How To Measure Water In A Well

Measure out Well Depth: How Deep is the Well?
How to measure water well depth

POST a QUESTION or COMMENT almost the procedure to make the basic measurements of a water well: diameter, depth, water level, static head.

InspectAPedia tolerates no conflicts of interest. We have no relationship with advertisers, products, or services discussed at this website.

How to measure well depth & how to abandon a well that will no longer be used.

How to utilize a cord and weight to measure well depth. How much water is in the well?

Water quantity & definitions of well depth, water depth, static head, well volume, h2o quantity are explained

This article serial describes how we mensurate the depth of a water well.

We circumspection that the amount of water available and the h2o commitment rate ability of diverse types of drinking water sources like wells, cisterns, dug wells, drilled wells, and fifty-fifty artesian wells is not answered just by measuring the depth of the well itself, simply still nosotros oftentimes need to know this number in club to know how to stupor the well or how to prepare pipes, controls, and well pump choices or settings.

We also provide an Article Alphabetize for this topic, or you can endeavor the page top or bottom SEARCH BOX as a quick way to find information you need.

How To Measure out the Depth of a Water Well

Water well measurement details, Oregon Water Resources, at InspectApedia.com The sketch at page height, courtesy of Carson Dunlop Associates, outlines what happens during a well drawdown or well flow test procedure.

The illustration shown hither explains that measuring h2o level in a well requires fugitive getting hung up on well piping, seals, spacers. Source: How to Measure Water Level in a Well, Oregon Water Department, cited below.

[Click to enlarge any image]

Showtime you have to find the well. Second you need to know what kind of well is installed: driven bespeak, drilled, or paw dug well, for instance.

Two Central Questions to Ask Near the Water Well

If you are purchasing a property served by a individual well of any sort, here are the critical questions to inquire virtually the well itself:

Where is the well located? Is the well on the property? Tin can you detect information technology? Sometimes at that place is a visible well casing above ground, or a visible protective embrace over a dug well. Non always. If you can't detect the well,
see WELL LOCATION, HOW TO FIND.

What kind of well is it: hand dug well, driven betoken well, drilled well, spring, stream, (these water source alternatives have implications for sanitation and h2o quantity as well as safe)

Measurements like the well depth, well flow rate, well recovery rate are all useful, simply taken by themselves some of these numbers tin give a false reading about the basic question of how much water is in the well?

What nosotros ultimately demand to know is the total quantity of water that tin can be drawn from the well and the quality of that water: is information technology potable, hard (mineral laden), smelly, muddied, requiring treatment for any aesthetic or health-business concern contaminant?

See WELL FLOW RATE and

come across WELL FLOW TEST PROCEDURE.

Well Depth Measurement Tools, Devices, Procedures

Fishing float and string or fishing weight and string can be used to find the depth of a well and the top of the well water (C) Daniel Friedman InspectApedia.com Trimmer (1991) describes iii methods to measure h2o levels in a well: an electronic sounder or depth guess (device lowered on wire senses distance to water top), a wetted record (accurate to near 90 ft), and an air line (measures anticipated usage volume not actual well water depth).

Here we draw several more than-simple, very low-cost methods for making well and water depth measurements.

A simple steel egg sinker, 3/4oz or heavier can exist used with string to find well depth. Adding a simple fishing bladder and suspending the weight just below the float can be used to discover the depth to the top of well water.

These fishing essentials are sold just most everywhere, including online at Bass Pro Shops (basspro.com). Hither are the details:

How to Find the Depth of a Well using a simple Cord and Weight

I've used a simple float and weight to measure well depth and the depth to the top of the well water in well bores equally well as dug wells.

The H2o Ace Pump Company [cited at REFERENCES] besides as other water equipment companies like Flotec® offer a uncomplicated well depth measurement procedure that works for drilled wells or hand dug wells. Nosotros have added some details.

ane. Tie a pocket-sized merely heavy weight to the end of a piece of string (be sure there is enough string; some wells are very deep). Lower the weight into the well until it reaches the bottom. I utilize a steel or magnesium line-fishing weight.

Watch out: be careful putting anything into your well, that you don't ship down a weight that gets hooked on pipes or valves in the well bottom.

