wrote in message
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On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 08:54:29 -0700, "Matthew Reed" nospam at zootal
dot com nospam wrote:

The water level in my well is dropping, which I understand is normal for
this time of year. Once it drops below the pickup, I can't pump any more.
Is
there anything that can be done to deepen the well or clean out the
bottom,
or am I stuck with what I have? The well is 17 feet deep, I don't know how
much debris or mud might be at the bottom. I have a 2" pipe going into the
ground. The guy that drilled it dropped a stick of dynamite into it and
blew
out the bottom, but I don't know how big of a cavity might be down there.

We have that problem all over Florida. The problem is too many people
are taking water from a finite source. The only answer, once a shallow
well pump starts working, is a deeper well and a different pump. You
might be able to convert to a jet pump setup to buy some time but a 4"
well with a submersible pump will probably end up being the real fix,

Is there anything that can be done with an existing well, or do you pretty
much have to start over from scratch and drill a new one? I'm guessing the
best I could do is try to suck the gunk from the bottom of this well - in
fact, I think that is all I can do, though I'm hoping for some ideas.
Starting over is an option - maybe go down 30 feet this time.

How deep can a "shallow" well go? I think you can suck water from about 32
feet, but I don't know if most pumps can do that, and I think the deeper it
is the less volume you can get.

On a related topic - my pump is a Gould JRS5, and I can only get about 55
psi out of it with everything turned off. How much pressure should I be able
to get? Under load, say 3 impact sprinklers, I can only get about 30 psi.