May I compare my well water setup to yours (3,094 usable gallons)

[SF Man]

I'm confused. I just ran out of water.

It's dry season, and it's a new house (to me) and the water tanks are 'empty' and the wells are barely re-filling them.

I ran some calculations which, if I may, I would like to compare with your situation.

Fundamentally, I ask: Is 3,094 US gallons a reasonable storage level?

Demographics:

- Family of five (two teens)

- 35,000 gallon open-air pool (takes about 500 gallons of water every few days to refill due to plumbing leaks and surface evaporation)

- 20 irrigation zones, each of which has about 10 rain-man 1800 sprinklers

- Watering schedule was set to every other day, 20 minutes per zone

- The well pump runs for a few minutes (varies from a minute to about ten minutes) and then shuts off due to lack of water ... waits a prescribed 30 minutes ... and then starts the cycle anew). I'm guessing roughly 100 gallons per cycle (but that's a very rough guess as there is no meter).

- Northern California (zero rain from about March to about December, but, when it rains (January/February/March), it pours!)

Calculations:

- I have two equal-sized cylindrical steel water tanks

- I have only one well (which is 500 feet deep)

- There is no meter anywhere on the water flow (hence my dilemma).

- I measured the two steel water tanks at 120" inches tall & 241.5 inches in circumference (the diameter is difficult to measure as the top is domed).

- Geometry gives us, however, a diameter of 77 inches per tank.

- Geometry gives us a volume of 556,936.45 cubic inches per tank.

- This web site converts cubic inches to US wet gallons:

Using that web site, the nominal capacity of each tank calculates to

2,411 gallons (i.e., 1 US gallon is 231 cubic inches)

- That means, the total nominal volume for both tanks is twice that, i.e.,

4,822 gallons.

- However, the usable volume is aparently only 3,094 gallons (1,547 gallons per tank).

- The fire hydrant seems to get 1,446 gallons (723 gallons per tank)

- And the top air space of 282 gallons is apparently unused (141 gallons per tank)

- Doublechecking the math:

- 1,446 fire gallons + 3,094 house gallons + 282 air space gallons = 4,822 nominal gallons.

Fundamentally, I ask: Q: Is 3,094 gallons a reasonable usable quantity for a family of four?

PLEASE IGNORE IF NOT INTERESTED THE FURTHER CALCULATION DETAILS BELOW:

- Based on float movement, the total 'range' of usable water is only 77 linear inches (which calculates to 357,367.55 cubic inches, or 1,547 gallons per tank, which is a total usable water of 3,094 gallons).

- This number comes from 36in + 77in + 7in = 120 inches as explained below: a) The level indicator is a wooden block which goes down when the water level goes up, and which goes up when the water level goes down (i.e., reverse logic). b) The level indicator block never makes it closer than 36 inches to the top of the tank, which, (by the reverse logic of the float mechanism) means that the bottom 36 inches of water is for the mandatory fire hydrant on the property (which calculates to 167,081 cubic inches per tank, or 723 gallons per tank, for a total fire-only storage of 1,446 gallons). c) The level indicator block never makes it closer than 7 inches to the bottom of the tank, which (again, by the reverse logic of the float mechanism) means that the top 7 inches of the tank is never reached (which calculates to 32,488 cubic inches of air at the top, or 141 gallons per tank).

- To put it together, 7 inches of air space + 77 inches of usable water +

36 inches for the fire hydrant = 120 inches of nominal tank height.

- In gallons, that works out to 282 air space gallons + 3,094 house gallons

• 1,446 fire gallons = 4,822 nominal gallons.

I know it's a lot of calculations ... but ... fundamentally ... I ask if this setup seems weird to you?

To me, it seems like not enough water (and the fact I ran out today shows that ... but maybe I've been irrigating too much and I 'should' fix the pool leaks also ... plus maybe this is a lull in the water supply since it doesn't rain for 9 or 10 months of the year out here in the hills.

Do any of you have comparison figures?

[jamesgangnc]

Get a meter. They are all over ebay. I got one for $40.

Just off hand it looks to me like you are using too much water for a well. You've pulled the nearby water table down and it can't keep up. Doesn't matter how much you store if you can draw it at the same rate you are using it the you run out. Fix your pool and quit irrigating.

[dadiOH]

Per day? week? month?

My wife and I used to use about 100 gallons per week when we lived on a boat. Salt water flush, though.

