Starting from Scratch????

evotech

I just had a 650 ft well drilled on my property in Southern California. At 350 feet we hit 4.5 gpm. At 650 feet we picked up an additional 25.5 GPM for a total of 30 GPM.  Please bear with me. I am so new to all of this. My goal is to operate this well on Solar or at least have that option. I am in rural fire country and I will be required to have a 10,000 gallon holding tank. I don't quite understand where the pump would be in the hole. At 350 feet or at 650 feet or something else entirely.  Any ideas of the best way to design a system that would meet the needs of a small household and some light irrigation for fruit trees and landscaping? I figure that my options are going to be different than many others that I have read about on this forum due the large capacity holding tank that I would have. If someone could point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated. 

e12do

Jenkins .01 well pump

e12do

Oops make that Jennings .05

Dave Angelini

If the drought continues you will be forced to go to max depth, right?  You do not want to be at the very bottom of the well to protect the pump. The 10,000 gallon tank is not a problem but you do need to have an idea of how much water you need each day. I have 16,000 gallons of tank and the key is always keeping enough for a wildfire and the guy's who fight it with me.

You also need to do a decent test of the well to see how it recovers from 8 hours of pumping. This is the big mistake that people never test for.

KeithWHare

You also need to understand the static level -- the level of the top of the water in the well. The effort required to pump the water is a function of the vertical distance you are pumping, but the vertical distance starts from the static level, not from the pump level. Of course, the static level isn't necessarily static, which is why Dave recommended doing an eight-hour pumping test.

Another factor is the diameter of the well -- a six inch diameter well will have more water above the pump than a four inch diameter well.

Also consider how quickly you need to fill the 10,000+ gallon tank(s). If you are pumping 10 gallons a minute, it will take 1,000+ minutes, which is at least two, maybe three days on solar.

Anawa

You will need to know the static water level before you can accurately determine your pump needs. Also, the total depth of the drilling (bottom of the well) is important because the pump will be suspended somewhere between the bottom and the top (static water level). Theoretically, the final pump level is set according to how much water volume you will need with the well's recharge rate. All this info should be available on the drilling log as a starting point.

How was the 4.5 and 25.5 gpm determined? The ole fashioned way, 5 gallon bucket and a stop-watch, or another? If these are reasonably accurate flow rates, it provides good info for the well's recharge ability. Your local well driller (familiar with local geological conditions) can help you determine if the 30 gpm flow can be used as an accurate recharge rate. But, as D.A. has advised, accurate recharge rate is critical in finalizing a pumping system.

If you are not experienced in this kind of stuff and looking at this as a DIY project, you will need to learn a whole lot more before making any kind of pumping decision. I would advise you to lean-on your well driller to help in sizing, setting the pump at the proper level, connecting the equipment, and provide future service and maintenance; and, use the resources of this forum to learn about how to configure a solar pumping installation and how/where to obtain the equipment. Of course, this is just my opinion. 

Paul
in Georgia