A large number of water-supplies in the country, perhaps the largest
number, at present comes from wells, either dug or drilled. It often
happens that after plumbing fixtures have been installed with a pump to
raise the water to the necessary elevated tank, the increased
consumption causes the well to run dry for a number of weeks in the
summer. The question then arises, Shall the well supply be supplemented
or shall an entirely new supply be developed?
There are two methods of supplementing a dug well supply, and it may be
of advantage to point them out. If the sand or gravel in which the water
is carried is fine, it may be that the water will not at times of low
water enter the well as fast as the pump takes it out. Such a well
always has water in it in the morning, but a short pumping exhausts the
supply. One remedy here is to provide a more easy path for the water,
and that can be done by running out pipe drains in different directions.
If there are any evidences that the underground water flows in any
direction, then the drains should preferably run out at right angles to
this direction, to intercept as much water as possible. The drains must
be laid in trenches and be surrounded with gravel, and of course the
method is inapplicable if the well is more than about fifteen feet deep,
because of the depth of trench involved.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--How a pump works.]
Another remedy is to sink the well deeper, hoping to find a more porous
stratum or to increase the head of water in the well. In one well, the
writer remembers seeing two lengths of twenty-four-inch sewer pipe, that
is, four feet, that had been sunk in the sandy bottom of the well by
operating a posthole digger inside and standing on the top of the pipe
to furnish the necessary weight for sinking.
Still another remedy is to drive pipe down in the bottom of the well,
hoping to find artesian water which will rise into the well from some
lower stratum. This method has been successfully employed in the village
of Homer, New York, where the public supply formerly came from a dug
well twenty feet in diameter. The supply becoming deficient, pipe wells
were driven in the bottom and an excellent supply of water found fifty
feet below the surface, the water rising up in the dug well to within
eight feet of the surface of the ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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