Well Flow Rate

Do you know your well flow rate? It is easy to check how much water your well is producing. If you know how much water your well is producing you can better regulate your water use and not run out.

Approximately 20 million homes have their own water supply from residential water wells on their property. These private wells are of several different types; hand dug shallow wells, deep drilled wells, and shallow pointer wells. The best wells in terms of water quality are drilled wells, often referred to as an artesian well although very few drilled wells are artesian. An artesian well is a type of well where the water freely flows to the top without any assistance. In the New England area we often find artesian wells, approximately 10 percent of the deep drilled wells are real artesian wells.

A residential water well is essential when building a home that is not on a public water supply system. Just because you install a well doesn’t guarantee that you will get sufficient water from the well, if any at all. As most of New England is rural there are thousands of drilled wells and about fifty percent of them are marginal in terms of the quantity and quality of water they produce. By law the well digger must provide you with a certificate that states the well depth and flow rate and the well is registered with the state’s natural resources department. In fact the specific well location by GPS coordinates are part of the registration. Although the well may produce adequate water at the time the well was drilled, the well flow rate will change over time and from season to season. Things that can change the well flow rate are dry and wet seasons, earthquake activity (minor or major) and drilling wells in the nearby area.

My neighbors well went dry during a prolong dry season. I asked him what the depth and production rate of his well was. He knew the depth and believed the production rate was five gallons a minute. I suggested that we check it. The well was installed long before there were state requirements of certification and registration of wells. As many homeowners, he had no idea how to do this except to call a plumber or well digging service company. Of course they do not provide such services free. One company wanted $300.00 to evaluate his well. Here is a very easy DIY project that can be performed by most homeowners.

How to check the well flow rate of a drilled well:

Remove the cap from the well.
Fabricate a float on a string to lower into the well. I use a small plastic bottle that is half full of water.
Lower the bottle to the water static level of the well.
Open a spigot to drain water from the water tank.
Listen carefully for the well pump to come on and allow the string to drop into the well as the water level goes down.
The instant the pump turns off close the spigot, note the time, and mark the string.
The plastic bottle (float) will rise as the well refills.
After one minute, measure the length of string (in feet) that rose as the well refilled.
Multiply the number of feet the string rose by 1.5 to determine the well production capacity in gallons per minute.
If the string rose 6 feet then the production capacity would be 6 X 1.5 = 9 gallons per minute.

There are several variations of this process that may be used as long as you end up with the total rise of water in the well in minutes multiplied by 1.5. As most drilled wells are six inches in diameter, a one foot length of the six inch pipe will contain 1.5 gallons.

That is all there is to it.

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