[Pat]

!00 gallons every 30 minutes is a well pumping about 3 gallons per minute. A well producing 3 gallons per minute can pump about 4000 gallons a day. Considering the water used every day I don't think that you could fill any additonal storage. You need to determine your wells capacity more accurately and evaluate whether your storage ever fills leaving your well idle for any length of time.

[trader4]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Here in NJ my municipality has a fixed fee for the first 6000 gallons a month. That is a reasonable amount for a small family without a pool, lawn irrigation or other larger usages. Above 6,000 they charge for excess.

It seems the real issue here is that the well can apparently only deliver 200 GPH. As to what the storage level should be, I'd say 3500 gallons is way above what storage level is needed for domestic usage. But he also mentioned "fire hydrant". Don't know anything about that, but having 3500 gallons around if it's the source for fire hydrants then sounds like a more logical situation. Without that, a tank of even

500 gallons would seem to be plenty. It gets refilled at 200GPH. So, you could pull 700 gallons in an hour of high demand and still not run out.

[Don Phillipson]

We might expect a wealthy state like California to have an Agricultural Extension department expressly to advise on local problems like this. Water shortage in California is sufficiently well-known to have figured in a number of Hollywood crime movies: but I recall no mention of Ag. Ext. in any of those.

[trader4]

Expecting to have govt available for free advice on a well problem is exactly the kind of thinking that has bankrupted the state of Callifornia and is in the process of bankrupting the federal govt. Why the hell can't he call a well company? Also, he has a well producing at about 200GPH, so figuring out what size tank one needs isn't exactly rocket science.

=A0 Water shortage in California

[SF Man]

I googled for "well water meter" and found this wikipedia article:

-

Apparently, in California, we must buy lead-free materials, so, the price for me to buy just the water meter and lead-free unions is no less than $113 + 9% tax + shipping and could be as high as $670 based on this web page: I'm not sure what my 'size' is ... as there are white PVC and galvanized pipes in the line.

It looks like the PVC is about 1.5 inches outside diameter while the galvanized pipe seems to be an eight of an inch larger (more than 1.5 but less than 1.75 inches).

Do those pipe sizes make sense?

Bummer.

I think I'll do both plus add a pool cover to stave off evaporation.

[SF Man]

I'm sorry. I don't know the amount of water used per day or per week.

There are no meters, either incoming from the well or outgoing to the house.

The poster 'jamesgangnc' advised me to purchase a water meter for my (nominal) 1.5 inch outside diameter line, which will cost about $115 for the meter and California lead-free couplings ... but ... I'm not sure if I should put that meter in the well line or in the line to the house (or both).

The 3,094 gallons is simply how much water I have available when the 4,540 gallon tanks are full (the difference of 1,446 gallons is for the fire hydrant as we're in a severe fire hazard zone).

Seems to me that's puny, considering there is no rain for ten months of the year.

[SF Man]

FWIW, I just measured the water flow (manually) at approximately 5 gallons per minute for approximately three minutes (until the water table ran dry).

Here's what I did (does this look reasonable?):

1. I flipped the 220 volt circuit breaker off for the well pump.
2. I waited a half hour for the water table to recover.
3. I climbed on top of the tank, opened the hatch ... and ... Note: Yuck. If you drink the water, you don't want to look inside the tank!
4. While I positioned the bucket below the water into the tank ...
5. My teen flipped the circuit breaker back on.
6. I measured 5 gallons in one timed minute Note: The pump shut off in about 3 minutes due to the water table lowering.

So, I 'think', without a meter, that I have a flow of 5 gallons per minute but that the well can only supply that for three minutes for a grand total of 15 gallons for every half hour.

Two questions arise: Q1: Is there a better DIY way to measure the water flow? Q2: Do these numbers seem in the right ballpark for what you guys experience?

[SF Man]

While I don't pay for my water, per se, California still 'gets' me as they assess a 'baseline' electricity fee per houshold, which, with 3 pool pumps and the well pump, is exceeded in the first week or two of the month.

Then they hit you hard on the electricity for up to 300% and even 400% of the baseline charge such that my last kilowatt costs over 50 cents.

That was my initial wild-eyed guess. I think it's far worse than that - at least in the dry season which we're amidst right now.

I measured it just now (roughly) at 5 gallons per minute for only three minutes, which is about 15 gallons, every half hour. So, that's only 30 gallons per hour if my math is right. Round that to an even 50 gallons per hour which is half of my original estimate.

