Alternative water source for newer home

JDemaris

Well-known Member
My in-laws would like us to take over their house in northern Michigan. They've moved to a condo in the city of Alpena and the house sits on edge of the Alpena township on the bank of the Thunder Bay River. We live 40 miles away in a more rural area.

Their house is only 15 years old and very expensive to live in (even though it is super-insulated with structured foam panels) So I'm experimenting with a few things trying to see if it can be made cheaper to live in. Main two things now are water and heat. The house is super-insulated but still a pig to heat with propane. I'm installing two wood burners down the basement (wood stove and wood furnace).
Main thing I'm dealing at the moment is the water. Even though this house is on the bank of a large river and I can hit water if I dig a two-foot deep hole, their drilled well is 780 feet deep! The water is awful and needs a lot of treatment that cost $60-$70 a month. I just dug a 8' deep well in the backyard and the water tests MUCH better. Now I'm trying to figure how to make it permanent. Can't find anyone that sells concrete well tiles around here. Largest culvert pipe I can find locally is galvanized steel and 36" diameter. $400 for a 10 foot piece. I'm thinking of using that, stuck in the well vertically and then attach a pitless adapter to the side. I'm wondering if I want to use a submerged pump IN the well - how to support it? Well pumps like this are usually somewhat supported by round well casings and rubber torque arrestors. Not sure how to support such a pump inside a 3 foot wide culvert pipe. And yes, I could just put a jet pump in the house. I'd prefer the pump in the well though if I can find a good way to do it. More efficient.

The drilled well tests: Total dissolved solids - 1400 parts per million. Hardness - 100 grains per gallon. Iron - 5 parts per million.

The water from the hole I dug with my backhoe tests: Total dissolved solids - 940 parts per million. Hardness - 44 grains per gallon. Iron - 0.3 parts per million.
 
You don't need the torque arrestor. Here in Montana it is not considered to be a well if it is less than 25 feet if I remember correctly. I don't understand why you want such a large diameter. I have been told that doubling the diameter increases the yield by 10%.
 
A lot of folks in Michigan have point wells. If you go to the local plumbing supply, they likely have everything you need. My grandparents had 2 driven, sand point wells. One for the house, one for the garden. The house well had a filter on it, the outside one did not. These were 2 inch wells. The submersible ones are 4 in or larger.

Youtube has some good vids on jetting in your own well. Your area is one big swamp anyway, it should work pretty good.

I used to go hunting up near Cheboygan, there are some really big swamps up there.
 
An eight foot deep well is going to be in danger of surface contamination from run off. Your water test might have been good when you took it and then "bad" later when there is more rain.

As for making the well. I would not use galvanized pipe around any water I would be using. The galvanize will contaminate the water.

If your only going eight feet deep then four sheets of plywood built into a box for a concrete form. Place a few 2"x4" as bracing. Then just pour concrete on the outside against the dirt. Then just take the plywood forms out. I have poured several holding tanks for hog manure just like this.
 
We got our water from a spring for thirty years. We used a shallow well pump that hung below freeze level on a steel frame. The diameter of the rock walled spring was about 3 feet. Lots of moisture and rust on everything. It made good water, but it was 600 feet from the house, and probably 80 to 100 feet below in elevation, so you can imagine the pressure/flow that we had. We drilled a 125' well in 1990 and life is good. Well drillers drill by the foot, and it's hard to find a driller who will stop at noon, when he can go another couple hundred feet by dark on the same setup. The deep water in our neighborhood is nasty tasting stuff, so I made sure my driller understood what I expected of him.
 
Interesting. I am aware that people have done this for centuries so, please, no lectures. My concern also is surface contamination. You can pour those walls like JD suggested but that will not solve your problem. There is a concern about septic leeching and lawn chemicals...yours and possible neighbors. Still not my biggest concern. I would like to know how you are going to keep the Michigan wildlife out of it. Has to be covered or you will have bird sh*t and other wildlife residue. I have even seen a fawn fall into an open hole. So once you have it covered, in come those big spotted salamanders, snakes, deer mice, etc. They fall in, drown, and your well stops tasting so good. I don't want to preach, you live in Michigan and know the facts of life as well as I do...but...maybe a shallow pounded well isn't such a bad idea?
 
Consider using leaching basin rings many different diameters and 2 to 6 ft height each section have the top well above ground level so you can slope away from it for surface runoff,and a tight seating cover--set a submersible pump down in it
make sure it is 100 ft or more from the septic system
 
I would go geothermal on the heating with a supplemental wood stove and try a driven well with jet pump. You better check with your insurance company if a wood furnace under the house is acceptable.
 
