Well Well

I called the folks who dug the well here on the mountain nine years ago to see what could be done about running out of water occasionally when we have a full house. Their suggestion was to take shorter showers.

Seems that we aren't the only ones on the mountain with the problem. The water table has dropped with the recent droughts and the level of water in the well when full has dropped along with it. In other words, instead of a reserve of 300 gallons, we now have significantly less.

The way to get a larger reserve is to dig deeper. Apparently the depth of 375 feet in our well is "shallow" for these hills. Another 200 feet would help appreciably and might also find some more cracks in the rocks to increase the recovery rate as well. That costs $500 for them to "squat" the drilling rig over the well in preparation for drilling and $11 a foot to drill. Then there is also the matter of pulling 375 feet of pipe and electrical wires in addition to the pump itself out of the well and adding 200 feet of pipe and wire.

Hmmm. Shorter showers looks like the way to go until the water table has a chance to recover.