Well well.

[Muddymike]

I have been told there is an old well in our back yard. This got me thinking that I could drop a pump down it and use the water for garden watering, vehicle washing, pressure washing the paths etc and save a lot of water from the mains, which I pay for twice, once as water used and again as sewage charge to the water authority. Anyway I have now found it. I drilled a hole through the tarmac at a spot where the snow and ice always melts first and bingo I have a cavity. The problem now is that it is 14m deep!!! Yes 14 meters no exaggeration. I measured it by dropping a plumb bob down the hole, and had to find more string. The good news is that there is at least two metres of water at the bottom.

So my original plan to just drop the submersible pump down there as required may not work as I doubt it will lift the water that far. I now wonder if investing in a better pump would be worthwhile as the electricity used to lift the water may cost more than I pay the water authority.

Anyone have any experience in the cost of running a pump at that depth?

Mike

[BILL]

Not too sure about this Mike but I seem to remember that all water belongs to the water authority and you have to pay for it even from your own well. If their water floods your home it becomes your water and you have to get rid of it.

Bill

[Muddymike]

So their water is flooding my hole and I am getting rid of it by pumping it onto the garden. Its ok though, I won't tell if you don't.

Thinking about this. The cottage we owned had a private water supply from a spring and we paid nothing to the water authority, yet they did know about it as they kept reminding us to test it.

Mike

[Jb]

On the other side of the coin an old mine near me, (non productive gypsom mine) has to pay a licence fee to extract water from it AND a fee to discharge said water into a nearby stream!

Don't help with your question though does it :)

Jb

>

[BILL]

Checking the water is a good idea before going any further, my daughter found a well under an old flag stone in her yard.The water was stagnant and smelly not even fit for watering. The law may be different between domestic and manufactures a company I worked had a well and they paid for there water but at a reduced rate.

Bill

[robgraham]

I'd be very surprised if you could not find a submersible pump that would pump that far. 14 metres is only about 32 feet, which is equivalent to one atmosphere pressure which is 15 lbs/sq inch in old money.There's one here which will do 17 metres

Rob Graham

[Andy Champ]

46ft actually. 10m depth is near-as-darnnit one atmosphere.

Andy

[David Kennedy]

It's not a place you use to park the car is it?

[Bob Minchin]

Before shelling out for a pump, make sure you know the flow rate at the maximum quoted head of water. unscrupulous dealers could quote the max head at zero flow which wont be much help. Also allow for the frictional loss in the distribution hose. A vague memory tells me this increases as 1 over the cube of the hose diameter.

I expect you will need more like 2hp for the pump which will consume

1500 watts = 1.5 units per hour.

Bob

[Muddymike]

Funny you should ask that, we often do!

Mike

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

handy for draining out the old oil ........

[Ash]

... nice to see that whilst it may lift 17 meters it only comes fitted with

10 meters of cable

[robgraham]

Yes. My sort of mathematics relies on a yard being equal to a metre!

[David Kennedy]

How thick was the tarmac you drilled through?

[David Kennedy]

Mike replied [by email...]

[Andrew Gabriel]

I use a water butt self-filled from a rainwater downpipe for this purpose. Probably worth asking yourself if you are heading off down an complicated route to solve a simple problem.

[Muddymike]

I do already have 2 water butts but they don't supply anywhere near enough water in the summer. SWMBO likes dozens of pots and tubs around the house and yard which take a lot of watering. To do the lot takes an hour with the hosepipe.

Mike

[robgraham]

It doesn't need to take her that long.

Rob Graham

[Ron O'Brien]

Funny you should say that, I was going to ask to make sure it's not just a hole with years of spillage from car washes, expansion tank over flows and rain seepage!

You need to look into the legal aspect I know that there are many laws, or at least regulations regarding extracting water from your own land in agriculture and there is some difference for example between a natural spring and a hold in the ground that could be filled with water due to underground water movements.

As with all authorities, the water board will always - legally - be right in any 'misunderstanding' argument at law. This, of course, means that you may need to pay someone a staggering sum of money to locate and prove the source of the water, after all, it could be a broken water main that has seeped down into a hole in your property - on the other hand, if you believe in global warming, your house may be about to sail off into the sunset somewhere!

[Doctor D]

If it's anything like here it won't take her any time at all! My wife also loves pots and hanging baskets and it takes ME about 30 minutes to water them.

Likewise, the wife and kids own 14 fish, whilst I own none. The wife and kids never feed or check on any fish whilst I look after 14.

I suspect there may be a similar pattern throughout this group!