Use a small (non-lead-containing) fishing weight or a rounded object and tie it carefully. I don't use a pb weight considering if I lose it I'll accept to retrieve information technology: I don't want to leave a chunk of lead in the drinking water.

2. Take upwardly the slack and mark the cord at ground level. Pull the weight out of the well.

3. Mensurate from the lesser of the weight to the footing level mark on your string. This is the depth of your well.

For relatively shallow wells, xxx' or less, we sometimes use a tape measure out directly, merely a weight on a string assures that the line used to make a measurement is absolutely directly, so more accurate.

How to Find the Level of Water Acme the Well

Except for artesian wells, the top of the h2o level in the well will virtually always be some depth lower than the top of the ground surface.

As we explicate beneath, there are reasons we want to know the depth from footing to the top of the water level in the well: to calculate the well's static caput or book.

Well Water Water Level by Observation

Starting time exist sure that the well is in fully-recovered mode. That means that no h2o has been fatigued from the well (the pump is off or no water is being run at the building(south) served by the well for an interval long enough that the well has fully recovered.

Just how long you lot demand to wait for a well to recover depends on the well'southward static head, and its flow rate or recovery charge per unit. The time may be anywhere from a few minutes to 12 hours or longer.

If you can see the top of water in your well and if the top is not deep in the well, you may exist able to measure to the water superlative using a simple tape measure.

Watch out: Accept intendance non to drop the tape into the well, or tie a cord from the tape's belt clip to your chugalug if you are impuissant like me.

Oops I dropped the weight into the well! Ok so have I. I also leaned over a well and dropped a fancy pen that my mom had given me. (I left information technology there and I never told anybody.)

See WELL Pipe RETRIEVAL TOOLS for assistance getting back stuff you've dropped into the well.

Well Water Level by Using a String & Fishing Float

If yous cannot see the top of water in your well so yous tin can necktie a fishing float or "bobber" to your cord and lower it carefully into the well until information technology stops dropping. Mark the string at ground level. Measure that string length - that'southward the depth from the ground surface to the meridian of your well water.

I hang a small low-cal (non-lead) weight beneath my bobber to assistance lower it into the well and I take care to avert snagging the bobber and cord on components along the well pipage.

Well Water Level by Using a Cord & Water Finding Paste

You lot can adapt the string and weight method described in a higher place by calculation a water finding paste to the upper portion of the string. Water finding paste will turn color (such every bit pink to blueish) where it contacts h2o.

The string and paste volition allow you lot to measure well depth and water top at once if you can first approximate at the location of the h2o height so that you lot can locate where to put the paste without having to coat the unabridged string.

For a deep well I'd want a long, strong string, a smooth not-jamming weight.

Well H2o Level Using a Cord and "Popper" (Pipe cap and nipple)

Flotec® describes using a popper or noise-maker assembled from a 4-6" x 1/2" pipe nipple and cap. The cap is sealed to the pipe nipple and the associates is lowered into the well, again taking care non to snag the assembly in the well diameter.

Flotec explains that when you lift the pipage nipple+ cap (open stop down) from beneath the water surface back into the air the assembly will make a "popular" sound that is quite audible. Measure out your string from ground level at that point to the bottom of the pipe nipple and you've measured the altitude from ground level to top of the well water.

What do Well Depth Measurements Mean?

Well depth and well water depth permit you to calculate the static head or volume of water in the well at residual. These procedures are important for matching the well pump chapters to the physical depth of the well opening in the ground.

But knowing the well depth does not tell u.s. much about how much water is actually in the well (though we can calculate that) and it doesn't tell us the charge per unit at which nosotros can take water out of the well and for how long - the well'southward flow rate.

Picket out: measuring the water level in a well is not the same equally measuring well depth.

Definition of well depth: the distance from the ground surface to the bottom of the bore pigsty.
Definition of water level: the top to which water rises in a h2o well when the well is at rest and fully recovered afterward recent utilize.
Definition of static head: the peak of the column of water available to the well pump or human foot valve; distance from the water level top to the intake of the pump or human foot valve. Multiply the static caput height by well diameter or past well volume per foot to determine the actual water volume comprised by the static head.
See WELL DYNAMIC Caput & STATIC Caput DEFINITION where we explicate how we apply well depth and the well bore diameter to calculate the actual volume of h2o in the well in gallons or liters.
Definition of drawdown depth: the depth to which the pump lowers water in the well when the pump is running.
In a well whose menstruum rate is greater than the pump's charge per unit of removing water from the well, the drawdown depth will exist somewhere below the summit of the static head and the h2o intake at the pump or foot valve.

