I have a question for those of you with wells.

[murray hill farm]

There is an old, but existing well on the property that i bought this spring. I presently...from long distance...have contracted with a well company to go out to the property and check on the well to see if it is functional, how deep, etc...and to have a sample of the water sent in for testing. If all goes well, I will have a pump put on the well..which, as I understand it includes a cement base around the pump. They did suggest that I would need to have a cover or pump house to protect the well and the electrical pump...with a cost of $300 to $500 for such an item, which seems terribly high to me. So, my question is for those of you that do have wells is...do you have a well cover or pump house for your wells? And, any ideas other than what I think is a fiberglass cover that the well company has to offer? Thanks for any information or ideas anyone might have. Pat

[carp]

1. Depends on the whether; if it will freeze get a COVER! NT

[yellowdogintexas]

2. when I was a kid, we had a little wellhouse built of Breeko blocks, with a slightly

slanted roof that lifted up so you could get in for maintanence. My dad built it after the pad was poured when the well was finished drilling.

[DesertFlower]

3. we had to drill for a well.

yes. it does have a cement cover. i don't know how much it should cost. drilling for the well and everything we needed was over $10,000. we recently had a holding tank installed for $5,000. this way if the pump goes bad the holding tank has 2500 gallons of water.

[DJ13]

4. It should be covered so its not in direct sunlight

Otherwise you would have to run out the tank everytime you needed cold water.

Also, from past experience, if you should need a new well (they usually wont drill existing wells deeper if its too shallow) expect anywhere from $4,000 to $7,000 for a new one to be drilled.

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. Yes, I have a well.

It is 200' deep with an 8" steel casing. The pump is a 3/4 hp submersible.

I have an 8x8 pumphouse over the wellhead which contains the pressure tank, the pressure switch and the pump controls. Aside from drilling the actual well, I did everything myself and I have significantly more than $1000 (probably closer to $2000) invested.

In retrospect, I should not have built the pumphouse over the wellhead because it makes pump removal unnecessarily difficult.

Your description seems somewhat vague, so I'm going to make a couple of assumptions
a) the well is hand-dug
b) the pump you plan to install will be a self priming (above ground) device

Assuming those are correct: yes, you definitely need a lid, and yes, you need a pumphouse for the pump. In my area, a fiberglass lid 24" dia and a piece of 24" culvert to which it is screwed costs $150. At a minimum you don't want animals drowning in your well, and especially not the two legged kind.

[blue sky at night]

6. If the pump is a submersible model.....

all the guts are down at the base of the well, no real need for a well house. On the other hand, if you use a jet-pump (for a shallow well) you would need a house to protect it from the weather. Also, it is a necessary to have an expansion tank to maintain the pressure, it could also go in the well house. Some of these decisions will hinge on how far the well is from the house, etc. A submersible is a great way to go...wondering if this well has a STEEL Casing?

[LiberalEsto]

7. Try these folks

http://www.wellcarehotline.org/wellcarehotline/index.cfm

[bluesmail]

8. I've almost always have had a well. I do have a small pump

house. It rarely freezes here. I've replaced the submersible jacuzzi pump once in the last 14 years.

[hedgehog]

9. This thread has answered a question that's been bothering me for YEARS!

A lot of the older rural homes around here have a little structure that looks like a house about 3' by 3' with a roof 1' off the ground. Too short to be milk houses, but what in the world could they be? Now I know; well houses!

[elfin]

10. Do it AFTER getting another opinion

Not something to mess around with especially if there are freezing issues.

3-500 bucks is CHEAP to alleviate future disasters. Especially in rural areas where trades people usually know what they are talking about. But always best to get another opinion - ask around to neighbors for recommends.

I have a below ground cement tank with a pump in it connected with electrical wire to the house. No problems so far after 40 years as long as I recharge the tank each year( process involving emptying and using air pressure and turning on the pump inside to run a cycle) to keep the pressure optimized so that the pump does not run with every flush.

