Good afternoon everybody.
We have spent the last few years working with an engineer to design a new well on our farm so that we can have it licensed as a public water system so we can expand our business and start a small bakery/cheese operation.
A spot was picked for the well, several hundred feet out in the woods to meet all setback requirements we needed for licensing. This is the first well we have ever drilled and our farm previously has run on 2 old dug wells which no longer could support our farm.
They company we hired is reputable and well known around here and they drilled last week. They went down 500 feet and I tried as much as possible to understand the driller when he was here so that I knew what was going on each step of the process. They ended up being here almost a week due to a pump failure and some other small issues. I recall him saying that he was hitting a lot of small rocks. When asking about what depth he hit bedrock at, he replied that he decided to use 80 feet of casing, and grouted it, but for some strange reason they left the casing 4 feet above the ground instead of lower like they are supposed to be. I remember watching the casing get pounded down and it was going in real smooth and then at that last 4 feet it wouldn't go anymore so i am assuming it hit something which is why they left the casing sticking up 4 feet?
They got us set up to pump for 3 days straight and started yesterday (we are supposed to have the water tested on Monday). Water came out orange at first, cleared in an hour and then was a milky color last night. This morning the jar I filled was still milky but it looked like it was starting to settle a bit. I went out and grabbed a second jar to compare and it looked milky like the one from last night.. I went to grab fuel to refill the portable generator and couldn't believe that the milky color coming out was gone and suddenly now it was a dark brown with a bunch of silt. I filled another jar and the stuff inside was so fine that when you swirled it, it looked sort of like oil in water, but eventually it starts settling and the water stays brown.
They are sending someone out this afternoon but I was hoping for some advice so I know what I should and should not ask for. As this is going to be a public water system, we need to make sure everything is done right. I should mention they said we are getting a replenishment rate of 6 GPM, with the pump set to 6GPM, and the height of the water in the well was staying at 60 feet even after the water ran for an hour yesterday. The pump is set down to 475 feet. We had concerns about the 6GPM as we need to run our farm/greenhouses/business off of the one well and we were assured that its a good well with a lot of water.
Any advice would be appreciated.
We have spent the last few years working with an engineer to design a new well on our farm so that we can have it licensed as a public water system so we can expand our business and start a small bakery/cheese operation.
A spot was picked for the well, several hundred feet out in the woods to meet all setback requirements we needed for licensing. This is the first well we have ever drilled and our farm previously has run on 2 old dug wells which no longer could support our farm.
They company we hired is reputable and well known around here and they drilled last week. They went down 500 feet and I tried as much as possible to understand the driller when he was here so that I knew what was going on each step of the process. They ended up being here almost a week due to a pump failure and some other small issues. I recall him saying that he was hitting a lot of small rocks. When asking about what depth he hit bedrock at, he replied that he decided to use 80 feet of casing, and grouted it, but for some strange reason they left the casing 4 feet above the ground instead of lower like they are supposed to be. I remember watching the casing get pounded down and it was going in real smooth and then at that last 4 feet it wouldn't go anymore so i am assuming it hit something which is why they left the casing sticking up 4 feet?
They got us set up to pump for 3 days straight and started yesterday (we are supposed to have the water tested on Monday). Water came out orange at first, cleared in an hour and then was a milky color last night. This morning the jar I filled was still milky but it looked like it was starting to settle a bit. I went out and grabbed a second jar to compare and it looked milky like the one from last night.. I went to grab fuel to refill the portable generator and couldn't believe that the milky color coming out was gone and suddenly now it was a dark brown with a bunch of silt. I filled another jar and the stuff inside was so fine that when you swirled it, it looked sort of like oil in water, but eventually it starts settling and the water stays brown.
They are sending someone out this afternoon but I was hoping for some advice so I know what I should and should not ask for. As this is going to be a public water system, we need to make sure everything is done right. I should mention they said we are getting a replenishment rate of 6 GPM, with the pump set to 6GPM, and the height of the water in the well was staying at 60 feet even after the water ran for an hour yesterday. The pump is set down to 475 feet. We had concerns about the 6GPM as we need to run our farm/greenhouses/business off of the one well and we were assured that its a good well with a lot of water.
Any advice would be appreciated.
