that goes to a valve you can open and flush out the crud) at each one to eliminate any sediment that will accumulate there.
2... Start looking around and see if you can somehow scrounge a good deal on some useable LARGE pipe that is suitable for drinking water. If you came upon enough 4" or 5" water pipe, that would be your storage tank as long as you had some downhill slope to the homesite. There would be vitually no friction loss and it would be a buncha water storage (Peter will chime in on just how much storage).

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t55/loghousenut/ATT333634.jpg

[loghousenut]

It will still require two pump houses. One close to the deep well which should all ready is servicing the other house. Add a booster pump to the pump house there for sending the water down hill or level to the local water collection point. The local point can be a cistern or tank close to your house. You will need a second shallow well pump to provide your house pressure.



exsailor, I think he said that there was a slight fall from the well to the homesite. That would eliminate the booster pump at the wellhead.

[edkemper]

What about cisterns? Perhaps to compensate slow flow. How would someone figure out how large it should be? Using the well to fill the tank?

[loghousenut]

And I need to do things in stages so I can figure out the next step with a clear mind. If it was me I'd run the water line and see what kinda flow I had and if I needed a cistern I'd worry it out then. We currently have only 1/2 gallon per minute and with a 1,000 gallon cistern we do fine as long as we think about watering the lawn and garden. I suspect that logguy will have a better situation than we do.

[Yuhjn]

water is going to be my problem too. The well guy is saying minimum $20,000 for what could end up a dry hole. So horrible are my water prospects that my current plan is to do rainwater reclaimation, grey-water recycling, and a cictern with a possible occasional visit from the water truck.

Long term I can always put in a well. But short term it's a financial deal-breaker.

[dgc]

Wow, Yuhjn... I sympathize with your plight. Here in south MS, one only needs to go down a few dozen feet to find pretty good water - sometimes even less distance. The water table is pretty high here, and it has made me wonder if I could reasonably use a basement in my house. Ultimately, that will depend on the site I choose to build on (whether it's on a hill).

I have seen some interesting things on water reclamation/treatment/recycling in recent years. None of it's cheap, but it sounds like it might be cheaper than a $20k dry hole (how many of those would you drill to keep trying?!?!).

Good luck with the water. Maybe if the drilling costs that much, you should consider going into business drilling wells! Sounds like it might be lucrative in your area!

DGC

[patrickandbianca]

can be obtained on the internet for Montana, including individual address for some wells. It gives a much more accurate snapshot of well depths and gallons per minute.

Patrick

[Timber]

There are water "gurus" who can tell you where the water is and how much g.p.m. it can produce.


I read an article where a guy wanted to subdivide some large amount of land and he had to have so much g.p.m. to get the OK to do it.?He?was having a difficult task of finding it. He hired this guy who looked at all the wells in the area and told him the best place to drill and how many gallons per minute he would get--and he was right

[Roadscholar]

Just a quick look online produced some interesting results. Any reason you could not use these links for your well issues?

How to find your ground water here

http://www.findwellwater.com/
seems to cost about 10 to 20% of
well drilling costs from what I can find.

If by chance you wanted to look into diy well drilling
you might want to check these folks out.

http://www.howtodrillawell.com/

Hope that helps
Roadscholar

[Jo D]

Hi folks
I am a new member from texas.
The amish have been using water rams to transport water up grades and over long distances. Water rams use no electricity. Lehman's 888-438-5346 out of Ohio is a great sorce for the ram and info. In Arkansa I was looking into using a water ram but was able to gravity feed water from 2 spring collectors to 200 gallon hoding tank which was then pumped to house.

[Yuhjn]

Thanks for the links and suggestions guys. I'm certainly looking into all my options at this point. It's all about cost for me.

My current plan is to break ground in spring of 2011. But that requires me to be able to limit by cost for water. If I need another 20-30k for water it's going to take quite a bit longer.

