Anyone ever had their water well fracked?

[Finch]

Well it seems that my well is a low producing well. I have a few options.

1. Live with it which seems to be the less likely option given that my wife does multiple loads of laundry a day and running out of water here lately has been a real pain.

2. Have it fracked for $2,800. Only pay half if it doesn't work and then proceed with option 3.

3. Drill a new one which is probably close to $10K.

Anyone else had one fracked? The guy is highly recommended and told me he has a 92% success rate doing this. Sucks but what do you do...we need water.

My current well is 450 deep btw.

 

[ben h]

I don't have any personal experience with low producing wells, but is it possible to get an appropriate size cistern and pump all night or anytime not in use to fill it and use that as a "buffer tanks" for when you're using more than you can produce.

 

[ElkNut1]

Holding Tank, I did it once, worked with a well with less than 6-7 GPM.

ElkNut

 

[WeiserBucks]

Holding tank and an above ground booster pump. I've seen it work for normal households without a ton of landscaping and a well that produces 2-3 gallons per minute.

 

[SouthPaw]

The setup mentioned above with a holding tank and booster pump is exactly what I have and many others in my area. Well production varies depending on the time of year around here. Have you had a well production test performed to understand what you're working with currently?

The answer/solution will also depend on your usage. Frequency of laundry loads, size of family taking multiple showers daily, lots of dishwasher loads, auto-landscaping sprinklers, etc all can impact the necessity of a higher production well or determine the size of a holding tank you may need once you know your current production.

 

[BigDog00]

Well it seems that my well is a low producing well. I have a few options.

1. Live with it which seems to be the less likely option given that my wife does multiple loads of laundry a day and running out of water here lately has been a real pain.

2. Have it fracked for $2,800. Only pay half if it doesn't work and then proceed with option 3.

3. Drill a new one which is probably close to $10K.

Anyone else had one fracked? The guy is highly recommended and told me he has a 92% success rate doing this. Sucks but what do you do...we need water.

My current well is 450 deep btw.

What are they pumping to "frac" it for $2,800?

 

[Finch]

I don't have any personal experience with low producing wells, but is it possible to get an appropriate size cistern and pump all night or anytime not in use to fill it and use that as a "buffer tanks" for when you're using more than you can produce.

I have a 40 gallon pressure tank inside the house. It's that what you mean?

 

[WeiserBucks]

I have a 40 gallon pressure tank inside the house. It's that what you mean?

No, we're talking about a 1500-2500 gallon storage tank with a separate on-demand pump. Well pump feeds the storage tank, above ground pump supplies the necessary pressure and volume as needed.

 

[Finch]

Holding tank and an above ground booster pump. I've seen it work for normal households without a ton of landscaping and a well that produces 2-3 gallons per minute.

Holding Tank, I did it once, worked with a well with less than 6-7 GPM.

ElkNut

Are you guys talking about pressure tanks? I have a 40 gallon inside my house right now.

The setup mentioned above with a holding tank and booster pump is exactly what I have and many others in my area. Well production varies depending on the time of year around here. Have you had a well production test performed to understand what you're working with currently?

The answer/solution will also depend on your usage. Frequency of laundry loads, size of family taking multiple showers daily, lots of dishwasher loads, auto-landscaping sprinklers, etc all can impact the necessity of a higher production well or determine the size of a holding tank you may need once you know your current production.

The guy used his sonar tool to measure the depth of the water. We ran some water and the level took a very long time to even get a tenth of a gallon back. It does recover overnight it seems but takes a long time.

What are they pumping to "frac" it for $2,800?

Water. I know it seems rich. I'm checking prices.

 

[Finch]

No, we're talking about a 1500-2500 gallon storage tank with a separate on-demand pump. Well pump feeds the storage tank, above ground pump supplies the necessary pressure and volume as needed.

Gotcha. I'll have to check into that. I guess determining where to put the tank is one of the bigger drawbacks.

 

[CApighunter]

Storage tank would be the best option. Spent a summer drilling wells, 10k is dirt cheap compared to the prices out here. $50 a foot if we cased with 5 inch PVC.

