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Living Water Systems Inc |
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With more than 30-years of experience, we have the expertise and experience needed to make your well drilling and construction, and hydraulic fracturing a success. Mountain well drilling can be complex and our expertise can insure you get the maximum performance at the best cost meeting your needs
The Mountain Ground Well Environment
The water that supplies mountain homes comes from natural fractures in the Igneous and Metamorphic rocks that make up the Rocky Mountains. These rocks are very hard and brittle, and must be drilled with an air percussion machine (hammer).
Areas that are made up of predominately Metamorphic rocks are not highly fractured. These fissures can be small. Thus the bore hole will have a low yield unless many fissures are connected by the bore or other means to generate higher yield are taken.
Some subsurface fracture systems are interconnected like a spider web. Some fractures are not interconnected, and stand alone as a potential water reservoir. Water recharge to fractures is from the ground surface down. Rain and snow recharge the fracture system in the normal seasonal patterns.
Sometimes shallow fractures, i.e., 100 to 200 feet, yield water at higher rates during the spring and summer months and then dry up in the winter months due to the frozen ground conditions, and snow and ice not melting.
Areas that are predominately made up of Igneous rocks (Granites) are brittle and highly fractured. Many of these fracture systems are interconnected and have better water reservoir characteristics.
Ground water can actually move between the interconnected features and maintain a constant recharge.
Designing a Water Well for Your Home and Family
It is not uncommon in the mountains to find wells with a 1/2 gallon-per-minute recovery rate. This means that the fracture is only large enough to allow water to enter the well bore at the rate of 1/2 gallon-per-minute. At this recovery rate, the well has the capacity to produce only 720 gallons of water to the well bore every 24 hours (0.5 gallons x 1440 minutes in a 24 hour period). The well bore, at 6-inches in diameter, has a maximum storage capacity of about 1.5 gallons per lineal foot. Taking into account the drill bit wearing down, the installation of a PVC plastic casing, the 1-inch drop pipe to the the well pump, and the submersible cable, the actual amount is about 1.3 gallons per linear foot.
Nature allows water to fill the bore hole from the bottom to the top. The water level will stop that the seasonal static water level. This static level can be 20, 50, or even 100 feet from the surface. Using the well's depth from the static level to the pump entry point, the storage volume can be calculated. Thus a 250 foot deep well with a static water level 50 feet from the surface would contain about 200 feet of water, or about 260 gallons. If this 250 foot deep well is pumped dry, and has a recovery rate of 1/2 gallon per minute, it will take 520 minutes, or 8.66 hours to refill to total capacity
A well with this kind of capacity will probably give a family of 4 people trouble with water availability on a busy day of usage. Such as well should be drilled deeper to increase the bore hole storage capacity and intersect more fractures to increase the recovery rate.
Obtaining a 1,2,3, or 5 gallon-per-minute recovery rate for your well is possible. How about 350, 400, 550, or even 700 gallons of water storage in the well bore? These will be better wells, but will raise the cost.
We recommend you call or e-mail us to discuss budget figures and your needs before making a decision. Wells cost from $6,000 to $20,000 to construct depending on well depth. A little forethought and design from our experts can make your well a much greater water producer at the optimum cost.
Permits
You will need a permit. For more information on this, visit our information page about the permitting process.
Living Water Systems Inc
PO Box 469
Pine, Colorado 80470
Bonded and Insured, Experience in 11 states
303-674-4048
Toll Free 1-800-750-5077
FAX 303-838-6015
livwatinc@aol.com