[mountains for me]

Hey Yuhjn, are you planning on building in Montana? Here is a link http://mbmggwic.mtech.edu/ get your free login user ID, and pull up actual well data, narrow it down to the area where you are planning to build, it will give you a good indication of well depth, gpm, and possibly driller contact info. As far as drilling yourself, I have been involved in water well drilling for 35 years in Texas, all types cable tool, air rotary, water injection, and mud rotary. Now for a little water well 101, the link for do it yourself drilling might work in areas where the wells are shallow, and there is no rock, but keep in mind, you are going to want to end up with a hole that is somewhere between 5 to 6 inches in diameter after casing, depending on well depth. Most submersible pumps are 4 inches in diameter, and you want them to have at least .5 inches of clearance around the screen. Realistically you are going to have to drill a 7 to 8 inch hole to accommodate your casing grout, and the pump. Depending on the static level of your water, well production rate, and the diameter of the hole that will determine the usable amount of water you can pump at any given time. If you have a pump that pumps 5 gals a minute, you are going to want the pump to be as far below the static level of the water, but not on the bottom of the well. If you hit any rock, limestone, granite, lava, you can kiss that little drag bit shown in the diy pic goodbye. With a rotary rig, you are going to need a down the hole hammer, or button bit ( tungsten carbide) to get through it, plus water injection and an air compressor with at least 125 psi, 250 is better, and 1000 to 1250 cfm to get your cuttings out of the ground. Just some thoughts

[Yuhjn]

Hey Yuhjn, are you planning on building in Montana? Here is a link http://mbmggwic.mtech.edu/ get your free login user ID, and pull up actual well data, narrow it down to the area where you are planning to build, it will give you a good indication of well depth, gpm, and possibly driller contact info. As far as drilling yourself, I have been involved in water well drilling for 35 years in Texas, all types cable tool, air rotary, water injection, and mud rotary. Now for a little water well 101, the link for do it yourself drilling might work in areas where the wells are shallow, and there is no rock, but keep in mind, you are going to want to end up with a hole that is somewhere between 5 to 6 inches in diameter after casing, depending on well depth. Most submersible pumps are 4 inches in diameter, and you want them to have at least .5 inches of clearance around the screen. Realistically you are going to have to drill a 7 to 8 inch hole to accommodate your casing grout, and the pump. Depending on the static level of your water, well production rate, and the diameter of the hole that will determine the usable amount of water you can pump at any given time. If you have a pump that pumps 5 gals a minute, you are going to want the pump to be as far below the static level of the water, but not on the bottom of the well. If you hit any rock, limestone, granite, lava, you can kiss that little drag bit shown in the diy pic goodbye. With a rotary rig, you are going to need a down the hole hammer, or button bit ( tungsten carbide) to get through it, plus water injection and an air compressor with at least 125 psi, 250 is better, and 1000 to 1250 cfm to get your cuttings out of the ground. Just some thoughts

Excellent post, and thank you very much for the details.

The wells in my area are all pretty deep, and my land is on a pretty large hill. I have one of the highest sitting properties in the area. IIRC they said 400' minimum. There is also a lot of rock and the well guy, when i talked to him a year ago, said something about impact drilling or something like that. In other words, it would have to be done "the hard way".

I've just used your link to see the wells in the area. The ones on the vally floor are 100-200 ft. The ones on hills like mine go up to about 600 ft.

Not a pretty prognosis, and backs up what I already pretty much knew, which was that it would be a very expensive proposition to get a well in.

Still evaluating my options, but none of them are pretty.

Power and water are my main issues, but that's what you get for 10 beautiful acres with incredible views at the top of a hill for 35k.

[mountains for me]

I have power and water on my acreage in Texas, but I have the same issues of need for well and power off the grid for my Colorado property. I am going to have to use a combination of generator, solar, and windpower for energy. As for the well, I am going to have to drill mine as well. Most states have a 10 acre rule, that allows you as the homeowner to drill your own well, install your pump, and your septic as well. What part of Montana are you going to build in? I need to get a well rig to do my well in Colorado. I don't know what your eta is on doing your well, if you could get a better deal, but let me propose something to you. I think I can get a rig for between 15 and 20K, if I can find one between Colorado and Montana and you would be willing to pay half for it, I would help you drill your own well with it. I pay the other half of the rig and when were done I own the rig outright and take it to Colorado to do my well. You would be saving anywhere from 10 - $12.5K if a well is going to cost you 20K. Let me know what you think? If anyone else on this forum is in need of a well out west, respond back and possibly we can work some kind of a joint cooperative.

