The amount of water needed can vary from place to place and person to person. Climate, water pressure, appliances used, irrigation practices, etc., all help to determine the need for water. Your financing arrangements may also have some influence on your needs. A good general rule is 5 gallons per minute. A very important qualification to that figure is that if a 1200 gallon holding tank is installed, you can possibly satisfy those requirements with as little as ½ gallon per minute.

The average person uses between 35-75 gallons per day. This means an average family of 4 uses approximately 300 gallons per day. There is a popular formula used to calculate maximum water requirements.

There are many misconceptions about drilling a water well. One of them is that we are over a large lake that you drill until you hit it. This is true over an aquifer, but, not over a great majority of the areas drilled today.

Many of our customers are first time well drillers. So, they are not aware of the most efficient way to drill a well. Drilling includes 3 steps.

1. Locate the water.
2. Drill to the water.
3. Well development. (if necessary)

Locating the water is what we do. We include a "Maximum drilling depth" in our report to our customers. The reasons for this are (1) to give our customers a way to budget for their well, and (2) to let them know when to stop drilling. We have only had one situation in the last 3 years where someone hit significant water within 200 feet after our maximum depth.

The driller will then come in and drill at the location specified. The driller will attempt to hit the water detected and to clean out the fracture as best as they can with their equipment. If they can get the water we have detected, the job is finished. If not, we need to concentrate on well development.

Well development includes the removal of silt, sand, biofouling, clay, etc.. It usually starts with using a camera to determine why we haven't seen the water detected. Fracturing opens up the blockages that restrict water by increasing the size and extent of the existing fractures. We recommend the "Straddle Packer" method. This is because we localize the pressure on the fractures most likely to contain the water we are after. More information on fracturing is available from Northwest Hydro-Fracturing or Fogle Pump & Supply.