The surface contamination in bacterial count was not done, or was not mentioned. I would not feel comfortable with less than 20 feet of soil over the suction zone, and that would be in a really clean area with no history of, or proximity to, drain fields, or animal enclosures. The local Well logs (required in some areas) should tell the strata that is found in the neighborhood. If you have sand, or sandy gravel to 50 feet or so, great. Putting in a sand point in a well pit (for the simple suction pump to reside) with insulated cover would work. Wells over 33ft deep cannot use suction, but must use either a jet venturi pump, or submersible. Jim
 
I lived in MT with a 500 foot deep well at 1600ppm dissolved solids, natural gas, and it required reverse osmosis to be usable at all. Jim
 
I've considered a "pond water" system since I've got a large pond available and found plans for a dual tank system, 1st is filled with sand and connected at the bottom with piping to a 2nd tank that has an automatic chlorine dispenser for sanitizing. It seems that a system like this might work for you as you're already getting water at 8', but you'd probably have to pump it up slightly and into the 1st tank to go through the filter system. Here is the link: http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G1805

I don't know that they're legal here in Michigan, though.
 
Yea, shallow wells are a rare deal any more, they had us change back in the early 1970s here. Don't know I'd want to go back to that.

Paul
 
This doesn't answer the specific question, but we had a hundred year old hand dug surface well within 16 feet of the county blacktop road and downstream from farm fields and our own septic system that was only 18 feet deep and 6 ft in diameter hand lined with non mortared field sand stone. It was covered with concrete with only an opening to allow the jet pump suction pipe to pass down through to near the bottom with a check valve. Anyhow, we bought the farm in 1978 and the farmer who lived here previously drank that water and lived to over 90, we raised three kids here now in their thirties all healthier then a horse and we are in excellent health. It was fun to wait maybe 30 minutes AFTER a hard rain and look down in the well and see water seeping in through the field stone liner. I never had the water tested for fear the county would condemn the well and throw us in jail lol. We used a sediment filter followed by a charcoal filter, didnt have rust or iron or lime/calcium stains or deposits, and the water tasted great.

Oh well we survived it and only a few years back did we change to city water so the place would sell easier, I'm confident no inspectors or mortgage lenders or government regulators would have stood still for that 18 foot well lol

John T
 
I would suggest a plastic tile instead of galvanized. My father had a galvaized well liner. The water always had a metalic taste to it. The well on the other end of the barn was laid stone and it never had that taste. Have you ever had to crawl into a stinkin' well in the middle of the winter to work on a pump? Put the pump in your celler.
 
In my area, drilled wells are sulphur or salt - so most people use cisterns or dug wells.
You could consider a cistern coupled with a filtration and a treatment system - ultra violet, chlorination or reverse osmosis.
The water is supposed to be trucked in, as the local authorities may not permit the rainwater leaders being connected to the cistern - but most are eventually connected and life goes on.
 
Just to answer to a few comments.

PIPE SIZE: I want the large diameter so there is enough water available at any give time. The water that recharges the well is a slow trickle. Thus the need for some sort of reserve. A standard 5" or 6" well casing works fine when there's over a 100 feet of well involved. Not so good when the well is only 8-10 feet deep. Assuming the well will freeze in the upper end. a 10 foot well is only going to have around 6 feet of water in it . If that was a 6" pipe it would only hold around 9 gallons of water. If I use a 36" pipe it will hold 300 gallons of water.

FIXING A PUMP IN THE WELL? If I put a pump in the well is will be near the bottom, under water and attached to whatever casing I use with a pitless adapter. No need to "go in well" to fix if the pump craps out. Just take 10 minutes to yank it out from the top.

LEGALITY: I don't really care. The house already has a very deep, health department well that has lousy water. As far as I am concerned - it nobody's business in government whether I opt to install an additional well that gives better water. The reason why the water is lousy now if due to the health department regs for the primary well having X amount of GPM available. In regard to bacteria - already checked it an it's fine. This well is in the edge of a pretty much pristine woods, 100 feet from the river, and in the middle of a 10 acre parcel. Very low impact area and every house in the area is on at least 10 acres. Septic leach-field is 200 feet distant. Ground horizon makeup is sand and clay for a very long way down.

