Water quality/availability

[Erin]

Who has gone through some trouble to get water on their little spot of heaven?


We're currently looking at buying 40 acres of nothin'.  Literally.
Forty acres of Kansas grass.  No trees, structures or even water supply. 
It's located in what's known locally as the Arikaree Breaks and is a really rugged, pretty corner, despite the lack of trees. 

However, this area is infamous for being short on water.  And when you do hit it it's often alkalai and needs an osmosis system. 
On the bright side, there are about a half dozen homes within a two mile radius.  Which makes me think water is possible. 

(Yes, we would write a contingency into the contract dependant upon water, were we to buy).



I'm just wondering what lengths others have gone to to ensure water. 

--Erin

[Redoverfarm]

Erin first off I know nothing about the water table in the mid-west.  Others can probably advise you on that.  But have you talked to the neighbors to-be and asked them what kind of water they have and the depth that they had to go to obtain it.  An old well driller once told me that there is water everywhere under the surface and it is up to you whether you have the money to find it.  A good example in the east I just drilled a well on a ridge top and managed to hit water at 190'. A friend of mine within eyesight also drilled. His property is on a knoll where mine was a continuing ridge from a higher elevation. He had to drill 740' to get water. Go figure.

You might try calling some local drill companies and give them the general area and ask them.  They can probably give you a ball park figure.

My area is prone to sulphur/iron and sometimes intermediate streams are hit which contain rather bad water.  These can be addressed by a sleeve and continued drilling to better water.  I have a hard time excepting this as this county is the mountains is called the "birthplace of rivers" as there are 7 rivers that originate here and when you go to drill wells the water is few and far between.  Alot of the times the water from these rivers is beter quality than the water in the wells. I guess springs contribute.

If I am not mistaken I think Glenn might have some experience in this field as soon as he gets home, eats his rudabagas and ice cream he will probably pick up on your post.

[Erin]

Actually, we're over the Ogallala aquifer here.  (Western KS, all of NE, western OK, TX panhandle)  However, right in the NW corner of KS, it's pretty spotty.
No, I know how much it costs.  (I long ago talked to the local driller) For that matter, I've spoken to a couple of the people who live in the immediate area which is how I know what quality is like.
I know what to do for us...  If we decide to go for it, we're going to have to just go out and try to drill.  If it comes up emtpy, the sale doesn't go through.  that simple. 


I'm just curious what others have had to go through. 

Having spent my entire life with readily-accessible water, the very idea that you can't just poke a hole anywhere and put in your pressure tank baffles me.  lol

[Redoverfarm]

Well Erin I have drilled two wells where I live. The first had plenty of water for about the first 10 years. Then all of a sudden it slowly depleted.  I can only speculate that either the water table dropped or the vein was subject to a cave-in. So I drilled another about 2-3 years ago. It was a guessing game whether to drill deeper in the same well or move to another location.  Well I moved to another location near the base of a hillside rather than in the flats. About 100 feet from the original.  After two days of drilling I was starting to get worried. Then at 393' I hit water.  Twice the well of the previous. 50-60gpm with good hydrollic pressure which cam up into the casing within 32 feet of the top. 

I have always heard that the average 4 person family uses on average 300 gallons a day.  Even if you can't get that many GPM's a storage tank will be able to meet your needs with a well producing less than 10gpm.  You might think of the stipulation regarding the purchase of a minimum GPM or you might run into "well I guarantee water and it is there" with 5-10 gallons per hour.

[ScottA]

Wells are a crap shoot at best. You may get lucky you may not. I bought a property about 12 years ago that had 2 wells on it. One was 190' and produced about 10 gallons per hour of very good quality water. The second was 300' deep and produced about 20 gallons per hour of sulfer water. We bought the property in October and everything was fine till the following August when the 190' well dried up and the 300' well went down to 10 gallons per hour. We had a 1000 gallon storage tank and even with that we would run out of water at times during dry weather. The storage tank didn't refill until October. I ended up paying $7000 to run a 2" water line 1 1/2 miles to a rural water main. And then only after threatening to sue the water district because they tried to keep me from tying on to their main. There where 3 other houses between me and the rural water line that also had poor wells. Not one of those people was willing to pay a dime to help pay for the water line I had to run along the county road. I sold the house 3 years later. I recently found out that all 3 of those other houses are now connected to the line I paid to run couresy of the rural water district that almost had to sue.

[Erin]

Boy guys, that's a good point.

Even where there is water there's no guarantee it's going to continue to be available. 

[peternap]

I've been lucky. Every piece of property I own has a creek or river and usable springs that never dry up.

If my wells dry up, I always have water to tap into. Remember, potable water is a very small percentage of what you use.

[glenn kangiser]

I drilled for 10 years - we did about 300 wells all together.

All of the above are good things to think about.  Our property already had a well that produced 1 gallon per minute.  With drip irrigation, a pump saver device and a pump timer we are able to get plenty of water for all of out needs.  We pump to a  storage tank about 80 feet elevation above us then gravity back to the house through the same line.  It works fine.

We bought the property thinking that it produced 1/2 gpm and that was OK with me.  I tested it at 1 gpm over a 5 minute recovery time.

We also have a spring down the mountain - minimum 1/2 gpm in the summer - hasn't quit in the semi drought conditions we are having.

[desdawg]

Here in AZ when a well driller completes a well they file a Drillers Report with the state. ADEQ keeps a database of all of these reports and actually it is available on the internet. Perhaps Kansas has a similar policy? I can go in and look up drilling records for a specific area (down to a section of land) within the state and have some idea what results other people have had. That is still no guarantee of what you will find on your site but it does give you a general idea of successes and depth to water, gpm produced, etc.
One of the questions I had to answer on every septic permit application was depth to ground water. We used those reports to give as good an answer as we could come up with.

[glenn kangiser]

California Drillers reports are confidential information, due to the fact that it may give another driller unfair advantage off of others work and is not really representative of conditions in any other well -- but gives a good idea.  It is kind of treated as intellectual property.  Being a driller - I am for that.  It is available to the driller - the state and the owner.

[MountainDon]

NM has records available online as well but it's not the easiest site to navigate unless you know the permit numbers. Sort of a half a$$ed system, as goes much of the state govmint.

[Erin]

ADEQ keeps a database of all of these reports and actually it is available on the internet.

By Jove, desdawg, that's the best tip I've ever gotten!

http://www.kgs.ku.edu/Magellan/WaterWell/index.html
Depth, who owns it, gpms, location, date drilled, and purpose.  what else do you need?? 

Question though:  What's considered the minimum gpms without having to do storage or other less common adjustments?

[desdawg]

Erin, I am glad that helped. That is what is nice about a forum like this. You can toss out a question and draw from a multitude of experiences to seek your answer. I hope you can learn what you need to to make your real estate transaction a success! 

[glenn kangiser]

Erin, a good average house pump could be sized at 5 to 10 gallons per minute.  A well producing more than that could be desirable, but not absolutely necessary.  Setting a pump deep in a low production well could give you a lot of capacity for drawdown above the pump so you may still never have to do anything special, but in the case of a pump that is capable of pumping at a capacity greater than the well can produce, I would at least put a safety shutdown device on the pump to keep from burning it out.  It will time the shutdown and restart after a specified period of time.  Most sense the lighter load on the pump as the well is pumped dry.

Your pump person should be able to give you test information on the well to the exact capacity per foot of drawdown and 5 minute recovery rate to tell you how big a pump you can use - or a good rough guess from the driller if he is an honest knowledgeable driller.  There would likely be a charge for the testing as it does take a bit of work.