Well or Artesian Spring

[Rick]

We've established that a good many have an outhouse. I was wondering how many have a well or an Artesian spring? I'm not talking about a well with an electric pump but a shallow well that you hand draw water from. My grandfather had one that was probably 20 feet down to the water and you lowered (never drop! if you wanted to see another day) the bucket into the well. He would often keep his milk down there in the summer to keep it cool.

[Camp10]

Here at the house, I have a spring that flows behind my house to the pond across the road. About 10 years ago I had it tested and it was fine then. I would still most likely boil it but it is a very good supply. Up at camp, the digger truck followed me there once (back when we were allowed to sign out equipment) and I dug a 15' deep hole and used a plastic culvert as a "well liner". It is a pretty reliable supply but it will drop very low mid August and stay like that until the rain starts in fall.

[Pal334]

Upstate NY where I grew up, most in our area had springs. Water was channeled to a spring house. Most were about 5 ft deep and as I recall 4 feet on each side. I can still recall how good that ice cold water tasted.

[LowKey]

Camp10, I bet it gets better once the leaves drop from the trees. I have that here. There's one in the cellar here. It's called the sump pit.
Should get it tested. It's clear and cold. The plumber seems to think the pit is just deep enough to have hit an artesian spring.
It does stop from June to September though. Comes back as soon as the leaves start to drop, when the trees aren't depleting the water table.

[Camp10]

Camp10, I bet it gets better once the leaves drop from the trees. I have that here. There's one in the cellar here. It's called the sump pit.
Should get it tested. It's clear and cold. The plumber seems to think the pit is just deep enough to have hit an artesian spring.
It does stop from June to September though. Comes back as soon as the leaves start to drop, when the trees aren't depleting the water table.

That would be about the right time frame for when it comes back but it is in the middle of a clearing.

[your_comforting_company]

There are so many springs around here that I hadn't given it much thought.

I have no problem at all drinking water straight from the springs. Done it all my life and had no ill effects.

Also, the water table is so high around here you don't have to dig very far at all to reach water. A few feet down any hole you dig will start filling with water. NOBODY around here has a basement.

[hunter63]

I have a "spring" in my lower field.
Looking at it it runs parellel to the river, so it might be an under ground flow (seep?) from the river, as the is a curve, then this spring pops up about 100 yards away and drain back into the river about a 1/2 mile away.

We did pound a "sand point" 50 yds up hill and to the side, hit water at about 12 ft, but went down past to hard pan at 21".

Well up hill is 185 ft with pump etc.

[randyt]

I have a 100 foot well for the house . I plan on dropping a drop pipe, sucker rod and well cylinder down it alongside the submersible pump drop pipe. then I'll install a handpump at the well head. That way I'll have water, power or not. Down by my cabin I plan on driving a point, have all the goodies just need to get some gumption.

My cabin in kentucky had running water, it worked like this. If I needed water I grabbed a bucket and run down to the spring to get some. I liked it, low tech and not much to go wrong.

[kyratshooter]

I have a 100 foot well for the house . I plan on dropping a drop pipe, sucker rod and well cylinder down it alongside the submersible pump drop pipe. then I'll install a handpump at the well head. That way I'll have water, power or not. Down by my cabin I plan on driving a point, have all the goodies just need to get some gumption.

My cabin in kentucky had running water, it worked like this. If I needed water I grabbed a bucket and run down to the spring to get some. I liked it, low tech and not much to go wrong.

My place in TN has a similar setup except that I use a sump pump to get the water from the spring up to the gravity feed tanks at the house.

[randyt]

My place in TN has a similar setup except that I use a sump pump to get the water from the spring up to the gravity feed tanks at the house.

sounds like a good setup. My cabin in ky didn't have electricity so the path was necessary lol. At the hunting camp in upper mi we have a driven well. From this well we fill some raised tanks with a small gasoline powered pump. the raised tanks supply the cabin. The water supply in the cabin has a RV on demand pump that is hooked to a 12 volt car battery that we charge up with a generator now and then. it works good.

[Rick]

KY - Is the sump pump on a switch in the cabin? How high does the sump have to pump water? How large are the holding tanks? That does sound like a neat setup. I'm just trying to understand how it operates.

[randyt]

I'm not speaking for KRAT but that is interesting. I wonder if a fella could put a float in the tanks and when the tanks were about 1/4 full the float would turn on the sump pump and then turn off when full.

[Rick]

Ooh. I do like that. Sure, just take the float off the sump and put it in the tank. No reason that shouldn't work.

[randyt]

would really need to get a reverse acting float. a conventional sump pump float turns the pump on when the float is in a elevated position and then shuts off when it is in a lower position. either a float that works the opposite of that or perhaps a relay with a conventional float. a little brain storming is all that's needed.

[kyratshooter]

My set up was very simple.

I have a strong spring that only went dry once in three years. When it did I got in there and dug a deep catch basin in the blue clay base. I set two concrete blocks in the basin. The spring surfaced in this blue clay depression that is about two feet deep and 20 feet in diameter. When flowing it is a true artisian spring that spurts into the air a couple of feet under preasure from the aquifer. It is very impressive.

When I needed to fill my holding tanks I took the pump down to the spring, set it on the blocks and turned it on. I had a 100 ft garden hose running up to the tanks, which were two 55 gal plastic barrels set in a rack 8 ft high. I was in the process of changing to a 200 gallon tank up the hill for better gravity flow. I also had a 20 gallon tank under the kitchen cabinet for cold weather use.

I had a 12v rv pump assisting the gravity flow inside. 200 amp hour marine deepcycle battery on solar charger for pump power on the internals.

I did not have electric for the first two years and worked off generator for power tools and such and 12v for daily lighting.

