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Here are some suggestions to keep your water well safe this winter:

Protect Your Pump
Many well systems are buried deep underground, which provides protection from the cold. But for well owners with above ground pumps, action should be taken to keep the system insulated and warm. Constructing a small insulated enclosure covering the pump will help keep the system above 32 degrees and reduce the risk of freezing and other damage. This small “well house” can save thousands of dollars in repairs and ensure a well operates throughout a cold winter. Find a qualified contractor.

Protect Your Pipes
As water freezes, it expands and can burst your pipes, leading to significant damage to your home and well. check to see that any above-ground plumbing related to your water system is protected for cold weather conditions. Especially sensitive to freezing are the small diameter pipes that pressure switches are mounted on and the body of a pressure gauge. Frozen pipes are a common winter issue for homeowners, but can be avoided with a few easy steps.

• Turn off your exterior water and blow out your pipes.
  Ideally your house will have a shut-off valve for its exterior water supply. If so, turn off any water that flows to outside irrigation systems and faucets. Once you have turned the water off, then drain the remaining water or use an air compressor to blow out the pipes. If you don’t have a shut-off valve, find a local contractor for other options to shutting off exterior water.
• Insulate your pipes.
  For houses with piping that runs through non-heated spaces like basements, we suggest insulating pipes. Wrapping pipes with rubber casings or fiberglass insulation can keep their temperature above freezing and the water flowing.
• Inspect your pipes.
  This is a great time to do a general inspection of your water system and piping. Spotting a problem in your system now could save you from a costly problem this winter. Find a certified contractor to schedule an inspection.

Prepare for a Power Outage
While there is little that can be done by the homeowner to prevent power outages due to winter weather, there are steps to take so you have water to drink while waiting for the lights to come back on.

• Always have a portable gas generator and plenty of gas to connect to your pumping system.
• Stock up on bottled water before the winter; this way if there is a prolonged outage, you can still have clean drinking water in the house.

Contact a local contractor to learn more about backup generators and other options to keep your water flowing during a power outage.

Private well owners  should have their wells inspected for damage after winter storms. Intense weather conditions can lead to various issues with private water systems which should be inspected by a certified water well contractor.  Certified water well contractors can be found at https://wellowner.org/find-a-contractor/

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Before your water well runs out of water, consider calling a groundwater professional to check your water levels.

Here’s a comparison of how the drought has worsened in the United States from June 2020 to June 2021:

What a drought could mean for your water well system

Drought conditions can have wide-ranging impacts including effects on groundwater supplies. Seasonal variations in weather patterns can impact shallow wells. The loss of water does not necessarily mean there is no more water. Decreased productivity may or may not be due to drought.

When a well goes dry due to drought, it means the water table has dropped below the level of the pump.

An illustration of the water table getting lower

Wells do not typically go dry at once but slowly get worse due to lack of aquifer recharge.

Depending on the severity of the drought, it can take multiple soaking rains over a period of time to recharge an aquifer. The recharge rate must equal the demand or water tables will continue to decline.

Some aquifers are continually recharged by rainwater that infiltrates the ground. Other aquifers have to be recharged from alternative sources of water.

Some aquifers are sealed off from surface water recharge due to an impermeable layer of clay or solid rock limiting effective recharge.

When the problem is a declining water table, oftentimes the well can be drilled deeper to extend its depth back below the water table. Deepening a well does not guarantee more water. A water well system professional can determine whether the size and condition of the well casing will permit the well to be drilled deeper.

Often, older wells drilled only into the top of an aquifer — not penetrating the full thickness of the aquifer — are the wells most likely to fail first. Some wells can be deepened and the pump lowered to keep the well owner in water. Lowering the pump may put it into the perforated interval of the well and very lose to the bottom of the well.

What you can do to protect your water well system from drought

Many people in drought-stricken areas become very resourceful in managing, conserving, recycling, or harvesting water to meet their water needs. For example, you can schedule water-intensive activities such as watering your lawn, washing clothes, doing the dishes, and taking a shower across the day so they are not all occurring at the same time.

Water well users are not often aware of how much water they are using until they are show. Groundwater usage data can be used to encourage water conservation. When water use was reported frequently, usage dropped. (Tip: Learn more about water conservation by clicking here.)

Using your water more than once can conserve groundwater.

There are many ways to deal with water shortages during times of drought: managing, conserving, recycling, and harvesting.

Don’t delay; call a groundwater professional today! To find a qualified professional in your area, use our Find-a-Contractor search tool.

To read more about water wells during a drought, click here.

For more information about private water wells during drought, please watch the free webinar below:

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There are many different ways to drill a domestic water well. One is what we call the “mud rotary” method. Whether or not this is the desired and/or best method for drilling your well is something more fully explained in this brief summary.

Air and water are both fluids that can be used to remove cuttings from the bottom of the borehole as the driller drills your water well.

One advantage of drilling with compressed air is that it can tell you when you have encountered groundwater and gives you an indication how much water the borehole is producing. When drilling with water using the mud rotary method, the driller must rely on his interpretation of the borehole cuttings and any changes he can observe in the recirculating fluid. Mud rotary drillers can also use borehole geophysical tools to interpret which zones might be productive enough for your water well.

The mud rotary well drilling method is considered a closed-loop system. That is, the mud is cleaned of its cuttings and then is recirculated back down the borehole. Referring to this drilling method as “mud” is a misnomer, but it is one that has stuck with the industry for many years and most people understand what the term actually means.