 

[Blackstorm]

We had our well rejuvenated with a dry acid and dry ice combo, is that what you mean by fracking? It did improve the flow as the dry acid in combination with the dry ice brought up a lot of debris from our well. I suspect it was a lot of the original tailings from when it was originally bored. we also installed a holding tank to do the buffering for high demand periods. My well isn't as deep as yours but there was a lot that this procedure brought up and then our driller flushed our well with about 2500 gallons of water over a couple days with a modified pump to get more tailings out. We haven't gone dry since and several of my neighbors have done similar things to their wells.
by the way it was real cool to watch this science experiment unfold

 

[KyleSS]

How old is your well? If it is old, I would be worried about the casing integrity and what pressure it can handle. Is he just pumping string water? What pressure? Is he introducing any proppant? What rate is he going to stimulate at? Any surfactants, acids, friction reducers being pumped?

 

[CApighunter]

Might be worth it to have a pump service company run a camera down the casing to inspect for any damaged or plugged slits. If production used to be good but they did a shitty job packing the case then the slits could get plugged up with silt. Simply having it jetted could fix the issue and restore flow.

 

[BigDog00]

Water. I know it seems rich. I'm checking prices.

Actually, I thought it sounded super cheap. I work in O&G and am around fracing everyday. I didn't know it was a thing with water wells. You need to add a few zero's to the price just to get equipment to location, but that's also for significantly bigger jobs.

 

[ODB]

No, we're talking about a 1500-2500 gallon storage tank with a separate on-demand pump. Well pump feeds the storage tank, above ground pump supplies the necessary pressure and volume as needed.

Have you run into any issues with storing that much water? Do you need to periodically treat the tank with anything? Presume you are using a plastic (versus steel) tank? Sorry for the hijack, just that this very issue (water storage) came up for a project today. Thx

 

[WeiserBucks]

Have you run into any issues with storing that much water? Do you need to periodically treat the tank with anything? Presume you are using a plastic (versus steel) tank? Sorry for the hijack, just that this very issue (water storage) came up for a project today. Thx

Negative, so long as it's being used and replenished on a regular basis. If it sat dormant for long periods of time I'd suspect that treatment or thorough flushing would be necessary.

 

[Finch]

We had our well rejuvenated with a dry acid and dry ice combo, is that what you mean by fracking? It did improve the flow as the dry acid in combination with the dry ice brought up a lot of debris from our well. I suspect it was a lot of the original tailings from when it was originally bored. we also installed a holding tank to do the buffering for high demand periods. My well isn't as deep as yours but there was a lot that this procedure brought up and then our driller flushed our well with about 2500 gallons of water over a couple days with a modified pump to get more tailings out. We haven't gone dry since and several of my neighbors have done similar things to their wells.
by the way it was real cool to watch this science experiment unfold

I've heard of that method too but this is high pressure water. Here's something I copied and pasted from a website.

The hydrofracturing process involves injecting water, under extremely high pressure, into a bedrock formation via your well. The result is that it works to flush and remove small particles and rock fragments from existing bedrock fractures, clearing and increasing their size. This allows water to flow into the well at increased rates. It also produces a larger network of water-bearing fractures in the bedrock, which supplies the well with increased supply.

How old is your well? If it is old, I would be worried about the casing integrity and what pressure it can handle. Is he just pumping string water? What pressure? Is he introducing any proppant? What rate is he going to stimulate at? Any surfactants, acids, friction reducers being pumped?

This neighborhood used to have community water and something happened with that. Poor management and other issues I heard so everyone in here had to drill a well at the same time which was 2003. We moved in here in 2008. I've heard of a 1000 foot well being in the neighborhood somewhere.

I don't know the answers to the other questions but will find out. He has a camera but didn't run it down. Not sure why.

 

[Finch]

Negative, so long as it's being used and replenished on a regular basis. If it sat dormant for long periods of time I'd suspect that treatment or thorough flushing would be necessary.

Just curious but are you in a cold climate? Can't see from my phone. Can you install these storage tanks in cold climates? Not saying VA is cold (can be) but just curious.

 

[WeiserBucks]

They can be used in a cold climate provided the plumbing and booster pump is properly insulated. I'm in ID and it gets pretty dang cold in the winter.