SUBMERGED "PUSHER" PUMP. I am hoping to use one because I already have an extra on hand. It is also more efficient and quieter then using a Jet pump in the house. I was concerned about the lack of a torque arrestor because of prior experience with submersible pumps breaking plastic pipes from torque. Maybe if I use steel pipe connecting the pump to the pitless - it won't be an issue?

WELL POINTS? Having lived most of life in NY - I'd never seen a well point until coming to sandy Michigan. NY has so much rock and hard-pan - driving a point would of been impossible anywhere I've lived there. I'll have to read up on them but I assume it could not work in my situation. I think this setup needs a reservoir due to the slow water recharge.

QUESTIONS ABOUT ANIMALS FALLING IN THE WELL? Seems the answer ought to be obvious. A cover on the well. That being said, I had a Holstein cow break through a wood-covered dug well in NY. Won't be an issue here.
 
John, want you want to do is exactly what I did. We hated the water from the drilled well the county forced us to drill in order to build.
I have lived my entire life at houses with dug wells.
This is my first submersible pump and I would not do it any other way again.
I used heavy duty corrugated double wall 4 foot diameter plastic tile that is perforated. It is expensive.
I can buy 4 foot diameter concrete rings locally. I went with the plastic because it is light and I could put it in fast with out fear of a cave in.
I bought the plastic cap that is made for it and cut the tile off 3 foot below the ground. Looks like a drilled well now with the grass growing over it.
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From your questions it sounds like you will be moving into the house and living there year-round. Reading between the lines, your wife is in favor of it. Will you be changing jobs or will you stay at your present job? Adding 40 more miles both ways to your daily commute might be a bigger burden than paying for propane, cutting wood and stoking a wood furnace twice a day, or the drinking water. Will you be expected to eventually purchase the property from your in-laws?

If the house will be too much of a burden for you and your family, thank your in-laws for the offer and offer help them sell it. I wouldn't start making low-budget or illegal changes to the property that could reduce its resale value until you settle when it will be sold and to whom.

Gasoline prices are falling right now, the resort and vacation home market could benefit from that.
 
Looks like you did a GREAT job on it. Pretty much exactly what I'm hoping to do. I hadn't thought about using a separate 5-6" casing to hold the submersible pump. Looks like a good idea! In regard to 4' corrugated pipe. I want some but so far have not found any place that sells it in my area. Menards Building Supply in Traverse city has plastic in 3' but that's a pretty far drive south of where I am. Local places in my area only have 3' steel. I'd much prefer the plastic if I can find it.
 
We already own two houses in northern Michigan. The house I'm fooling with is my wife's parents place. They like having us around and we like having our 11 year old boy getting time to spend with his grandparents while they are still alive. So we jump around. We were back and forth from New York state for 10 years. Now full time somewhere in Michigan. Pretty much live in a rural area near Rogers City in warm weather and stay at the in-law's house in the dead of winter. Last winter was the first time we stayed there and the original plan was - I was going to fix a few things on it and then they'd sell it this summer. Now they rethought things and would like us to take the house as an "early inheritance." Not sure we want it though - even if it's given to us. Nice place to live in the winter. More convenient for our last little kid who is being home-schooled. Closer to important things when the roads are bad in the winter. Taxes are high though, heat is high, - heck everything is higher then I'm accustomed to. Michigan auto insurance is the highest in the USA. I also feel that if we took the house - we could never feel comfortable selling it - at least not when my in-laws are still alive. So we'll see how it goes. I've done nothing "illegal" and also done nothing without my in-law's approval, every step of the way.
In regard to commuting to work? Nope. My wife stopped working to home-school our last kid -full time, 7 days a week. I am "half-azz*d" retired only getting income from fixing equipment, selling land, or Social Insecurity. We don't make much but we don't spend much either. Don't owe a penny anywhere to anything or anyone.
 

I would look around local excavation companies for four foot concrete culvert tiles that were left over from prior jobs.
 
It sounds like you are very much on top of things. I didn't know your situation, so I had to ask some very basic questions.

Many businesses and cities of all sizes are installing reverse-osmosis water purification. The initial investment is high but the water quality is very good. Most cities post their water analysis online.

Worst case you might also look into vacuum distillation for low volumes of drinking water and cooking water (10 to 50 gallons per day?). Low heat 90F and vacuum boil water to make pure distilled water. Naval ships, electrical power plants, and many businesses use this process to avoid mineral fouling inside boilers.

Good luck.
 
