Dry Well

Your point is wrong. Granite has no bearing on the definition of a water table. One learns this in geology 101. Here is a definition for you.

The term water table expresses the surface dividing the unsaturated and saturated groundwater zones. More accurately, the water table lies within the saturated zone and separates the capillary fringe from the underlying phreatic zone. The phreatic zone is the area in which water will freely flow from pores in the geologic material

http://www.enotes.com/water-table-reference/water-table

Note that the phreatic zone is what is important and that it is in "geologic material" Water does not give a damn if the rock is sedimentary, igneous or metamorphic rock. THe reason your driveway does not have a spring has little to do with anything other than the fact a water table is NOT flat, something you seem to be insinuating. I suggest you do a little research since you question what I have to say. Come back to me after that.

I know of a few people that have "spring fed" wells. Their wells are actually very shallow. I see health issues with that as there are roadways very close that can carry rainwater runoff right to their source. There are a few places near their well where the springs come to the surface and run over ground.

I know that surface springs can move around, where one year they surface here and the next they surface many feet away. I don't know what causes springs to change locations of surface discharge. There are prolly many reasons. If the OP has a shallow spring fed well, maybe there is a blockage in the traditional route of water travel or some other cause for that the spring does not discharge to thier well.

Springs are the water table intersecting the surface. Springs can move because the water table is dynamic.

I have been told my well is 100ft - I guess it is quite shallow. I can get a production test on it and leak test but it is expensive. Should I wait a couple of months?

Greenlady wrote: I have been told my well is 100ft - I guess it is quite shallow. I can get a production test on it and leak test but it is expensive. Should I wait a couple of months?

Your well may be shallow relative to others in the mountains, but the depth of a well depends upon where the driller intersects the water table. If the water table normally is only ten feet below the surface, then you have 90 feet of standing water or likely somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-150 gallons of standing water in the well. Given that most wells this time of the year draw down because there is little recharge due to freezing, I would wait until spring before making any decisions to spend money. Most likely your well will return to the normal behavior it had before this winter. One other point to make here is that as you draw the well down through use, a negative cone develops in the water table, The more water you draw the deeper the cone becomes and the longer it takes for the well to recover.

If I would do anything, I'd find out how high the water is in the well after it recovers and calculate the the volume of water your well holds at any one time. I'd also try to access the amount of water you use and the flow rate of the well. Flow rate information on the well should be included on the original well report. If you do not have a copy of it, it is available from public records, so you should not have to spend money on getting that information. Also, if you want to take a look at your well with an eye toward the future, know that the water table is likely to fall as more wells get drilled in the mountains.

Finally, what is a leak test? There is no leaking because the water table intersects your well. The water table is flowing water in the subsurface. Water is constantly flowing into and out of the well. It's not like the water is trapped there.

Rockdoc Franz wrote:

Greenlady wrote: I have been told my well is 100ft - I guess it is quite shallow. I can get a production test on it and leak test but it is expensive. Should I wait a couple of months?

Your well may be shallow relative to others in the mountains, but the depth of a well depends upon where the driller intersects the water table. If the water table normally is only ten feet below the surface, then you have 90 feet of standing water or likely somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-150 gallons of standing water in the well. Given that most wells this time of the year draw down because there is little recharge due to freezing, I would wait until spring before a make any decisions to spend money. Most likely your well will return to the normal behavior it had before this winter.

If I would do anything, I'd find out how high the water is in the well after it recovers and calculate the the volume of water your well holds at any one time. I'd also try to access the amount of water you use and the flow rate of the well. Flow rate information on the well should be included on the original well report. If you do not have a copy of it, it is available from public records, so you should not have to spend money on getting that information. Finally, if you want to take a look at your well with an eye toward the future, know that the water table is likely to fall as more wells get drilled in the mountains.

Franz,

I have a great well currently but have dealt with issues in the past. Just wanted to say thank you for your posts, I found them very illuminating.

R/
Bob

Our well just recently wasn't producing very much water either. We had water trucked in and might have to the rest of the winter. We will let it rest and see if it recovers. Hopefully it will.

it already has recovered and currently is keeping up with our water use. This does not mean that the water table is not stressed regionally by winter freeze.

Wells that have low permeability (low flow rates) tend to suffer the most under the current conditions. If your well is fed by fractures, then the flow rate is higher and recovery faster.

We have yet to see if it really stays that way since our tank was just filled up with water shipped in. If it can stay that way this week I will believe it. :crossed:

As one that worked on water wells. What Rock Doc is telling you is pretty much the way it is. Now that water may be fed into the well by cracks and crevice but it is all about the water tables. As for Aquifers, up here we have no so called aquifers. We do have water sheds etc but no Aquifers. If you go further west we have the Colorado Plateau Aquifers which is actually made up of some smaller ones. Down the mountains there is also some pretty good size ones. The biggest being the Laramie Fox-hill Aquifer, so it is about where you live. As RD said, during the winter, some of you supply routes for you well may easily freeze up. Not uncommon especially on wells of 100' or less. Have a well test done, it should not cost that much. The other option is if your well is doing at least .5 gpm on recovery test, then you could install a storage system, thinking that is what RD has, it consists of poly storage tanks, a jet pump, some parts etc. That allows you to have water all the time either by your well or delivered. A small 3000 watt generator during power outages, provided tank is full will run your jet pump.

And yes I have learned some things from RD.

http://academic.emporia.edu/schulmem/hy ... uifer.html