Sampling drill cuttings when drilling mud rotary

The water is carefully mixed with a product that should not be called mud because it is a highly refined and formulated clay product—bentonite. It is added, mixed, and carefully monitored throughout the well drilling process.

The purpose of using a bentonite additive to the water is to form a thin film on the walls of the borehole to seal it and prevent water losses while drilling. This film also helps support the borehole wall from sluffing or caving in because of the hydraulic pressure of the bentonite mixture pressing against it. The objective of the fluid mixture is to carry cuttings from the bottom of the borehole up to the surface, where they drop out or are filtered out of the fluid, so it can be pumped back down the borehole again.

When using the mud rotary method, the driller must have a sump, a tank, or a small pond to hold a few thousand gallons of recirculating fluid. If they can’t dig sumps or small ponds, they must have a mud processing piece of equipment that mechanically screens and removes the sands and gravels from the mixture. This device is called a “shale shaker.”

Cuttings coming off shale shaker

The fluid mixture must have a gel strength sufficient to support marble-size gravels and sand to the surface when the fluid is moving. Once the cuttings have been carried to the surface and the velocity of the fluid allowed to slow down, the fluid is designed to allow the sand and gravel to drop out.

The driller does not want to pump fine sand through the pump and back down the borehole. To avoid that, the shale shaker uses vibrating screens of various sizes and desanding cones to drop the sand out of the fluid as it flows through the shaker—so that the fluid can be used again.

When the borehole has reached the desired depth and there is evidence that the formation it has penetrated will yield enough water, then it’s time to make the borehole into a well.

Before the well casing and screens are lowered into the borehole, the recirculating fluid is slowly thinned out by adding fresh water as the fluid no longer needs to support sand and gravel. The driller will typically circulate the drilling from the bottom up the borehole while adding clear water to thin down the viscosity or thickness of the fluid. Once the fluid is sufficiently thinned, the casing and screens are installed and the annular space is gravel packed.

Taking viscosity readings

Gravel pack installed between the borehole walls and the outside of the well casing acts like a filter to keep sand out and maintain the borehole walls over time. During gravel packing of the well, the thin layer of bentonite clay that kept the borehole wall from leaking drilling fluid water out of the recirculating system now keeps the formation water from entering the well.

This is where well development is performed to remove the thin bentonite layer or “wall cake” that was left behind. Various methods are used to remove the wall cake and develop the well to its maximum productivity.

Some drillers use compressed air to blow off the well, starting at the first screened interval and slowly working their way to the bottom—blowing off all the water standing above the drill pipe and allowing it to recover, and repeating this until the water blown from the well is free of sand and relatively clean. If after repeated cycles of airlift pumping and recovery the driller cannot find any sand in the water, it is time to install a well development pump.

Additional development of the well can be done with a development pump that may be of a higher capacity than what the final installation pump will be. Just as with cycles of airlift pumping of the well, the development pump will be cycled at different flow rates until the maximum capacity of the well can be determined. If the development pump can be operated briefly at a flow rate 50% greater than the permanent pump, the well should not pump sand.

Before selecting the mud rotary drilling method, there are economic factors you may need to consider:

1. The cost of the bentonite product, water supply, and mud mixing equipment
2. The need and the price for geophysical logging the borehole
3. Whether or not in-the-ground mud pits can be dug to hold the cuttings
4. Whether or not the well development water can be discharged to the ground
5. Disposal of the drilling mud and cuttings when the well is completed
6. The time it takes to develop the well as compared to other methods of drilling.

Mud rotary well drillers for decades have found ways to make this particular system work to drill and construct domestic water wells. In some areas, it’s the ideal method to use because of the geologic formations there, while other areas of the country favor air rotary methods.

Some drilling rigs are equipped to drill using either method, so the contractor must make the decision as to which method works best in your area, for your well, and at your point in time.

To learn more about the difference between mud rotary drilling and air rotary drilling, click the video below. The video is part of our “NGWA: Industry Connected” YouTube series:

About the Author

Gary Hix is a Registered Professional Geologist in Arizona, specializing in hydrogeology. He was the 2019 William A. McEllhiney Distinguished Lecturer for The Groundwater Foundation. He is a former licensed water well drilling contractor and remains actively involved in the National Ground Water Association and Arizona Water Well Association.

To learn more about Gary’s work, go to In2Wells.com. His eBooks, “Domestic Water Wells in Arizona: A Guide for Realtors and Mortgage Lenders” and “Shared Water Wells in Arizona,” are available on Amazon.

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As a private well owner, you are the manager of your water system. Beyond the basics of the well that delivers clean water to your home day in and day out, there are many different aspects of water well ownership that you should made aware.

On this Earth Day, it is the perfect time to brush up on the basics. Understanding the basics of groundwater is important. Learning about and appreciating this valuable resource can guide you to becoming a better steward of groundwater.

On WellOwner.org, you can find landing pages about understanding groundwater, water conservation, groundwater sustainability, and more.

Groundwater protection is so important that the NGWA has dedicated an entire chapter of the Well Owners Guide to it.

With all that being said, what simple ways can you protect groundwater this week?

Give these 6 tips a shot:

1. Use reusable water bottles.
2. Avoid single-use plastic water bottles.
3. Water plants during the coolest parts of the day.
4. Take reusable bags to the grocery store.
5. Fight food wastes by composting.
6. Challenge yourself to take showers five minutes or less.

6 Tips To Try This Week

If you want to learn more about groundwater protection, click here. If you want to download a free digital copy of the Well Owners Guide, click here.

Remember: a little education in groundwater protection goes a long way.

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