The drawdown depth of your well is measured when the well driller prepares your well or perchance when your plumber installs a new well pump.
Definitions of water quantity and well catamenia rate: how much h2o is in the well bore when the well is recovered and at residue? How much h2o can we really get out of a well?
See WELL YIELD, SAFE LIMITS

and see WELL FLOW RATE

How to Find the End of the Steel Casing in a Well Bore

Reader Question: how do I mensurate the depth of the steel casing part of my well?

The electric current well casing is 6" steel and rusting, evidenced in the drinking water How practise I adamant the length of this casing? - J.D. six/viii/2013

Respond: string and magnet method; well photographic camera method

My kickoff preference in finding out details almost a drilled well using a steel casing is to look in the edifice for notes most the well location, depth, and specifications; oft the driller or plumber provides that data in writing and it may likewise be written on a wall or ceiling joist in a basement or crawl area where the well pipe enters the building, or at the water tank and well pump.

I've also had success calling local well drillers to observe out who drilled the well equally unremarkably the company keeps well drilling record.

Merely if yous are left with no information and need to know just the depth of the steel well casing (equally opposed to the total well depth) try this procedure, working carefully to avert dropping anything into the well or hanging up your cord and weight-magnet.

Pick up a strong alnico magnet, tie it to a stiff but light nylon rope,.
Lower the magnet lower into the well center until y'all are sure you are below the casing, or to well bottom.

Lookout out to avoid hanging the magnet up on the well pump, pipe connections, wiring. I like a round or cone-shaped magnet that is less probable to get defenseless up, and one that is only an inch or then in diameter;

Pull the magnet up slowly until you feel when magnet kickoff grips the steel well casing
Marking rope at well top (I used a magic marking)
Pull the magnet and rope out of the well completely.
Measure the rope length between the casing-top-mark and the magnet.
This arroyo may take a couple of tries.

Watch out: Don't drop stuff on the well.

An alternative is to hire a well service company who offer an inspection photographic camera service. Such cameras are lowered into the well to inspect for casing cracks, rust holes, impairment;

Matching Well Pump Capacity to Well Depth

Water Ace explains how to select the depth to which your submersible pump or pes valve should exist placed in a water well.

Subtract five anxiety from the depth of your well. This number should not exceed the maximum rated depth for your pump. If it does, it will profoundly hinder or preclude the proper operation of the pump.

FYI the five foot deduction from the physical well depth used to estimate pump chapters is bold that the water option-upward stop of your in-well pipe volition be held well-nigh five anxiety off of the physical bottom of the well. That's because placing the water pick-up too close to the very bottom of the well risks picking up silt and debris, clogging the pes valve, piping, and water pump

Well Depth Tools, Research, Articles, Methods

Flotec®, "Observe Your Well'due south Depth to Water" [web article], Flotec 293 Wright Street, Delavan, WI 53115 USA, Tel: 800-365-6832, Retrieved 2017/10/25, original source: http://www.flotecpump.com/residentialpage_resource_starthere_4inSub_DepthtoWater.aspx
HOW to Mensurate the WATER LEVEL in a WELL [PDF], (Using an electric water level meter), Oregon Water Resources Department & Oregon State University Sea Grant Extension (2009), retrieved 2017/ten/25, original source: http://www.oregon.gov/owrd/gw/docs/water_level_booklet.pdf
Trimmer, Walter L. MEASURING Water WELL LEVELS [PDF] [Corvallis, Or.]: Oregon State Academy, Extension Service, 1991.
Abstract:
Groundwater is an of import resources in Oregon. As more than people depend on groundwater, some water tables around the Land are dropping, threatening their h2o supplies. State police force requires that groundwater be managed every bit a renewable resource, and that h2o tables exercise not driblet permanently.
To assess the size of the groundwater resource and monitor the effects of development and drought, State law requires an aquifer test on every well with a water right.