[mountains for me]

What part of Texas are you from? Are you building in Texas? Anytime soon? Welcome to the forum

[logguy]

From what was said here, it looks like I will have to have either a supplimental pressure system and/or a storage tank for the pressure to be reliable, so maybe I ought to consider moving the house even further back--another 1000' even--to absolutely ensure that we can't see anything but trees in every direction. We want to be totally secluded, deep in the woods. Our property is just about 2000 ft. square (professionally surveyed with just about 10-30 ft. difference on side lengths) and has up to about 50-year oak/hickory/walnut growth over almost the entire area. We have a N/S county road along the western side and there is a double-wide trailer sitting a few hundred feet into the property at about the center of the road. There's about 4-5 acres cleared in that area and we can just barely see the trailer now and then in the winter through the trees from our projected building site, which is about in the center of the property. I said that the water pipe would have to be 2000 ft away from the well because I was going to follow a few intersecting trails with the water line, along the top of the hill so that I would know where it was located, but maybe I should just cut a trench with the trencher straight to the site, right through the woods and a valley. This would cause the line to drop in elevation about 20-30 ft, then go back up a bit less than, or equal to, the starting elevation.

Yes--the current well and pump are good to go and we are living in the doublewide using it daily. The well, doublewide and property are all ours (actually, the bank's).

Should I stay on the top of the hill (longer pipe) all the way back to a building site or is a straight shot (shorter pipe) better?

*Also, if I build another home between the pumphouse and the 2000-3000 ft away build site, do I just need another supplimental pressure system for it too--or is this too much for the one 700 ft. deep pump?

Thanks again!

[patrickandbianca]

I would build where you want and overcome the water problems the best you can. Or another way of putting it is, I would base my house site on the well site if at all possible. If you run another 1000 feet, you almost certainly are going to have to use a tank with another pump close to the house. I think the cost of a tank and pump will be minimal compared to running 2-3000 ft of line.

How many houses can be supplied by one well is more a function of gpm than pressure. You can always boost pressure, but the well is only going to produce a certain amount of water.

Patrick

[Yuhjn]

logguy,

I'm certainly open to the possibility of drilling my own well. But from what I undersatnd the standard drilling rig wont work for my situation.

My property is in Ponderosa Pines, which is in Three Forks Montana. It's about an hour from Bozeman to my land.

My timelines have been very fluid and I have trouble saying with any degree of certainy when I might be breaking ground. It's almost certainly 2 years away, possibly more.

Things have been changing a lot for me since I decided to build and bought my land. As a result it's very hard to say when things will happen.

For example I just found an oppertunity to buy a house in Indianapolis with an extra lot. The home is part of an estate being handled by a friend of the family. I can get it well below market value, before it gets listed in MLS.

I've been hoping to find that kind of oppertunity so that I can get my Mother into a home that I own, instead of her paying rent like she's currently doing. If she's going to spend that cash, might as well build some equity for me instead of a stranger.

This particular deal will be revenue neutral for me, since the property is so cheap. But to get into that situation I'll need to leverage some of my saved cash, which was going to go into the build.

It's a good oppertunity for both me and my mother. But it'll set back my timeline.

So I would have a very hard time committing to anything involving a cash investment at this point in time. In another year things will hopefully be more deterministic.

[logguy]

Yuhjn,

I think your idea about buying the home with the extra lot is a good one. I have several rentals and the first two I actually financed using the equity in a car I owned. Obtaining rentals sooner rather than later will obviously begin making you money quicker, so I believe that if you purchase a rental that just barely pays for itself with the rent you get from it, you're still really making a good move due to the equity it will be creating that can be used to pay off a car loan/buy a car every 4 or 5 years, or to finance another rental. Monthly rent/cash flow only gets better as time goes by--rent can be gradually increased as your principle continues to be paid down.

The first two log structures I plan to build are a shop/garage and a rental cabin/mother/mother-in-law home on this property. I haven't really decided which one is best to build first. For me, this is like the chicken and the egg decision--I need each one before I need each other one.