Well digging/drilling questions

[Wasatch Rebel]

I'm thinking about doing a well in my yard in West Valley City, Utah. I've seen plans where the drive a well point down into the ground until they find the water pockets, but don't know how feasible this is for my area, and if the water is actually drinkable or usable for watering vegetables and fruit trees/bushes. Comments?

[Poltax]

Your first hurdle will be to get a well permit. Have you checked into that? Good luck, I hope your able to get one. Once you have gotten the info if you can get a permit. Then you can go to the County Ag Extension, or maybe even the city would have the info, on how deep you have to go to obtain sweet water. With the Great Salt Lake so near by, and the some of the areas of West Valley is marshy, plus the salt content, alkaline ect. You might have to go pretty deep.

[mgriffith]

I'm in the process of getting a well drilled here in Missouri. I realize my area is very different from yours and we don't need to first get a permit. Ground water is available everywhere here and everyone has their own well (those that don't live in the city). However, we normally have to drill over 300 feet to get usable water which you can't do with a well point and a sledge hammer. However, we can sometimes hit water at 50 or 80 feet which we can do with a well point, but it is only usable for gardening.

Mark

[Wasatch Rebel]

Your first hurdle will be to get a well permit. Have you checked into that? Good luck, I hope your able to get one. Once you have gotten the info if you can get a permit. Then you can go to the County Ag Extension, or maybe even the city would have the info, on how deep you have to go to obtain sweet water. With the Great Salt Lake so near by, and the some of the areas of West Valley is marshy, plus the salt content, alkaline ect. You might have to go pretty deep.

Darn. I thought it was going to be easy. Of course, that permit thing rankles me, because we ought to be able to do what we want with our own property as long as it isn't against a legitimate law, which I don't consider a permit for digging a well in your own yard to be. But if I can't do it with a well point, because it's too deep, that's a tragedy. Well, what are some other ways to obtain water beyond what you can store?

[Julie]

Not only do you have to have a permit you have to "own water rights that you can transfer to a well". There maybe city restrictions on wells, also. The state is very protective of their water. You can buy "water rights' from someone who is selling them that is on the same drainage system as you are and use those to transfer if the city lets you. You can drill a well but will there be water? It can be an expensive gamble.

[LEVE]

Have you though about hydro-drilling that well? Take a look at this site:

How To Drill Your Own Water Well (http://www.drillyourownwell.com/)

It may give you some good ideas.

[Rand]

In Montana as a kid we drilled a well and never found anything down to 250 feet. We had a neighbor come in who "witched wells" and he told us to drill about 50' from where we didn't find water the first time, and told us we would get 25 gallons a minute at 55'. He was almost spot on!
You could always look into that if you could find someone you could trust.

[PhoenixRising]

In Montana as a kid we drilled a well and never found anything down to 250 feet. We had a neighbor come in who "witched wells" and he told us to drill about 50' from where we didn't find water the first time, and told us we would get 25 gallons a minute at 55'. He was almost spot on!
You could always look into that if you could find someone you could trust.I used to think such things as divining and applied kinesiology were either bogus or the devil's work, but I've come around. I've received some amazing healing from practitioners who use muscle testing to find and treat health issues, and the spirit was present in that work.

[Wasatch Rebel]

Well, what are some other ways to obtain water beyond what you can store?

I'm quoting myself here, but let's say we're in some kind of prolonged disaster or economic collapse and our stores of water run out. How can we get water? I'm kind of stuck and cannot run for the hills because my wife is disabled, so I need some solutions other than leaving for the wilderness in some kind of zombie apocalypse. A canal runs nearby, but perhaps upstream somewhere it gets shut off and becomes dry...and, it's probably full of chemicals anyway.

[Wasatch Rebel]

Have you though about hydro-drilling that well? Take a look at this site:

How To Drill Your Own Water Well (http://www.drillyourownwell.com/)

It may give you some good ideas.

Thanks, Leve. Yes, I've seen this before, and even have it pinned on pinterest. I've got to figure out how the two hoses are connected up at the top, but other than that, it seems workable.