Let's Build a House #4, Well Water

So, one of our learnings from this little adventure was about site selection. We have a beautiful view of the White Mountains and a nice wooded lot, but we ended up drilling 800 feet, mostly through granite, before we hit water in our well.

That translated into a much bigger expense than expected. Because the well is so deep, we needed a 30 stage pump to push the water up to the house. Because of the size of the pump and distance to the bottom of the well, the wiring was large gage and heavy. And to add insult to injury (financial), we had to buy 800 feet of 1" galvanized pipe to support the weight of the pump, wire and pipe.

Even then, we had a slow make up rate, but the good news was that the static level of the water came up to about 40 feet below grade so the well actually stored about 1100 gallons of water when full.

A few years later, a company came in to pressurize the well to pop/force open some cracks in the rock to let more water in. They added dry ice and capped the well tight. As the dry ice melted, the pressure quickly rose and did in fact blow open some more cracks and increase the flow of water into the well. A very interesting and effective way to improve well performance.