Mine is seasonal and it is shut down each fall, but can work all year round if needed as long as it is recharged periodically.

Good luck and build a base of trusty locals to handle this and other needs.

[HereSince1628]

11. Be sure the test includes potential evidence of contamination by chemicals

such as pesticides and fertilizers, you might want to be particularly careful about the list of things tested for if the groundwater is shallow and if the well is near an old barn site or an old orchard.

My pump, which is by Jacuzzi was about $300 back in 1998 so the price quoted to you sounds reasonable to me...probably something like the cost of a pump at Sears I'm guessing.

[elfin]

12. Also, while they are down there -

have them check for earwigs which seek moisture and deposit bacteria which can leave you with unpleasant side effects - a bit of clorox solves this.

All is solvable - as long as you have a good person getting you situated.

[murray hill farm]

13. Thanks for all the great replies.

The price of 3 to 5 hundred was for the pump cover only. The well that is there has not been used for many years, but it still does have an old (non functionalbe) electric pump still attached and a little above the ground. So, it was a well that did function with an electric pump at one time. The cost for a new pump, cement, wiring, etc. is about $2000 and I think that would be the minimum. The cost of the well cover or pump house is in addition to that price. I was sort of thinking that I might just hire a local builder or handy man to build a sort of well house shed..small, but to serve the purpose...and that it might even look better than a fiberglass cover. The property is in SW Arkansas. I don't think that hard freeze would be something of great concern, but I know it does get down to freezing and they do get snow now and again in Jan or Feb.

[TexasProgresive]

14. What ever you use to cover the well head and pump

make sure that is is removable. If the pipe has to be pulled from the well the service people will have to have free space directly above the well head. For this reason most well houses are 3 or 4 foot square and can be unanchored and laid over on the ground. Good luck that you have good and plenty water.

[murray hill farm]

15. Thanks!

Geez...this has been so helpful. Times like these, i think you can get anything you need from DU. Ha!

[bvar22]

16. Hi, Neighbor!

This is what our pump looked like in Oct 2006.
The pump is submersible, and relatively new. The well is either 60' deep....or ...200' deep depending on whom you talk to.
The previous owner had placed the rubber trash can in the foreground over the well, and stuffed the insulation up in the can for the Winter of '05, and the well did OK (mild winter).



Me and My Custom Well House

One of the first things I did was build a simple weatherproof box over the well. The sides are insulated, and a 60 watt lightbulb in a drop light fixture is inside. On nights when the temp drops below 28, I go down to the well and turn on the light. We also drip the faucets in the house on really cold nights because the house is on blocks, and the PVC plumbing is exposed under the house.
Most people in this area have about the same arrangements, though most well houses are prettier than mine. I will eventually install an automatic temperature switch inside their well house that turns on the light when the temp drops below freezing.

This will work ....UNLESS a severe freeze is accompanied by an extended power outage.
The locals still talk about the ice storm of XXXX? where the power was out for two weeks and everybody's well froze. Our emergency plan is to use a generator to keep the well thawed and the water moving.

Our well is down in the woods at the lower edge of our property. I'm careful to wear a lot of ORANGE when walking around the woody edges of our property during deer season. The shooting still freaks me out, but I'm getting better. It is a fact of life around here, and most of the locals are fairly responsible and experienced hunters. More people are injured riding their 4-Wheelers (which I also hate) than are injured in hunting accidents.

[murray hill farm]

17. Actually, the first pic of the well looks pretty good.

The well that is on my property, I think has been there a long, long time. I have been talking to Rich Mt. Elec. coop to try and get electricity to the pole on the property (which is close to the well) and they told me that the last time there was electricity to the property was in 1992. There is an old rusted out pump on the well that appears to be at least that old. I have the Hardrock well company going out with a generator to check depth of the well and to see even if there is any water there..and if so, to take a sample and have it tested. They are the ones who said that I would need to have good cover on the well...and the woman that I talked to said it was also good to have some sort bucket thingie..ha. It sounds like it is a tube that can be lowered into the well to pull up water in case of electrical outage. Anyway...I am hopeful that I can use the existing well but, if not...I will wait until I build and try to get the well built in or next to the house. I had been really hoping to have a basement, but the folks I have talked to have said that it really is not feasable. I am guessing that it is because of so many springs in the soil..everywhere. And that does fit with what you have said about your house and most being set on blocks. I expect to..eventually, have a very small house built....much smaller than the pictures I have seen of yours. I am thinking 20 by 24 or 26...two stories being basically one room down and one up. It is just me, so that will be plenty of room and easy to heat, etc. I am having an outhouse built when I am out there in October...and am seriously thinking of having only that still when I build...and then just having pipes for gray water, which hopefully I can recycle for garden use. I will definitely have plenty to learn...and am very much looking forward to it. i have noticed that you guys have been having temps there of 105 and 106 for a week...and that was not including the adjusted heat index, which I am sure makes it even hotter. Are you cooked yet? I am hoping for cooler temps in October. By the way, when is hunting season. I may need to stock up on orange clothing.

[bvar22]

19. Hot...hot...Dry....dry....

Hotter and dryer than last year. It has rained once since June, a small thunderstorm that dropped 1.25" on our hilltop. The temps have been 10 degrees hotter than average. Our "pond" is just a small mud puddle now.

The good news is that our well has been 100%. We have been able to water our gardens daily, wash clothes, and bathe without any signs of problems from the well. We even accidently left the water running all night once and flooded the small blueberry patch. The water continues to run cold & clear. We are also installing a rainwater collection system that should gravity feed the garden. We have some of the pieces in place, and should have it operational by next Summer.

The heat has been depressing this year. We are able to work for a couple of hours in the mornings, but are chased inside for the rest of the day. We are running the A/C 24 hours/day. :(
The heat is supposed to break today, and we may get a little needed rain. Everything that we haven't been watering is brown and crunchy. Oddly, when we drive around, the rest of the area looks pretty green and lush.

Our house/cabin is bigger and less efficient than we want or need. The shell was standing here when we arrived, and we have done enough to make it habitable. It is not very efficient, and we are brainstorming ways to close off portions during certain seasons to make it less costly to heat an cool. Our dream cabin is much smaller, and we may build it sometime in the future.

You may want to consider a Composting Toilet. We will eventually do this.

We are looking foreword to you visit in October. :hi:
(Did you notice that I look exactly like Brad Pitt in the photo by the well?) :)

[murray hill farm]

20. Yep....exactly like Brad Pitt...ha!

Actually, my first thought was that you looked about 18 yrs old..hehehe! I wondered if you were younger than my granddaughter, who is 24. Most folks think I am nuts to be heading out to homestead as an old granny. Ha! But...I never listen and continue as always to follow my own callings. This is how I have always been....and most of my friends and family have long ago moved from just thinking I am nuts, to being sure of it. In many ways that satisfies. My grandparents were farmers in Missouri before they moved to Detroit in the 1940s for work...and even when they lived in the city, they always had wondrous gardens..and chickens. I always admired them...although their children and friends all thought they were some eccentric and probably some nuts too. Perhaps I inherited my need to return to the farm from them. So, now.... I am doing it. I have ordered a 9 by 12 shed made by Dirksen, which builds them and delivers them to the property all built and completed and supplied from a company in DeQueen..to be delivered when i am there in October. I expect to live in it when I am there...and then later to use as a chicken house. I was sort of thinking of later putting fencing on each side of it...using one side as a chicken yard and the other as a garden area...and then alternating each side every other year to allow for the chickens to alternately fertilize the side that would be used for the garden the following year. I am not sure this is a practical idea, but it is a thought. I am thinking that if I do this, I should place it on the property so that the yards would have east to west sun exposure..in order to get all day sun...unshaded by the building. What do you think? Would that be too much sun exposure? It looks like your wonderful garden does get all day sun..and certainly your plants are thriving. Exciting times, eh!

