If your farm's current water well has dried up, you may be planning on having a new one drilled and are trying to decide on a location for the well. While you may feel as though you need only to make sure the well is close to your house, there are other considerations involved. If you do not know these considerations, you may wind up making the following mistakes when selecting the location for your farm's new water well.
1. Picking a Spot in a Low-lying Area
One mistake you should avoid when trying to decide where to put your farm's new water well is picking out a spot in a low-lying area. Especially if the location is surrounding by slopes or hills, any run-off from rain or melted snow and ice will saturate the ground around the well as well as fill the well with dirt, mud, rocks, and other debris.
If your well collects too much debris, there are a couple of problems that may arise. First, the well will start to fill up with the debris, which will displace the water and keep the well from fully filling up. You may discover that your well runs dry faster or floods if the water run-off is too great for the well's capacity.
Second, when the water becomes filled with mud, the water will be thicker, making it harder for the pump to filter and push the water through the pipes and into your house. Try to select an area that is top of a slope or hill so that water and debris run off away from the well.
2. Placing the Well Near Your Stock
Another mistake that you should avoid making when picking out a spot of your water well is placing it too close to where you keep your stock. Even if your cattle, pigs, and even chickens only gather in a location for part of the day, they will still leave behind feces that will contaminate the soil and groundwater.
Whenever it rains, this contaminated soil and groundwater will infiltrate the well even if you have it up on a slope or hill. This would then contaminate the water with bacteria and parasites, which could make members of your household very ill.
Even if you avoid making the above mistakes, you may still be uncertain as to the ideal location of your well. If so, speak with a representative from the well drilling service that you plan on hiring to drill the well, and ask for their recommendations after they inspect the land surrounding your home.
To learn more, contact a company like Beeman Drilling.
