Water Wells - Types, maintenance, feasibility in various situations and applications

[Cirrhosis_of_Liver]

I had a specific question, but hey why not have a thread about wells in general?

With all the talk of drinking pee, it's worth mentioning that a standard modern well isn't terribly expensive, and done right, you can have virtually free potable water so long as your pump holds out and you can supply it with elecricity.

I have a well that I use for irrigation with a $150 Chineseum pump, producing about 10 acre inches a month -- 271,500 gallons-- for something like $75. Point being, well water is super duper cheap, and to treat a modern well you just gotta pour a few gallons of bleach in there every six months or so.

I disavow being knowledgable about wells. But I'm sure someone here is, so on to the question I had--

What about hand-dug wells? I have a hand-dug well on my property with about 50% of an aeromotor windmill mounted over it. Is there any way to clean up and refurbish a hand dug well to make it worth using? It's picturesque as all get out, but if I can have a backup water source for myself and my livestock powered by wind alone.

Can an Aeromotor be brought back to life? I haven't summoned the balls to climb uo there and look; I think the tower itself definitely needs replaced if I were to re use the pump. I know absolutely nothing about those windmills.

 

[Topsoil]

How expensive putting in a well will be depends on your location and the depth of your water table.

(Source)
If you're in a blue area of that map, you could literally dig a well by hand. If you're in a red area, you're going to be spending $10,000+ just to dig the 500ft+ hole in the ground. Unfortunately, my knowledge of wells is limited to "expensive"

 

[Buttigieg2020]

I know it’s still doable to make new hand wells without electricity. I think a hand pump is fine if you are only using it for drinking water.

 

[Cirrhosis_of_Liver]

In my situation, that would never work. I'm not gonna be able to drive a pipe through bedrock. Possibly some sort of mod to add a hand pump onto one of my modern wells for "electric don't work no mo" would be smart, though. Anybody know about that sort of thing? I think our wells top out about 50 feet down. Is that feasible for a hand pump?


The well I'm talking about was dug by presumably hardy men with hand tools. It's even got the pretty "wishing well" cylinder of stone to prevent runoff going into it. This has stopped working at some point in the last 100 years. A bucket on a rope would bring me water, but at current there's no way I'm drinking that.

 

[Jump]

My home is on well water. My well is only 60feet deep and I just have one of those 1950s style jet pumps in the basement.
When I brought the house I extended the wellhead to above the surface. They they used to bury them back in the day.
I played around with using a handpump on the well but its kinda a pain in the ass and every time you open the wellhead you risk introducing bacteria.
My jet pump is 120volts it was originally hardwired but I switched it to a plug/outlet to make it simple to plug in to the generator.

 

[Drumstick]

"What about hand-dug wells? I have a hand-dug well on my property with about 50% of an aeromotor windmill mounted over it. Is there any way to clean up and refurbish a hand dug well to make it worth using? It's picturesque as all get out, but if I can have a backup water source for myself and my livestock powered by wind alone."

I don't know anything about aeromotor, but I know about submersible pumps, jet pumps, hand pumps and related equipment.

Do you know how deep the well is and what the water level is? If it is shallow you can use a surface mounted pump to bring water up, but more common now is a pump submerged a few feet off the bottom of your well. It is easier to push the water up than to suck it up. Most jet pumps are used to move water from a reservoir to a house after a submersible pump has brought it up from the well. This is usually more for low producing wells that can't give you enough water to keep up with household use. Generally you want 12gpm for a single family household.

Simple Pump makes a quality hand pump that we install. This allows you to have a submersible pump with a hand pump and everything sealed and sanitary.