Dry Well

Anybody else having a problem with their well drying up at this time of year?

Where are you located? How deep is your well? I have only heard of some very shallow wells (evergreen area) not producing so well.

Changes in the water table are taking place now. Water that normally ends in the water table, remains frozen near the surface. Unlike past winters, we;ve had prolonged periods of cold and the frost is deep adding to the problem of recharging wells. It is a temporary situation. The best solution is to conserve water as much as possible and have water trucked in to give your well a chance to recover.

Your well most probably has very little standing water because the depth of the well only extends into the producing zone. If you have the depth of the well extended quite a bit past the water zone, it will provide more standing water. Standing water plus the replenish rate might resolve your problem. There is a risk that the extension of your well bottom may enter a pourous zone and reduce the production of your well.

If your well has plenty of depth past the water zone, you might be able to have your well fracked, which may increase the production of your well.

Arlen wrote: Your well most probably has very little standing water because the depth of the well only extends into the producing zone. If you have the depth of the well extended quite a bit past the water zone, it will provide more standing water. Standing water plus the replenish rate might resolve your problem. There is a risk that the extension of your well bottom may enter a pourous zone and reduce the production of your well.

If your well has plenty of depth past the water zone, you might be able to have your well fracked, which may increase the production of your well.

While all you say is true, fracking a well does not help if the water table drops. Let's assume you deepen the well and it has a12 inch diameter bore. You can figure the increased storage capacity according to the following formula fist for your present well depth and then for the new well depth V = ((n * D2)/4)* d. Where: n = pi = 3.1416; D = diameter of well in feet; d = depth of well in feet. Subtract the old from the new and you can figure out just how much or little you actually gain for the money invested. Basically for every foot you increase the depth of such a well you gain 1.63 cu ft of water storage capacity or approximately 163 cu feet. Every cu foot of water equates to approximately 7.48 gallons of water. So given the parameters used here, deepening the well 100 feet equates to 748 gallons of additional water in the well. I do not know the cost of deepening a well, but expect it to be costly. It might be cheaper to enlarge your cistern, buy potable water and reduce your water consumption.

Once spring time arrives and the aquifer gets recharged, your well will return to normal. Personally, before I invest a whole bunch in drastic measures like deepening a well or fracking, I'd look at less costly fixes provided that the well provides your needs during the summer. If the same problem exists then you need to consider your alternatives.

One other caveat to consider is that the deeper a well is drilled the more dissolved mineral are likely to be present in the water, especially sulfur. The salinity of water increases with depth because the residence time of water in contact with minerals is longer and therefor more mineral mater gets dissolved.

Hmmmm I dont know where you live, but my well is drilled into granite and I dont have a water table. I have a bunch of conveniently located cracks that somehow connect and feed water into my well. I am no hydrologist but I believe the term water table refers to a sedimentary rock environ.

But back to your question Green Lady we havent had well problems since around 2000-2004, the season didnt really matter. Conservation worked well and all laundry was done down the hill.

Have you had your system checked by someone local?

No Hoot. Water table defines the interface between the vadose an phreatic zones and has nothing to do with rock type. Even granite has about 1 to 2 percent porosity and that is the storage tank for the water in the mountains. Fractures are merely the fast-delivery pipelines from the storage tank.

Hand wringing over the possibilities of what might go wrong with improving a well results in more years of misery with no water. Having a well drilled in the Rockies is more expensive than Tennessee, but that is the price of having a quality homestead. Cistern? That is the poor boy's remedy. Mineralized water? Get a water softener and filters.

But I would not suggest sitting, bemoaning your plight, and doing nothing whenever remedies are available.

Arlen wrote: Hand wringing over the possibilities of what might go wrong with improving a well results in more years of misery with no water. Having a well drilled in the Rockies is more expensive than Tennessee, but that is the price of having a quality homestead. Cistern? That is the poor boy's remedy. Mineralized water? Get a water softener and filters.

But I would not suggest sitting, bemoaning your plight, and doing nothing whenever remedies are available.

That is all fine and good based on a number of assumptions, namely that the well is shallow, the water table normal water table is low and flow rates are low. Some folks have no option but to explore a poor boy's remedy. Given that most wells are in igneous or metamorphic rock with porosity of less than 2 percent and permeability in the range of .01 millidarcies, most wells up here will have very low flow rates and benefit from a cistern. Fracking a vertical well really does not solve much. those fractures that are generated need to be charged by the country rock which has low flow capacity and the fracture zone is limited in vertical and horizontal extent. The only way to really improve well performance up here is to 1) have a horizontal well bore below the vertical range of the water table and 2) then frack the horizontal bore. This is what we learned years ago in the oil industry and that is how unconventional wells are drilled to make them economically viable. Now we are talking considerable cost.

A water softener and filter is simply an additional expense on top of the expense of deepening a well. If money is not an issue, go for it. Personally, I'll do the poor boy approach and practice water conservation before throwing a lot of money at changing the well profile.

Rockdoc Franz wrote: No Hoot. Water table defines the interface between the vadose an phreatic zones and has nothing to do with rock type. Even granite has about 1 to 2 percent porosity and that is the storage tank for the water in the mountains. Fractures are merely the fast-delivery pipelines from the storage tank.

MY point is there is not a water table in granite. You are the carbonate king of the forum. I like my granite slow delivery pipelines.There is not a water table in granite. If there was my 150' well would have a spring flowing at the bottom of my driveway. I am going wih fractures and 1% porosity. Good luck to the people that live up hill. Water follows the rule of gravity. Thankfully my water gets stuck in my well, :faint: