Winnipesaukee Forum - View Single Post - Dug Well-Buying Concern

jmen24 · 03-29-2011, 08:41 AM

CateP,
DickR and Skibum are giving great advise and definitions.

The one thing I would caution against is using the depth of neighboring wells as an idea of how deep a drilled well on your property would be. As DickR said its not always a good source of reference.

A client of ours hired us to build a new house on the lot they purchased next door to the house they currently owned. Current house had a drilled well that was 260ft deep and 14GPM in water flow. Entered into a contract to build the house and carried the minimum cost in the well drilling allowance based on the quote of the drilling company. At 800 feet or so, the drilling company had to hydrofrag as the vein was showing less than 2GPM, after the frag it pulled about 9GPM. That resulted in a 7K change order, based on an assumption that the owner hated, but took responsibility for.

If you get good water from a dug well and you keep up on your testing, you should have years of good service. I would not spend the money to fix something on the "possibility" that it could dry up. Both styles have fail points that will leave you water less. Spend the money when you need to as you cannot predict the future. Granted, changing a pump failure will get you going faster than having to drill a new well, but we are not talking months of downtime. To many drilling company options for that to happen.

One option to counter not having enough flow for basics is to install a large storage tank for holding a reserve of water for these activities. One home we built on the top of a hill has a 1000gal storage tank. The refresh rate from the well is slow, but with 5 baths they have no issues, because they have the water on stand by. I would doubt that you would have that type of water flow issue, but just wanted you to be aware of less expensive options.

03-29-2011, 08:41 AM	#23
jmen24 Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 1,139 Thanks: 223 Thanked 319 Times in 181 Posts	CateP, DickR and Skibum are giving great advise and definitions. The one thing I would caution against is using the depth of neighboring wells as an idea of how deep a drilled well on your property would be. As DickR said its not always a good source of reference. A client of ours hired us to build a new house on the lot they purchased next door to the house they currently owned. Current house had a drilled well that was 260ft deep and 14GPM in water flow. Entered into a contract to build the house and carried the minimum cost in the well drilling allowance based on the quote of the drilling company. At 800 feet or so, the drilling company had to hydrofrag as the vein was showing less than 2GPM, after the frag it pulled about 9GPM. That resulted in a 7K change order, based on an assumption that the owner hated, but took responsibility for. If you get good water from a dug well and you keep up on your testing, you should have years of good service. I would not spend the money to fix something on the "possibility" that it could dry up. Both styles have fail points that will leave you water less. Spend the money when you need to as you cannot predict the future. Granted, changing a pump failure will get you going faster than having to drill a new well, but we are not talking months of downtime. To many drilling company options for that to happen. One option to counter not having enough flow for basics is to install a large storage tank for holding a reserve of water for these activities. One home we built on the top of a hill has a 1000gal storage tank. The refresh rate from the well is slow, but with 5 baths they have no issues, because they have the water on stand by. I would doubt that you would have that type of water flow issue, but just wanted you to be aware of less expensive options.