When we first bought our land I did research on the best/ cheapest source of water. The 2 choices were to either 1) hook up to the community water system which would have cost $5,000.00 for the tap and depending on the usage of water, a hefty bill each month. We knew we wanted a vegetable/ fruit garden and flower gardens around the buildings. One of our neighbors was spending $300.00 a month under a similar situation before they got their well, they figure it cost about $20.00 a month for the electricity to run the well for all their watering. So we our other choice 2) was to have a well dug. We checked into it right after we bought the land and they said to let them know about a month before we were ready for the well to be dug.
SOOOOOOOOOOOO, we called in December of 2007 and thought if we could have the well up and running before the February planting it would be great! They told us they would not be able to get to us until June! And as you see we were put back until now, over a year after we first called!The well cost us $2,400.00 to dig the minimum of 200 ft . They did this in one day stopping at 155 ft because they hit rock . Going past the rock would have taken us down to the next aquifer at 400 ft. At that level the water gets very high calcium and salty, which is not what we wanted for the out-side watering. The first aquifer, which is the one we went to, has a lot of minerals and is very soft, the best for plants.
The drillers used 4" PVC down to 110 ft , they used 4" slotted from 110 ft to 150 ft. Our 1 HP "Goulds Pump " was placed at 120 ft.Within the well casing they placed 1" Schedule 80 (heavy PVC) to bring the water up. We have a 86 gallon pressure tank which we keep at 50 PSI. For the pump, pressure tank and running water it cost another $2,600 for complete installation. It was the best spent money.We do have a problem with sand in the water. We asked another well guy to come out and tell us why and he said it as because the pump in placed in the slotted part of the pipe. It should have been placed above the slotted pipe as to not draw in the sand from the wall. We also have a bit of iron in the water that is noticeable at times. All in All we are very thankful to have Water!
measuring where each piece goes. The angles are a bit tricky but are done by measuring each sides length from the bottom of the tin piece to be but up. Then a line is drawn between the 2 measurements . We have cut the tin by hand, which is very difficult and not very accurate and by an old saw blade mounted so it turns the opposite direction. This has worked very well but we always wore our safety glasses, ear muffs and scarfs around our hair because the metal bits will fly!
We attached a 2X6 over the door so the porch rafters would attach to the building. This allows flashing to be installed to create a water proof connection between the porch and wall.
