Artesian Well?

[hydrogeo]

I have a new house site that is 110 feet below (in elevation) an artesian well that discharges 25 gpm of clean drinking water. The well is 1500' from the house site.

In order to avoid the cost of installing a well at the house site I would like to design a system that does not use a pump and the water is delivered to the house. Does anyone have any suggestions that might help me design a system?

thanks!

[Gary Slusser]

If you run 1500' of 1.5-2" PE pipe with a fitting on each end you would have more than enough water but only .433*110=47.63 psi minus the pressure loss in the pipe and fittings. And if a one story house you may be ok but that depends on your peak demand use. If needed you could add a jet pump and pressure tank to boost the pressure.

Don't forget about water treatment equipment for disinfection, hardness and any iron or manganese etc.. For most equipment to backwash or regenerate you will need the pump and tank.

[Bob NH]

There is a lot of benefit to eliminating any mechanical devices. There is also a big saving if you keep the pipe size to only what you need.

I would connect the system to a large bladder tank at the house.

Precharge the bladder tank to the minimum pressure that is satisfactory for your needs. The lower the pressure, the more storage you will get from the tank.

A 1" pipe will give you about 6 GPM at 40 ft of head loss in 1500 ft. That will give you 30 psi at the end of the pipe.

If you put in an 80 gallon tank you will get about 30 gallons of drawdown before the flow drops to 6 GPM with about 30 psi delivered pressure.

If you want more precision you should figure out your minimum pressure and total flow requirement for 5, 10, 20, 40, and 60 minutes.

The system will fill the tank to the static pressure. The tank will then give you immediate high flow, just as if you have a pump.

As the pressure drops the pipe will supply additional water so the available water is greater than the volume stored in the tank.

When you stop using water the pressure will be restored to the static pressure (47 psi).

If you want more pressure you can add a small booster pump with a pressure switch. In most cases the water will flow through without the pump running. If the pressure drops below the switch setting the pump will run.

You could try it without the pump and add the puump if it doesn't meet your needs.