The JOYS of country living

old medic

old medic

Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
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Jul 28, 2020
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4 AM DW gets up for her bathroom run.... NO WATER.... I get up and start investigating... No leaks obvious, pump is running. cut the power and wait for 1st light.... Shallow well pump and appears to have lost prime and was unsuccessful in repriming... yippie....
 
old medic said:
4 AM DW gets up for her bathroom run.... NO WATER.... I get up and start investigating... No leaks obvious, pump is running. cut the power and wait for 1st light.... Shallow well pump and appears to have lost prime and was unsuccessful in repriming... yippie....
Click to expand...
Yikes! Serious drought in your area? Hope it is an easy fix.
 
When you talk shallow well old medic. Do you mean your well is ~28 feet down or less??
If you are in that 28 feet and less get a dry string tie on a nut or bolt and drop the string down well pipe and measure the water depth in pipe where the string shows wet when pulling string back up.
 
Okay, I'll say it, maybe you need a deeper well? Water tables do drop at times.
 
Its a 50 FT bored well and have about 4 FT of water above the foot valve. About the same depth as the hand dug well next door. The fitting at the foot valve has rusted out.... I swear I thought I had used all brass fittings...
 
I love country living.
Grew up on a dirt farm way out yonder. Knew I would not be a farmer. But have enjoyed country living for decades, even with inconveniences you describe.
 
at least it was an easy fix this time. you have cultivated the skillset.
 
old medic said:
Its a 50 FT bored well and have about 4 FT of water above the foot valve. About the same depth as the hand dug well next door. The fitting at the foot valve has rusted out.... I swear I thought I had used all brass fittings...
Click to expand...
Have you considered installing a storage tank? Our well fills a 2,000 gallon tank that is set to refill when the level drops to about 1,500. The tank has an alarm set to go off if the water level drops below 1,500, giving us a few days water supply we can use while we diagnose and fix the problem.

Since our well is 800 feet deep it almost always requires calling in a well service company for the repair. This is usually a significant BTD event.
 
We had a point well when we bought the farm. Maybe 20 feet below the cellar floor. But it was illegal to sell the property with one, so a guy had to come out and pour mortar down the pipe.

We ended up tying into the deep well that is put in for the animals.

The reason it was illegal was the leaching chemicals in the fields. But I'm sure it went dry from time to time.
 
Gallaher said:
I love country living.
Grew up on a dirt farm way out yonder. Knew I would not be a farmer. But have enjoyed country living for decades, even with inconveniences you describe.
Click to expand...
Grew up and worked in the big city until I was ~55 and then moved to the country. I'm staying here as long as I can.
 
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sparky08 said:
We had a point well when we bought the farm. Maybe 20 feet below the cellar floor. But it was illegal to sell the property with one, so a guy had to come out and pour mortar down the pipe.

We ended up tying into the deep well that is put in for the animals.

The reason it was illegal was the leaching chemicals in the fields. But I'm sure it went dry from time to time.
Click to expand...
Not to mention the leaching of the individual conventional septic systems in the area.
 
REWahoo said:
Since our well is 800 feet deep it almost always requires calling in a well service company for the repair. This is usually a significant BTD event.
Click to expand...
Wow! We had considered putting in a well at our 30 acres of mountain property in eastern Washington but I did some research and found wells could be 500 feet deep or so and no guarantee you would get a good GPM. At the time I think I was estimating $25k for that. How much is a 800 foot deep well? That is crazy deep.
 
Fermion said:
How much is a 800 foot deep well? That is crazy deep.
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When we drilled ours 26 years ago it was about $14K, including both pumps and the storage tank. I understand the cost today is around $60k.

EDIT: For comparison, the city of San Antonio water system is drilling a couple of wells a few miles down the road at a cost of $5.4M. Of course they are much larger diameter and capacity wells than for domestic use. The project is for "drilling, logging, constructing, and testing of two 28-inch diameter, 995-foot-deep water wells in the Edwards Aquifer".
Screenshot 2026-04-29 104746.png
 
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I was reading on a Neighborhood App in upstate western SC (near the NC border) that people are having issues with their "shallow" wells due to the drought and water table. Luckily we are 'city" water, but septic so $15/mo bills.

Good luck with the fix Old Medic!

Flieger
 
We have been local residence here since 1985. A few folks around had shallow wells dry up and drilled deeper. We had to dig out the well next door twice and it's due again. By the look of the pipe, we are down about a foot here. I took a walk down in the woods and checked the several springs and there running good so far.
 
Gallaher said:
I love country living.
Click to expand...
We both grew up out in the sticks, and 95% of our lives have been on either well or spring water...
We are lucky I guess... its only about 40 miles to town for the big stores....
 
We lived in the "sticks" many years ago and also had a well. I always felt pretty vulnerable with it because there were so many things that could go wrong (loss of power, pump failure, storage tank issues, water table drop, etc.). Besides the frequent power failures, we only had one failure requiring professional help but I just never trusted the well. I always had 15 gallons of potable water on hand for any failures. I grew up on city water and just never got over having water (virtually) always on tap.
 
Glad it was an easy fix. Your well is considered a deep well if deeper then about 28 feet. I have two shallow wells one at the ranch and one in town where our home is at. They are both just used for lawns, gardens and livestock. No pressure tank needed and I can use my underground sprinkler system with the sand point well.

No foot valves but of course a check valve you need. Check valves are a few feet from the pump with easy access. The one sand point at the ranch I use a small gas engine on it that draws water up through the old vintage pump jack with pitman arms. Works Great!!!
 
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Koolau said:
We lived in the "sticks" many years ago and also had a well. I always felt pretty vulnerable with it because there were so many things that could go wrong (loss of power, pump failure, storage tank issues, water table drop, etc.). Besides the frequent power failures, we only had one failure requiring professional help but I just never trusted the well. I always had 15 gallons of potable water on hand for any failures. I grew up on city water and just never got over having water (virtually) always on tap.
Click to expand...

Don't forget theft!

Had a great aunt who had a place in the mountains of my state.

She would summer there and one year on arrival found she had no water.

Someone had stolen the well pump.
 
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