Pump For Irrigation Well

I just bought a piece of land that has a well on it. There is no pump on it though. It is just a pipe in the ground (1 1/2" I think) and a 1" pipe inside that. I don't know how deep it is but I think it's at least 200'. It looks like the water comes up at least a couple of feet from the top of the small pipe. I would like to use this well for irrigation purposes. I don't know if this is what they call a shallow well or a deep well. I was looking at a shallow well pump that has a 5 gallon tank on it. Its 1 HP, pumps 898 gallons per hour and a suction depth of 26 ft. Maximum lift is 164 ft and a 1" discharge line. This will only be used to water a garden and lawn. Do you think this will work? Any help is appreciated. Thanks
Earl

There is no way to know, that is, without experimenting. You need to know the recovery rate of the well. With a shallow well jet pump as soon as you suck out the first 26 feet of water, if the well doesn't recover, your done. If you can rent or borrow a shallow well jet pump, hook it up, run it wide open and see how long you can pump for without running it dry. If you can pump for 30 minutes or so your in good shape IMO. If you run it dry you will need to cut back the flow rate until you can run it continuously without it running dry. You will then have to decide if the flow rate is reasonable for irrigation. If there isn't enough flow then you have to either go with some sort of cistern setup or abandon the idea of using the well for irrigation.

-rick

Before you hook up any pumps; I would call in a Driller or Pump guy and ask them what they see. They are the only ones in your area who are going to know the depth of the well, the depth to water in this area and the type of hookup it used to be. Anything you do before will probably be simply wasted time and money.

bob...

Thanks Drick and Speedbump for the replies. I think I will get a pump guy out there. Thanks again.
Earl