Low Yield Well - What to do?

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Low Yield Well - What to do?

8/8/2018

So we recently had a new well drilled on the homestead we are building from scratch and despite going down 680', we are only yielding about 1/2 gallon per minute. Ideally a well should get 5 gallons per minute or more so we are not anywhere close to what we really want, or need for that matter. So now what?

This leaves us with a couple of options.

Over the course of the weekend the water in the well filled up to 15' below the surface. At a depth of 680', thats about 900 or so gallons of water (1.5 gallons per foot in a 6" diameter hole). That is a lot of water! We could just leave it as is and use what is there. This would require buying a very large expensive pump because it would have to go so far down and it would also need a larger, more expensive wire. But it would be doable. However, with a lot of animals and a small homestead farm we would run the risk of running the well temporarily dry, especially if there were to be a leak anywhere causing the water to run.
We could have the well hydro-fracked (also called hydro-fracturing). This sounds ominous...after all we all know how bad fracking for oil and gas is! However it is not the same and this difference is very important to understand (I will explain the difference later). Basically a 'bladder' is placed in the well 50' below the well head. This seals the well up. Ours would go 70' down. Then water is pumped into the well to build up pressure until the existing cracks enlarge or, basically fracture, allowing more water to flow. The pressure can go as high as 3,500 psi (pounds per square inch), however on average it only reaches about 1,000 psi. This method works 98% of the time.

We have a difficult decision to make here because drilling the well was a very expensive endeavor and whether we choose to hydro-frack or work with what we have we are looking at several thousand dollars more.

Here is a video we made about the process so far:

And our decision....

Thanks for visiting!
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Sincerely,

6 Comments

Mesawellservice.com link

2/1/2022 11:05:05 pm

Very well explained! It's important to have your well drilled and all water systems installed by a professional to ensure that your system works properly now and in the future.

Low Yield Well link

3/15/2022 04:41:21 am

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I was having this done at my house and had no idea what was going on until I read this article!

LAUREN GIL link

3/24/2022 11:34:19 pm

That is excellent news in regard to obtaining a good flow. Thanks for the nice explanation!

Jacob Brown link

8/1/2022 05:21:22 am

Thank you for your thorough explanation. I agree that having your well drilled and all water systems installed by a professional is critical to ensuring that your system works properly.

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12/27/2022 08:58:20 pm

Understanding peak demand is necessary to deal with low-yielding wells. 1,440 gallons of water may still be produced daily by a well that only produces 1 GPM. However, the amount of water used in a home or farm varies during the day. There are periods when water demand is at its highest, usually in the morning and/or evening. These moments of highest demand often span between 30 minutes and two hours. A sufficient water supply must be able to meet peak demand for at least two hours.

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6/1/2023 08:32:23 pm

Any well that provides water more slowly than is necessary is referred to as a low-yield well, often known as a slow well. Due to the fact that each well has a particular function, there is no universal definition of what a well must produce (one quart per minute, one gallon per minute, etc.) to be classified as low-yielding. The definition of a low-yield well can vary depending on the size of the household because a family of 6 would have different water demands than a family of 2.

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Low Yield Well - What to do?

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