what do you think

[brians]

ok i sarted to dig a hole for a tower and hit gray sand at 2 feet hit water at 3 feet now at 5 feet i hit gravel . if i kept digging do you think this would make a good well?

[rotornuts]

Go get yourself a small pump toss the intake down onto the gravel area and start pumping. If you can pump it dry in short order probably not but if it keeps a comin' maybe so.

the sand and gravel is typically a good medium for ground water but at 5' deep it may just be saturated with spring runoff so you may want to monitor the hole for a year to see if the water persists.

You may want to put a temporary well casing in to prevent pumping a bunch of sand and destroying the pumps impeller. If you have some success with the pump experiment it may be worth drilling deeper to see what's below the sand and gravel.

Mike

[thunderhead]

According to my microbiologist wife, one problem with surface water (as opposed to water from aquifers) is the danger is biological contamination, especially coliform bacteria from your (or your neighbour's) septic tank or livestock.

If this does turn out to be an adequate water supply, you'll want to get it analyzed for coliform bacteria contamination at regular intervals; and her recommendation is a UV steriliser (available from pond suppliers) powered all the time your pump is on, to kill the bugs as you pump the water into your header tank.

[wpowokal]

Depends what season you are in, wells typically are located in the top 18feet, which is faily universal. Surface sands typically extend to around 3-5' then some clay then sand until about 15-18' general well depths. Oh yes there are exceptions.

These wells usually are seasonal, ie by part way through summer they tend to dry up, even at 18' if water is present all year it tends to reduce to some 2-300 gallons per day, it would be an exceptional site that gave water all year at 5'.

Ok I have only been water divining for 30 something years and then only in OZ.

Allan down under