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What
is a well?
A well
is a hole drilled into the ground that reaches a water source like a
spring or aquifer. A well that gives water for a whole town is
called a town well. A well that only gives water to one house is
called a private well.
How are wells
built?
First,
the people who own the property call someone to locate water for
them. Sometimes this is a geologic group that finds the best place
for the well based on water maps of the area. Drillers send
information into the state so that there is a record of how deep a well
needed to be drilled before water was reached. This information
helps other people in the same area when they have to have a well
drilled. Sometimes dowsers find
water. Click here for our dowsing page.
When they decide where the well will be, drillers
will bore a hole until they reach water.
We went to a property where drillers were digging a well deeper.
This was being done because the owners of the property kept running out of
water. The hole needed to be deeper so that the well would reach a
larger aquifer.
A really important thing to remember when wells
are being drilled is that a well can't take out more water than the
aquifer can replace. Example: Pretend that the aquifer or
spring under your home has five gallons of water in it. [They really
have a lot more than this.] Each day your five neighbors use one
gallon each from their wells. During the day, five more gallons seep
into the ground and replace what has been used. Your neighbors are
using the same amount of water that the earth refills every day. If you
drill a well and use one gallon of water a day, you are going to have
problems because you and your neighbors will be using one more gallon than
the Earth can replace. Someone is going to run out of water during
the day.
The drilling company came with a large drilling
machine. This machine drills the hole. A tall part of the
truck holds the pipes that are used in the drilling. This tall part
will lay down so that the truck can travel on the roads easier.
The actual drilling is very loud. We had to wear
earplugs because the loud BANG, BANG, BANGS could hurt our ears. We
thought that it wouldn't take a lot of time to drill a well but we were
wrong. The drillers told us that there is no way to tell for sure
how long it will take to drill a well. The well is drilled through
hard rock, shale, sand, gravel, clay, or bedrock. It makes sense
that it takes longer to go through rock than sand. So, it might take
hours or even days to finish boring a well.
As we watched the well being bored, things started to
come up out of the pipe. [We found out why drillers where big rubber
boots!] As the boring pipes dug deeper, bits of the rock, sand,
gravel, and water overflowed. This told the driller what they were
drilling through and how close to water they were. It was really
messy!
When the drilling is done, a casing is dropped into the
hole so that the sides of the well don't cave in. The water source
is at the bottom of this hole. The water is run for a couple of days
to get out the dirt, gravel, and other things that got stirred up with the
drilling or don't belong there. Then the water is tested to be sure
that it is all right to drink.
What is a well
pump?
When the
well is drilled, the water just sits at the bottom of the pipe unless you
have an Artesian well. A well pump
is dropped into the well so that it can pump the water up to the
surface. The pump is in the water at the bottom of a long pipe
that is connected to the water pipes coming into your house. Well
water sometimes goes through a water filter attached to the pipe.
When you turn on the faucet or wash clothes, the well pump pushes water
into the pipes in your house. The well has a cap on it to keep out
bugs, bacteria, and other things that will hurt the water.
How safe
is well water?
Well
water taps into groundwater. Most of the time, our sources said that
well water was safer to drink because it goes through its own
filtration. Water seeps through dirt, sand, gravel, and rocks and
cleans itself naturally. A demonstration of
this is our water filter experiment.
This doesn't mean that you drill a well and just
use the water. Some wells tap into contaminated water and can't be
used. Wells can have really good water last year and not this
year. If a company nearby pours chemicals in the ground or a farmer
puts pesticides on his crop, your well water would probably change.
The most important thing to do is test well water at least once a year
just to be sure. Is well water safe? Yes, as long as it
is tested often.
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