Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Water Well Refurbishing

Ok all, I have been thinking quit a bit and looking into another project but uncertain if it is obtainable. I am hoping someone much smarter than I can assist me.

Back ground info:
What I have is a water well that was hand dug many, many, a moon ago by my grandfather, 1945-1950 era. The well casing is galvanised steel and has an ID of 1.50" and the tubing is 3/4" galvanized steel. The well was utilized, back then, with an above ground pump with a galvanized line running into a water trough for the cattle & horses. When he retired and sold off the cattle and horses, the well was abandoned.

Since then, I removed the steel tubing and utilizing what was available in my shed, I ran a steel weight on my open face and dropped it in the well. Water level is at 24' and the well total depth is 48'. I replaced the steel tubing with 3/4" PVC and a new foot valve. The foot valve is at 40' from surface and have about 2.5' stick up above ground. I worked the tubing up & down by hand and she produces water with each stroke. So far so good......I think...

As of today, in concern of the pond, I had all trees cleared out except the cypress, a u shaped levee facing the watershed, had a 65k # sheep’s foot to compact the clay loam soil into a levee as it was built, purchased a diffuser aeration system from Ted Lea, (Great guy, great product, good people there)which is 3 - 2 diffuser stations connected to a 5 station manifold system. I will have a 1.25" underground trunk line running from the pump to the manifold.

With that said, my little simple mind is thinking I can tee off of the trunk line near the pump and run a 1.25" trunk line 200' to my refurbished water well. Once the air line is at the well, I can seal off the casing from the tubing at surface, tie in the air line to the casing side of the well by drilling a hole, (with a regulator to control air flow) apply air to the casing side and force water through the foot valve, up the tubing and have the flow gravity feed to the pond.

Questions that are floating in my head is, 1.) Will this work? 2.) How many gpm can I expect to get out of a 3/4" tubing? 3.) How do you calculate how much pressure it would require to move 8.33 ppg water up 24'from the present water level to surface?

If this will work efficiently, then I will have to identify how much the water aquifer will be able to supply in a given time. I am assuming that the small volume I will be removing will not affect the recovery of the water aquifer. Also will have to identify the collapse pressure of the 3/4" PVC not to collapse during maximum flow pressure inside the casing.

Any help, thoughts or comments are welcomed. My beautiful and precious wife says I have to much time on my hands but can never find the time to complete all the projects I have running. Go figure.

I did get the information on the pvc maximum operating / collapse pressure.....according to the information, I am well within limits.

I added the link and info just in case someone else may be interested.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/cpvc-pipes-pressures-d_240.html


CPVC
Nominal Pipe Size
(inches)
Collapse Pressure Maximum Operating Pressure
Schedule 40 Schedule 80 Schedule 40 Schedule 80
1/2 1605 2006 590 850
3/4 1219 1740 480 690
1 948 1628 450 630
1 1/4 511 1399 365 520
1 1/2 366 1034 330 470
2 213 653 275 400
2 1/2 276 758 300 420
3 179 521 260 370
4 108 334 220 320
6 54 214 180 280
8 37 146 160 250
10 27 125 140 230
12 22 116 130 230

I have an old well with broken handle pump that sounds similar to yours on my small farm that probably was used at one time to water farm animals. Years ago I remember trying to drop a line down it to see where the water level was but couldn't because of some obstruction. I think I will try it again after reading your post.

John,
Is there tubing inside the well or is it just the casing? For my shallow well, I was able to pull the tubing out by hand but used a monkey wrench to fit around the tubing for support against the top of the casing while I grabbed another hold just above the wrench. Also if the well does have some depth and the tubing is steel, you could use the pipe wrench as a gripping force and pull up using its leverage but may need a second pipe wrench to hold the tubing up just above the casing. Just a thought.

You'll need 10.4+ psi to overcome 24' of head. That doesn't account for any frictional losses or the resistance of the foot valve either.

The real problem is that you're talking about pressurizing your entire aquifer with a 1.25" low pressure line. If the aquifer were like a sealed container, this would theoretically work. Unfortunately I don't think you can consider the aquifer "sealed". I think the water will move laterally underground as you try to increase the pressure. A relatively inexpensive way to check would be to pipe in a small compressor and see what happens.

Running an airline will push the water up because when I had a well drilled , that's how the driller tested the gpm rate. But he was using a huge pump on the back of the rig. Not sure how much air you would need. At least 10.4 psi like Manris said but not sure how much air(cfm).Concept is no different than a small aquarium filter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airlift_pump

Manis,
Thanks so much for the insight. I follow you on the 10.4 psi of hydrastic head that will have to be moved ( 24' x .052 x 8.33 ppg )to achieve flow. The frictional loss for 3/4" PVC ( as per "Hazen-Williams Equation) is 1 gpm = 0.3 per 100', 2 gpm = 1.0 p/100', 3 gpm = 3.5 p/100', 4 gpm = 5.3 p/100' and above 5 gpm is to proceed with caution all the way up to 20 gpm. I never thought of the frictional loss of the pipe due to the short footage of 24' but now see that was a mistake that should have been taken into consideration. (Thanks).

Jason,
I read up on the link you have listed and found the the perforation or screens must be double of the water height which under my assumption that the screens are at the bottom of the casing is 48', I should be ok in that aspect. As Manis correctly stated above, I would be charging or pressuring up against the aquifer when applying the casing pressure. I guess my question, without testing at this point, would the volume of the aquifier have enough volume to substain the 10.4 psi hysrastic of water table level of 24' + applied pressure of 10.4 psi + the frictional head pressure loss of .3 @ 1 gpm without lateral movement?

If this theory of flow cannot be achieved with the air method, then I guess another alternative method would have to be above ground suction pump. Having the first option succeeding would remove the cost of the second method which was my ultimate goal.....saving those sweet green backs that are so hard to come by....

I am not in the position at the moment to give it a test as Manris suggested but will make an attempt at it in a couple of weeks.

Thanks once again Manris & Jason for your time and thoughts.
Couppe

Coup the pipe is just casing. The well is no where near my pond so it would be useless but I was curious how far down it was to ground water. I tried probing down it again and the pipe is plugged up good. In the spring I may cut the pipe off to just above the ground and try again.

John

John,
I was just thinking, if the obstruction is mud or simular material, you may be able to run PVC tubing open ended and drive it into the obstruction with just hand motion, once unable to gain additional footage, pull the tubing out, clean out the obstruction and continue again.

Im not sure of your area or sources around the well but you may also be able to get you a water hose connection for the PVC,connect it to the PVC, turn on the water and flush it out of the end of the PVC. Then you can run it into the well and as your reach the obstruction, you may be able to wash down through the obstruction working your PVC up and down slowely.

Just a thought.

Coupe