Well controls?

LOL! This thread is way off topic!

BUT, Do you think ground water moves like the tide?

Nope, the moon can't see it!

bob...

Around here we have some wells with recovery rates in the 20-40 gpm range. That's in rock bore wells, which you'd think would flow slower than sand and gravel wells. Some of them are 300-500' deep. So when we look at groundwater movement, who knows how fast or far BUT... a spring is flowing fairly strong, or only 5 gpm, that is groundwater that has breached the surface and has to be replaced from underground, that water is flowing much more than 3' per day or the spring fed stream would stop flowing shortly after midnight....

I think shack's eyes have glazed over but, do you guys know about/understand gaining and losing streams etc.; like flux lines? If not do a google search for flux + groundwater, in a short time you may be asleep!

Gary
Quality Water Associates

The springs you mention Gary are flowing out vertically because of the static level as opposed to the ground level at the spring. Same with flowing wells, but the horizontal movement is said to be (I only heard this and I ain't Goggling it cause it's too boring to listen to any Geologists theory) around 3' per day. And this is in Michigan where most of the wells are screened in sand and gravel aquifers. I don't know about other states and their formations.

I saw a well in Michigan that had 12 lbs of pressure on it at ground level. Uncapped it went pretty high above the pipe before it started back down again. So the static water level above this location was almost 28 feet higher somewhere in that aquifer. I guess this guy lived in a deep hole.

bob...

Gary Slusser said:

I think shack's eyes have glazed over but, do you guys know about/understand gaining and losing streams etc.; like flux lines? If not do a google search for flux + groundwater, in a short time you may be asleep!

Click to expand...

You want to talk about glazed over try this topic in an 8:00 am lecture with a research scientist as a professor. Worse yet, spread flux lines out over six weeks because there is nothing else to cover!

On the flowing well topic, have you ever seen any curves for well production? I have always wondered what the characteristics of these wells are as they are shut off. If they are like their artesian cousins, this curve would be fairly linear.

As for 3’ per day, I don’t know. You would need to know where the waters coming from (h1), where it is heading too (h2), how far it has to go to get there (L), the transitivity of the aquifer (K), and the porosity of the aquifer (η). Oh, you would also have to know Darcy’s law. I guess we’ll just have to accept 3’ as a good rule of thumb?

The flowing wells would produce about as good as the non flowing wells in the same formation. The difference being only the altitude. Since we have a bunch of them here near the coast and other places and they are made in lime rock which can be very porous, I would think you could get about all the pipe would allow to flow.

Then there are all the springs big and small. Homasassa springs flows about (don't quote me) 6 million gallons per day 24/7. This is only one of many many springs. There are two big ones in my immediate area alone that flow a bunch of water as well.

The three foot thing works for me. Although I'm sure it's not just a wild guess on someones part.

bob...

I was thinking about a pump curve looking thing for flowing wells. I would assume that somewhere someone has created such a chart. In fact, I bet there has been many a study on it. I was just hoping for a rule of thumb.

In Montana, there is a spring called “big spring.†This spring flows 40,000 gpm if I remember right. It is a result of the Madison formation breaching the surface. One of the local economic development people (USDA) got involved with a hydrologist who thought that it would be possible to intercept this water with a well drilled into the Madison farther up the hill. The goal was to drill a 10†water well 2600’ deep. We placed a bid on it. 3500 feet and $600,000 later, we ended up finding that the Madison was not very thick where they wanted us to drill. As far as I know the well now makes about 10 gpm. We also hit oil on the way there.

speedbump said:

Homasassa springs flows about (don't quote me) 6 million gallons per day 24/7. bob...

Click to expand...

104 cfs * 7.48gal/cf * 3600s/hr *24 hr/day = 67,212,288 gal/day

I'm going from memory, and this hole in the ground is about 40 to 50 feet in diameter. It forms the Homasassa river which flows out into the Gulf of Mexico. Too bad all that fresh water is going into salt water. I was thinking the flow was in billions of gallons per day, and looking at your math, I believe it is.


Shack, I'de of stopped at the oil vein.

bob...

104 cfs * 449 = 46696 gpm

(46696 gpm) * (60 min/hr) * 24 (hr/day) * 42 (gal/barrel) / 7737463.233 (barrel/day) = 365 day or one year. . . WOW, now that is some weird stuff.

sorry this post was a waste.

Hi all, sorry it took so long to jump back in, but i just closed on the house....I had to go ahead and call a well driller to pull the pump and verify...He found that it was a 1/2 hp and he installed the correct control box...it works perfect! We ran the well hard on and off for 2 days and we cannot run this thing out of water!

I gotta tell you guys that from reading all of this tech knowledge in these 3 pages I highly recommend that if you can afford it call the pro's...The cost was very minimal and the piece of mind is well worth it! I have always been a do it yourselfer and still will be, but in cases like this you should really think about calling the people in the know...I mean, if you think you can consider all the different problems with a well and making it work correctly, then read all 3 pages of this discussion !

I appreciate all the help fellas, but in the end , I know when I am in over my head.........Joe

I am glad it worked out for you.