It appears they 'rigged' the controls such that the two tanks hold 4,450 gallons (when full), and then the next 3,094 gallons can be used by the house, and then the house goes dry.

But, there is still another 1,446 gallons left in the tanks which can be accessed via a 4-inch wide pipe that goes to the fire hydrant.

If both tanks are full, the entire 4,450 gallons would be available for the fire hydrant (but, I suspect, any self-respecting fire department would just suck the water out of the pool which is almost ten times larger).

[SF Man]

I'll do some research to see how to measure well capacity at home as a DIY.

My ad-hoc method just now (lowering a bucket into the top of the tank to fill with the incoming water) came up with roughly 5 gallons per minute but it only lasted for about 3 minutes before it went dry (and shut off for the mandatory 30 minutes).

I need to measure that in the rainy season to see if it can hold that for longer than 3 minutes as it could be as high as 5x60=300 gallons per hour if the water table would hold up.

Googling for "how to measure well flow rate", I find:

-

So, I'll be reading those to see how to get a better handle on the situation.

PS: Measuring well 'health' seems like it could be a fun DIY project if it wasn't so dire at the moment! :)

[Home Guy]

Presumably the water you use to keep your pool full and for irrigation is feeding back into your well, so aside from evaporation I would think that maybe 1/2 of that water is (eventually) going back into the ground water feeding your well.

[trader4]

What you did is OK to a point and for a quick approximation. To get a better measure I'd turn the water on very low, like .5 GPM and see at what rate it can keep up without running dry. Slowly increase the flow rate until it just runs out of water. Tha'ts the well's continuous flow rate.

A reasonable domestic well target is 15 GPM continuous. Just had one drilled here in NJ, 4" casing, 50ft deep and that's what it's yielding. That's enough to support doing things like watering an acre of lawn with just the well and no tank. Of course you can't get that in all areas or with any given well depending on it's condition. Then you have to figure out what you can get and what you can support with it. You flow rate of about .5GPM is extremely low.

I take back what I said before about not seeing the need for such a large tank. I forgot the irrigation need which is clearly why you need such a large tank. With a 200 head sprinkler system, I'm kind of amazed this whole thing works. That's huge, depending of course on the flow rate of the heads. You're only pumping 720 gallons of water a day. Even if you water once every 4 days, that only allows for 2900 gallons, or about

15 gallons a head. A typical rotor on a domestic system is usually putting out 2gpm. You'd go through that water at the rate of 7 mins per head.

Have you asked neighbors what their situation is? Either the aquifer at 500 ft is getting depleted or else you have a well that just has it;s own problems. If the latter, it's time for new well. IF the former, then unless there is a deeper acquifer, I guess you're screwed until the drought ends. BTW, I though CA drought had ended and this year with all the snow pack there was plenty of water?

[trader4]

Sounds like a mighty big assumption to me. I doubt what is happening with water in his little world has any significant impact on the acquifer at 500 feet down.

[gwandsh]

At the risk of venturing a radical proposal, why not practice some water conservancy? If you are running your well dry, you are impacting the water table, which no doubt is impacting any neighbors' usage as well.

If the irrigation is not being used for consumables, switch to indigenous species that are used to your local precipitation. I know everybody likes green, but water is a precious commodity in this century. Leave some behind so your kids can fill their pool.

Just a thought.

[SF Man]

Someone once told me that the water we drink is a thousand years old ...

But, I don't know that for a fact ...

[SF Man]

The irrigation is just for the grass. There are no consumables (other than a few orange and olive trees scattered about).

The only problem is that there is absolutely zero precipitation. Of course, the chaparall grows fine on the fog in the morning - but there won't be a single drop of rain for ten months ... so ... not much in a 'yard' would grow sans sprinklers.

I did, for now, turn 'off' the irrigation. I will also drastically lower it. Maybe once or twice a week instead of ever other day.

Also, I found a leaky hose (but I can't imagine it leaked a thousand gallons) which I removed.

[Tony Miklos]

gallons:

> - Using that web site, the nominal capacity of each tank calculates to

I'll second that.

[Pat]

Your well pump can pump 5 gallons per minute. Your well can supply half a gallon per minute or 720 gallons per day. That is not very much water. You probably can't increase it. You will probably have to reduce the amount you need.