[LWolf]

18. I have a well. It's my 2nd.

My current well has a metal cap on it. It looks something like this:



I have a pumphouse, which is essential in my area. We can spend weeks at a time never rising above freezing. Plumbing, to be safe from freezes, has to be sunk 4 feet. Mine, except at the well itself, isn't. I put the well in and attached it to existing plumbing, which is not quite deep enough. When it gets too cold, we leave faucets trickling to keep everything from completely freezing up.

My pumphouse just has the pressure pump. I poured a 6X6' slab, put a little portable building on it, and insulated it. I also have to run a heater in there during the winter. I have one that comes on when temperatures drop below 40 degrees. I'd like to find a more energy efficient heater; it needs to be able to turn on and off as necessary, which is why I have the one I'm using now. The pumphouse and well are a long way from the house to be running back and forth turning the heat on and off.

The well pump itself is underground with the well. It pumps the water to the pumphouse. The pressure tank pumps it into the pipes that run through the property.

My previous well also had a metal cap, a below-ground pump, and an above ground pressure pump. We had a water tank up on a platform built on a concrete slab. The platform was about 20-25 feet high. The pressure pump sat on the slab. It was insulated, as were the pipes, but not in a pumphouse. If the electricity went out, we still had gravity feed for essentials. Winters there had frequent lows in the 20s, some lows in single digits each winter, but days were above freezing.

Edited to add: My well is 475 feet deep. It cost about $13,000 to dig. The pump system was about $5,000. I had to pay excavators, pay to have the slab poured and finished, pay for the portable building, and pay plumbing and electrical contractors to connect everything and get it running. It took about 3 months to schedule all of that and get it done, and cost about $22,000 total by the time I was done.

If I'd had anything left, which I didn't, I would have put in an underground cistern, and a generator. Right now, if the electricity goes out, or the pump goes out, we have no water. I'd love to have an above ground gravity feed tank, but the logistics to keep it from freezing up are challenging. Nobody in this area keeps an above ground tank, and most don't use cisterns, either. You have to blast to dig a hole big enough to put a cistern, since we have a thin layer of soil covering volcanic rock.

Locals who have irrigation water keep underground cisterns. Those of us with wells just pump it directly from the ground.

[newfie11]

21. Over the years we have owned and lived on 8 proprieties that had wells.

had wells. Many different temperature extremes.

From NC, VA, Northern MI, to SD Black Hills (6500 ft elevation), and now NE panhandle. The only time we had a well house was if the holding tank was out side the house. If it is located in the house we we did not have a well house. Most newer places had the holding tank inside the house. The well houses we had were left over from the old days. They are to keep the water from freezing but usually in very cold climates you will need a heat lamp.

The wells (1 was a spring) we had in SD had no well house. The pump was submerged down in the water and the holding tank was in the house. Most of the places we have owned were that way.
Here in Nebraska our well and tank are enclosed in a concrete room buried in the ground. However this is an old farm and I don't think it is done this way today. It is inconvenient to get to the tank if need be. One must take the fitted metal cover off the concrete hole and go down by ladder (about 12 feet) into the room.

You do want to know what the well is pumping per minute, how deep it is and how high the water level is from the bottom.
You also want to know how old the pump is if there is one already in the well.

Talk to the neighbors and see if they remember anything about the well.

[47of74]

22. We have a pump on ours

We have a pump on our well. It's a small pump, maybe two feet high. It has a cement base around it, and we put a decorative windmill over it - but no other covering that I'm aware of. We've used that for years now and it works pretty good. The only thing we've had to do is put a softener in because the water was a bit hard.

