one way to drive a shallow well point

[georgepds]

Before city water came in I'd triple filter the well drinking and cooking water ... sediment, charcoal and reverse osmosis. For all other uses I'd just use it from the tap

 

[firefighterjake]

Our local watershed is thousands of acres of clean lakes, streams and forest with almost no homes on any of it. Also no motorized vehicles allowed on it. When its extracted it runs through a modern purification and filtering plant.Taste good right out of the tap. I take the chlorine out just to be on the safe side before consuming. Its hard to do better than that with a private well. When im traveling,one one of the things i miss most is the great water here.

While I really like the water from home with the well (it is slightly hard), the water at work I find to be almost as good. I don't believe they use chlorine to even treat the water, or if they do here it is in such a small concentration that I cannot detect it. It's nothing like the city water I remember as a kid at my grandparent's where it smelled and tasted like I was drinking pool water.

 

[georgepds]

I think if you just let the water sit in an open container the chlorine will dissipate.

(Flies committing suicide are another matter by drowning, but hey, it's free of chlorine)

 

[georgepds]

"why so close to the house georgepds.? I guess it has to be? you must not have a basement by the looks of your pic."

I don't have a basement.

It's close to the house for two reasons. The first is I wanted the shortest run possible between the well head and the pump. That means a direct connection to the vertical pipe.( If you have ever waited for water to fill a long pump line you'd understand the reason. Every time you prime it ,and I really mean every blessed time, it's a question of will it or won't it till it gushes ). Since I wanted to keep the pump covered, that means the back porch

Second, the well head is near the center of my very small lot. That keeps it well away from any contaminants ( fertilizers, salts, soaps) that my neighbors may dump near the property line

The neighbors are only there for part of the summer, but who knows what will happen when the next generation gets their cottages

"How can one tell if water coming up is a spring or uphills people septic?"

I live on a barrier island.. with the great salt marsh on one side and the north Atlantic ocean on the other. Dig deep enough and you hit pure clean salt water ( that's what the state clam processing plant does). The fresh water lies in a shallow lens that floats on top of the deeper salt water

It's replenished by rainwater and , to a lesser extent,by the rivers that bound the marsh

Septic is not a problem because the state mandated city water and sewer a decade ago. The nearest septic tank is on the mainland, maybe 5 miles away, and you cross a marsh and river to get to it

 

[maple1]

It's close to the house for two reasons. The first is I wanted the shortest run possible between the well head and the pump. That means a direct connection to the vertical pipe.( If you have ever waited for water to fill a long pump line you'd understand the reason. Every time you prime it ,and I really mean every blessed time, it's a question of will it or won't it till it gushes ). Since I wanted to keep the pump covered, that means the back porch

Wait now - are you saying your pump is hooked directly to the 1.5" pipe you drove?

We have a smaller 3/4" plastic pipe, with a foot valve on it, inside the bigger vertical metal pipe.

 

[georgepds]

Wait now - are you saying your pump is hooked directly to the 1.5" pipe you drove?

We have a smaller 3/4" plastic pipe, with a foot valve on it, inside the bigger vertical metal pipe.

Yes, there is no pipe inside the pipe.. the metal pipe you see in the pictures above is the one that also carries the water. I use a check valve between the well head and the pump ( same function as your foot valve)

Also, slight error in the original post, that pipe is 1 1/4" id. I reduce it to 1" id to connect to the check valve and then to the pump

There is a union below the check valve so I can drain the main pipe in the winter. Filled with water it would crack.


If the couplings leaked my fallback was to have a smaller pipe inside the main pipe, like you describe. I wanted the bigger diameter,if I could get it, to minimize flow losses when pumping

 

[maple1]

Sounds like that might be a real challenge to prime?

With ours, when I hook it up in the spring, I shove the 3/4" down the pipe (it gets pulled in the fall), then once I get it almost all the way down give it the old up & down thing until I get water coming out the top. Then hook the pipe up. So only a few feet of air left in the pipe to get primed out, between the union at top of well pipe & the pump. I haven't measured how deep it is yet, been meaning to every time I have it out but keep forgetting - but guessing the 3/4" is 25' or so.

Not saying anything about one way better than the other at all - this is just the way ours has been for likely decades, before I had anything to do with it. But so far so good with it. We are very careful with our water usage there though.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

I think if you just let the water sit in an open container the chlorine will dissipate.

(Flies committing suicide are another matter by drowning, but hey, it's free of chlorine)

Or for human consumption,(small batches) you can run it through a brita pitcher (so much faster). It takes 1 week of constant circulation to dissipate the cloramine from our water. I tested it. I do 30 gallons at a time for my aquariums.

 

[georgepds]

"then once I get it almost all the way down give it the old up & down thing until I get water coming out the top. "


Nice technique

 

[georgepds]

A couple of photos. The brass dohickey in the center is the check valve. The blue box to the right is the water meter. I spoil the flow rate by using 5/8 garden hose. But.. the top 1" ball valve is for priming, and high volume flow if I needed it

I was not sure if the power washer could be fed from the hose, but test show it can

I opened the deck to show the top of the well head, but it's in the dark.The bright thing on the bottom is the reducing coupling