WorldWide Drilling Resource

Mr. Jim Kuebelbeck: Hello. I have been working on well pumps since 1964, when my father start- ed our business and I was eight years old. I was the gopher for him, and in those days when jet pumps were more preva- lent than submersibles, I (sometimes my older brother too) would drag the pump away while my father pulled the two pipes out of the well. Over the years, I - like you - have seen a lot of different things and come across some of the strangest “farmer and self-installed” sys- tems. In your recent article [ Unbelievable Part 1 , page 25, October 2017 WWDR ], you mentioned someone had contacted you looking for more water and had drilled a lot of dry holes. He had a current well that only yielded about one gpm [gallon per minute] and he had been living with that for some time. In my area, there are some places like that - one gpm or less - and if they drill deeper, they get salt water. I have found a solution if they have a low yield and can’t find more volume of good water; and it is relatively simple, but costlier. My first trial of this was for a customer who bought a farm, not so much for farming, but living there with his wife and six kids, a garden, and some farm animals, dogs, cats, etc. His well only produced about one gpm, and when he tried to redrill, went down to 400 feet and found about three gpm, but it turned out to be salt water too. What we did was bury a thousand-gallon tank by his good well and let it fill this “thousand-gallon well” - keeping it full as much as possible with automatic controls. Then, in his case, we used a shallow well jet pump on his incoming line in his base- ment to pump pressured water into his house. We put an alarm on it to sound if it got about half empty. The alarm wasn’t nec- essary, but with six kids, it did work out, as the kids once left a hose running somewhere and it let them know. I installed this in April of 1995, and he has never run out of water, except when his shallow well jet pump failed and had to be replaced (more than once). His kids have grown and most of them have left the home now. I have put several of these types of systems in and they seem to help tremendously. I am currently working on one now where the owner had a well drilled 260 feet and found about three gpm. The [drilling contractor] told him it was high in [total dissolved solids], but wasn’t over the limit to finish. I set the pump for temporary water and discovered that after pumping it to clear, and be usable, was way too saltly to use. I recommended someone in the treatment business who has been treating water as long as I have been doing well pumps, and he couldn’t do anything with it. This man found a spring and they tried drilling near it, went 60 feet, and found what he thought was maybe one gpm. I put in a pump [and tested] it with a Pumptec set to 30 minutes and determined that he could get about seven gallons every 30 minutes. Since it is going to be just a weekend spot for him (for now), we are setting up a 400- gal lon tank in his large garage and doing the same with it as I did with the other job I was telling you about, trying to keep it as full as possible most of the time. Tony Waddell Waddell Water Pump Guthrie, OK 4< /*2'3* "& > > > > ,'< ? /2+ '6* /3+6 /3+6 ')1/3- " " !8=2+ /7843 4* 4* ')1/3- !+8 5)7 !8'3*'6* $'2:+ 9((+6 6':+2 $'2:+ 9((+6 !+'87 9((+6 $'2:+ 37+687 #6+8.'3+ $'2:+ 37+687 $'2:+ !56/3- ! ! $'2:+ 4:+6 '71+8 ? !;/:+2 ')1/3- ? !+6/+7 ? !+6/+7 ? !+6/+7 ? !+6/+7 ? !+6/+7 ? !+6/+7 < /3+6 < /3+6 < /3+6 < /3+6 < /3+6 6/)+7 !9(0+)8 "4 .'3-+ %/8.498 48/)+ !@ @ < < < < < Reader’s Response 43 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® NOVEMBER 2017