[murray hill farm]

23. WELL PROGRESS UPDATE

I got the not so great news..although not unexpected...that the existing well is dead, may it rest in peace. The odd thing is that the pump that was on the well and has not been used since 1992..actually worked when the hooked up the gererator. ha! At least well enough for them to pump water, but only could get about 1 cup an hour...ho hum! Anyway...rough est. for drillng new well and pump, etc. is a little under $4000. I told them to go for it...since I will have to do it...and the price of gas to drill is only going to go up with time. One interesting thing that they told me was that there are not the water tables in Arkansas that one drills to ..as is the traditional way with well drilling, but that it is really pockets of water that runs between the rocks under the ground..and it is these pockets that result in the many springs in Arkansas when they rise to the surface. Interesting, eh? Also the reason, they inform as to why basements are not feasable. Always something new to learn. Pat

[newfie11]

24. You might want to witch it before you drill.

[murray hill farm]

25. Well in!

They had to drill 250 ft most of it through granite...yikes, but got good, cold fresh and good tasting water...so they say...ha! final cost will be about $8000...another yikes, but hey....water is the most important thing. Thanks for all of your advice here. Pat

[LWolf]

26. Glad to hear that you're all set.

My well pump is giving me trouble this summer. Apparently, in order to keep things watered, I'm supposed to run all the hoses, lines, sprinklers, etc., at once, at the same time, because not using enough water makes the pump cycle too often. It shuts down, I have to go out and reset it. Repeatedly. At least the worst of the heat is over, so I can water a lot less.

[pengillian101]

27. Good to hear your well is up and running.

But $8K? Oweeee. That's gotta hurt.

[Dover]

28. Great idea for a pump cover.

I have a friend with a small acreage and a well. She was showing me around and pointed to a
small boulder and said, "And there's the pump". I looked at her puzzled and we walked over to it.
She then lifted the 'boulder' to reveal that it was fake and hollow. It was the cover for her
pump! She had insulated it on the inside (she had sprayed insulation onto the walls of the inside).
Anyway, I just thought that was brilliant. Very accessible, light weight, natural looking, AND it
provided the pump with all the protection it needed.

Her other pump equipment was in a separate place (I can't remember what it's called...maybe a pressure pump?) that held about 30 gallons at a time.
She had built a small shed to protect it and the electrical switches for it, and had a heat lamp in there for the occasional freeze.
I guess they didn't make fake boulders big enough to cover that...:P

[LWolf]

29. I was just trying to envision a fake boulder big enough

for the pressure pump, since that's the only pump I have above ground. :D

The regular pump is below ground with the well. The pressure pump in a tiny little pumphouse; insulated, but needs an electric heater all winter long in this climate.

The heat bulb would probably work about half the time, with more heat needed the other half; I use a heater that automatically turns on when temps inside hit the 30s. Whether I'm home or not, or awake or not. ;)

My pump house is about a football field away from the house.

When we get down close to zero, or below, I also leave faucets dripping.

[Dover]

30. lol! That would be one big fake boulder.

Maybe the thing that was covered by the fake rock was the 'well head'? I can't remember.
It's the place where the well is actually drilled. It was a pipe about 1-1/2feet tall and maybe 2 feet long and 10" wide.
Maybe where you live it gets too cold to have them above ground? That automatic heater sounds like
a brilliant idea too. Have you ever had the electric go out and not been able to get water? How do you get around that problem?

I'm thinking of collecting rain water off my roof so I'll always have a supply of water on hand for whatever.

[LWolf]

31. I have a well head like that. It sits near the pump house.

When the electricity goes out, there is no water. I keep some water in a pitcher in the refrigerator, and some emergency water in the pantry. I keep all the animal troughs full; don't let them get low before refilling. They hold about 5 days of water. The big problem, in the winter, is that the troughs will freeze without their electric heaters.

The longest we've ever done without power is about 6 hours; this summer, caused by an electrical storm. Our power company is "on" things quickly, as is my well-pump repair guy. He installed the pump, and when there is a problem, he's there within a couple of hours. Like the same electrical storm, which not only knocked out the power, but shorted out a part in the pump, so that when the power came back on, the water didn't.

I'd like to have a generator as a back-up system. Many people in my area do. More money, and I'd have to enlarge the pumphouse. It sits right next to the utility pole in the front pasture, so that we didn't have to go far to get power, and would be the logical place for a generator.