I have an artesian well, now what?

I bought a home with an artesian well in my front yard. The pressure is solely from the aquifer and it is enough to pour water out of the faucet but not enough to drive an oscillating sprinkler. Any suggestions?

The house itself is on city water, which in southeast Louisiana is relatively inexpensive. I just hate to pass up a FREE water source for irrigation.

You need a pump....

A small low pressure pump would work since all you have to do is increase the pressure to what the sprinklers need.

Even thought the well is artesian, when you start using more than will just fall out of a faucet, the water level in the well will probably drop. You will need to put a pump below the water level that occurs when pulling water from the well. Putting a pump in the well and testing this, is the only way to know how low it will drop.

I say it is a well, but I think it is simply a pipe all the way down to the aquifer (Abita Spring to be specific) with the natural pressure pumping the water up. The underground portion is metal while the above ground turns into PVC for about 12 inches and terminates with a faucet like you would have on the side of the house.

I was hoping for an above ground solution and ideally something small that I could hide. The pipe literally comes out 2 feet in front of my front steps and off to the side a bit. The builder left it as "charm". The house is raised so I could but something small under the house. It would be awesome if it was solar powered - again the FREE aspect of it all. But I am not sure how realistic that is.

If you go to a big box store (or elsewhere) and purchase a shallow well jet pump you can connect the suction side to the well. I would go right to the steel pipe and connect to the inlet of the pump with a piece of black poly pipe or PVC at least as large as the suction of the pump. The pump should prime itself and and start as soon as you plug it in. You should plug the pump into a GFI outlet if it is not permanently installed.

Connect the pump to your watering system, without a shutoff so you don't dead-head the pump, and turn it on.

You can use a shutoff if you don't want the artesian well to flow when not using the pump.

If there is a pressure switch it will probably stay closed when you are using the pump.

If you install a unipn on the inlet side of the pump you can disconnect it and take it inside when the irrigation season ends.

If you want to make it more complicated with tank and gauge and pressure switch hookup you can do that.

A solar power system to run the pump would cost more than it is worth.

Bob NH, thanks that is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.