(quoted from post at 10:10:44 10/19/14) We got our water from a spring for thirty years. We used a shallow well pump that hung below freeze level on a steel frame. The diameter of the rock walled spring was about 3 feet. Lots of moisture and rust on everything. It made good water, but it was 600 feet from the house, and probably 80 to 100 feet below in elevation, so you can imagine the pressure/flow that we had. We drilled a 125' well in 1990 and life is good. Well drillers drill by the foot, and it's hard to find a driller who will stop at noon, when he can go another couple hundred feet by dark on the same setup. The deep water in our neighborhood is nasty tasting stuff, so I made sure my driller understood what I expected of him.

Exactly . My neighbour to the west has 370ft of stinking mineral and iron saturated water.
My well and the neighbour to the east have 99ft deep wells. 80ft of impermeable blue clay, 19ft of gravel aquifer with water flowing west and becomes the springs and streams running into the Lake. At the 100ft level the bedrock starts and the well driller was informed they were stopping there. Glad they did.
 
Looks pretty sharp there Mark. Just an ultraviolet unit on the main line and good to go.
An unquestionable force of various government departments in the guise of water safety nazis rule Ontario potable water. That Walkerton Water disaster was a blank cheque for bureaucrats to build larger and ever lasting empires upon.
 
My grandparents had a hand dug well lined with fieldstone about 5' diameter and 6' deep fed by natural spring. about every 10-15 yrs they needed to get in and clear out sediment. Used a shallow well pump in basement.
My stepbrother had a 1000+' well that was slow to recover thus had 2 165 gallon tanks in basement with small booster pump to pressurize house. Had UV light in system also. Last I heard he had well drilled to around 2000' and still not great water.
 
What a difference in water quality! Have you tested in for fecal coliform? That"s usually the problem with shallow wells.

If your well is that shalllow, why not put a foot valve on a pvc inlet pipe and pressurize the system with a a centrifugal pump.

You"ll need to build a pump house and have heaters on the piping "cuz I imagine your winters are long and cold. Or you coud build a pedestal to mount the pump on in the casing and insulate the sides and top and foget about a pump house. You just have to have access to get to the pump.

Possibly a commercial pre-cast manhole might also work.
 
Ambient ground temp is 52 degrees year-round, so use the water from the drilled well (questionable potability) & circulate it through the house to raise the house temp to 52 degrees. Then run the return circulation from the house to a Water Boiler in the basement. Circulate the HEATED water through the house to raise the house temp another 20-30 degrees. (Double circulation system.). CHEAPER heating both the water & the house, than trying to heat the house from freezing temps . - Added bonus, as long as the 52 degree water is flowing through the house, whether heated or not, water-lines won't freeze (ambient house temp 52 degrees). Final water discharge would be back to the well. - Closed Loop System, entirely separate from your "normal" household water system.

:>)
 
Lots of good ideas here.. I probably would get an extensive water test done from a couple of periods of time looking for the fecal coliforms, and volatile organic compounds and heavy metals. Should be places on the internet to send the samples to. Used to be about $100-$125 for an extensive test.
 
(quoted from post at 17:13:10 10/19/14) Lots of good ideas here.. I probably would get an extensive water test done from a couple of periods of time looking for the fecal coliforms, and volatile organic compounds and heavy metals. Should be places on the internet to send the samples to. Used to be about $100-$125 for an extensive test.

A one piece concrete pad poured on the ground 6ft around the well casing and sloped away would about eliminate surface contamination concerns.
 
JD, my boss and I have used concrete blocks dry stacked in a circle for a spring reservoir and put concrete dry well cover on top then put washed #2 stone on the outside. We used a 6 inch piece of PVC pipe to set submersible well pump in. We used pitless adapter and torque arrestor and also drilled holes in PVC pipe so pump stayed submerged. We established a new spring for a dairy farm in Franklin NY this summer and it turned out very well didn't need a pump. Greg
 
20 years ago in MI we drove our own well with sand point and 1 &1/4 pipe. We hit a couple of small veins at 8-12 ft. We finally got a very good one at 40 ft. The water came back into the pipe at about 10 ft. We put a shallow well pump on it. Never ran out of water. We had a small house trailer and a few small animals. The water was very good to taste. Never had it tested.
 
I am lucky, have a drilled well that ends up in a layer of gravel 150' down. The water is very soft and spring fed.

I live in a wind blown clay hills area, most of the other wells in the area are in limestone and very hard.

I would be concerned about farm chemicals in a shallow well.
 

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