The county was going to charge me $5,000 to run power to my place, when lines ran right across my property. I refused to fall for their fraud. When they realized I was not going to pay $5,000 for what I could do with a $1,000 generator they finally caved.

I actually used the green movement against them. The electric co. tried to convince the zoning board that without elec I was unfit for habitation. I showed that my place was fully wired up to codes and running on "alternative energy".

[pete lynch]

My great-grandma had a hand pump at her kitchen sink. (And heated their farmhouse with coal.)

I have thought about hiking back to the source springs of the dozens of mill-ponds in my area; an old fellow I know says some gush out of the ground like a fountain.

[kyratshooter]

would really need to get a reverse acting float. a conventional sump pump float turns the pump on when the float is in a elevated position and then shuts off when it is in a lower position. either a float that works the opposite of that or perhaps a relay with a conventional float. a little brain storming is all that's needed.

Back about 100 years ago my Dad installed running water in an old farmhouse we lived in. The spring was down in a "Hollow" and I do mean hidden. He killed some of the biggist rattlesnakes I ever saw while installing that pump. He was 6' tall and killed two that were long enough that he had to hold them over his head to clear the ground.

Anyway, the hollow was so protected it never froze down there. Dad put the pump and preasure tank down at the spring source. He made a concrete catch basin, pumped into the preasure tank and directly up the hill into the house. I remember he had a neighbor come over with his mule and plow to make the ditch for burying the pipe from bottom of the hollow to the house. It was all quite impressive for a 6 year old.

Thing I am trying to say is that if you put the pump/preasure tank system at the source you can eliminate some of the complication. Use a standard preasure switch on the system and an automatic shut off in case the catch basin goes dry.

[randyt]

KY, that's a good plan, we do the same with artesian wells.

[your_comforting_company]

Couldn't a water-wheel (or some other device) be set up at the stream head that would run a mechanical pump up into the basin? It would be a perpetual machine as long as the spring didn't run dry. Just trying to stay away from electric sumps, etc.

[randyt]

most of the springs I've dealt with were small flows. the size of a pencil give or take. I'm not sure if that would be enough to power a wheel, it don't seem like it.

[Rick]

We have a community spring just south of our house a couple of miles. They've built a spring house and the water is tested monthly. Folks come from all around to fill up water jugs. Frankly, I have no idea what drives the water pressure because it's pretty flat all around there. There are a couple of weeps just a few blocks from us in the middle of a corn field. The ground stays wet except in the hottest part of August.

[your_comforting_company]

most of the springs I've dealt with were small flows. the size of a pencil give or take. I'm not sure if that would be enough to power a wheel, it don't seem like it.

Nah. That's not big enough.. the springs around here can be acres with large outfeeds, several yards wide. That would be plenty big enough for a wheel.

[kyratshooter]

Couldn't a water-wheel (or some other device) be set up at the stream head that would run a mechanical pump up into the basin? It would be a perpetual machine as long as the spring didn't run dry. Just trying to stay away from electric sumps, etc.

You can do anything with enough time and bicycle and car parts!

I do not know how much GPM my spring puts out but the outfow is a foot deep and two feet wide and moves right along. It flows into a mile long swamp that turns into a nice 2 acre lake and them makes its escape to parts unknown.

Setting up an undershort wheel would be a simple matter. Attached to a waterpump from a car it would probably pump to the house.

We have on spring down in TN that pooled 100 feet in diameter and skipped above and underground for 20 miles as a wide and strong stream. It was big enough to supply water for several communities, all of which thought it was their spring when it popped out of the ground near them! We had Enon Springs, Sulphur Springs, Big Springs, Oakland Manson Spring and the actual source which was Black Fox Camp Spring. There were several major indian battles fought along this waterway due to the Chickamauga using the location as a base camp for attacks against Nashville. After one battle at the source several warriors fell into the spring and were not recovered. Their bones and clothes drifted to the surface all along the route of the spring for years, so they realized it was all one watercourse.

They had a path that went straight from Cattanooga to Nashville that passed beside the spring called the Black Warrior Trace, which latter became U.S. highway 41.

[Rick]

Nothing better than a long cold drink of Indiana butt in the hot summer. Blech!

"Whatcha doin, Jed?"
"Movin."
"Why fer?"
"Go look in the spring."

[your_comforting_company]

KYRS, try this. I'm gettin it straight out of "Back to Basics":

Select a portion of the stream that is fairly straight and free of obstructions, turbulence or eddies. Tie strings across the stream in two locations, 20 feet apart, and at right angles to the stream. Drop a Cork or bobber (or anything that floats) upstream of the first string, and count the seconds it takes to reach the second string.
Divide the seconds by 20 feet, and multiply that by 0.7. That gives you the streams "velocity" in feet/sec.
Heading the stream is basically checking the decline of the stream as it nears the water wheel.
Using your strings from before, check the depth at the center, and about a foot apart, each direction on the string. Add all the measurements together and average them. (Depth 1+2+3etc)/number of checks= average depth. Depth x width = Area.

Now that you have those 3 measurements, the formula is (decline x velocity x area) / 23 = power in kilowatts; you can multiply that by 720 (hours in a month) to figure out how many kilowatt hours per month your stream puts out.

I'm not sure how to convert kilowatts into torque, or horsepower, you'll have to get the Minister of Science to figure that out! You might be able to not only pump water perpetually, but might also cut down on the power bill in the process!

[BENESSE]

Lordavemercy YCC, how DO you know all this stuff and how DO you retain all that information? I walk into a room and forget why I was there.

[your_comforting_company]

HAHA.. I do the same thing! Like right now I can't remember where I sat down my glass of tea!
(wanders off grumbling at himself...)

I don't know how I remember such things. I'd forget my pants sometimes if it weren't cold out.
I was fortunate to have that book from my uncle. I cheated and looked it up again!