"Hustlin' Hank" wrote:

What is the least amount of water (gallons per minute) a family of 4
needs out of a well? I know you can't have too much. But what is the
least?

There is liable to be a local code that will nail it down for *you*.
But in general, you can make up for what you lack in by adding a
reservoir. When I was a kid our family of 6 did quite well with a
spring that got down to a couple gallons per *hour* in the summer. It
emptied into a spring house that was about 10feet square and 3-4 feet
deep.

Be careful with averages. Our water is metered & I check it every 6
months. Our family of 4 uses an average of 51,000 gallons every six
months for the last 11 years.

The low is 30,00- the high was 130,000. [Throw out the 130K & the
next highest is 98,000] The summer we used so much I was excavating a
couple walls in the basement and replacing the stone with block. Lots
of people and equipment washing going on all summer.

I imagine a family of 4 in FL would use more than a family of 4 in ME
- but I could be wrong. That said- here's what the EPA says about
that average family;
http://www.epa.gov/watersense/pubs/indoor.htm


Note that they say that the "average family of four can use 400
gallons of water every day" Our average is 140gallons a day, so I
guess we aren't average.
[I'm shocked at those numbers- I thought we would be way *over* the
average. ]

Jim