Part of that examination is to measure the depth of water in the well. We'll talk over three methods of measuring water levels in this publication.

Well Abandonment / Bore-hole Sealing Procedures for Wells Taken out of Service

The steps you need to take to seal off a h2o well or to de-commission a well - this topic has been moved and expanded and is at present found

at WELL ABANDONMENT PROCEDURE

Readers of this document should likewise

See WATER TANK TYPES and before assuming that a water problem is due to the well itself,

run into H2o PUMP REPAIR GUIDE an specific case which offers an instance of diagnosis of loss of water force per unit area, loss of water, and analyzes the bodily repair cost.

In a companion commodity,

WELL Flow Exam PROCEDURE,

we describe both valid and questionable ways people measure out well yield, and we offer some simple steps any home owner or dwelling house buyer tin can take to cheque the capability of h2o pressure and water quantity at a edifice.

Reader Comments & Q&A

@Paula Chaapman,

Lamentable but I don't sympathise what

A KB 799 ways.

But you will find articles here on how to measure out the depth of a well, how to measure the static head or book of h2o that's in the Well when the well is at residuum, and how to measure out the well flow charge per unit or its actual ability to deliver water. Practice accept a expect.

My well" is AKB799 How mux=ch water exercise we accept?

@PeterC,

I wont pretend to do the calculations or scientific assay to approximate the amount of lead that might appear in your drinking water from dropping a small-scale line-fishing weight into a well.

The science would require having an opinion near the water usage rate and therefore the book of h2o passing through the well too equally the water chemistry or its corrosivity as well equally the condition of the lead weight and perhaps its depth into the muck at the bottom of the well.

And so let's put that bated and suggest that you lot might endeavor, using a more than stout line, retrieving The weight past hooking the remains of its line which volition likewise be coiled and fouling the lower portion of your well.

Or you tin can first send downward a well bore inspection photographic camera to meet exactly the situation.

My pump went so my friend said put a fishing weight, so I did it was 216 Feet deep on retrieving it the line cut and it dropped to the bottom it was a 3oz led fishing weight should I be concerned information technology seemed that there was abought foot of muck on the lesser?

@MarkS,

Being safely far away I will hazard a guess that "probe refusal depth" is the depth at which their probe to find well depth seemed to be blocked or stopped. That's the purported "well bottom".

The reason for that fancy-pants term "well probe refusal depth" is a scrap of ducking to avoid a subsequently customer depth that what was found was non the true bottom of the well.

For example if a probe or just a dropped weight on a cord hits an obstacle such as a well pipage centering disc or a damaged well casing and so can't go further, that "depth" isn't actually to the bottom of the well.

How would nosotros know what the heck the "probe" hit? Nosotros'd need to lower a well bore inspection camera to see what'due south going on.

Water quantity depth is the well'south "static caput" - the size of the column of water in the well when the pump has been off, the well has fully recovered from whatsoever recent use.

There are several gas burner diagnostic articles listed in the Recommended Manufactures list on this folio, merely

So "probe refusal well waster quantity depth" is the depth (or full tiptop) of the water column between the top of the water and the depth to which the probe got.

Since in almost wells the water in the casing doesn't come to the meridian of the well casing, all depth measurements take 3 components:

A - Top of well downward to to 30 depth

B - Peak of water downwards to xxx depth - which has to exist a smaller number than A.

OPINON: it'southward a poor and inexpert well exam report that failed to define its terms for the client who paid for it.

I have moved into a house and inherited a well catamenia examination report, but cannot find explanations of a couple of terms used ie, probe refusal depth, probe refusal well water quantity depth, and probe quantity depth. Would you explain them for me delight. Thank you.

@MollyH,

If you are non able to drib a weight to the well bottom I would quit dropping objects into the well bore equally there'south some chance of fouling upward the pump or human foot valve or other components.

It's also possible to transport a well bore inspection camera down the well - a good way to ostend that the casing is un-damaged and that there are no obstructions.

What'south left is a bit pricey so you'd do information technology when needed and not earlier: you'd have a well service company pull the well pipe and pump.

My property, in southern california desert, has a very very deep well. Nosotros have tried during with a weight to run across how deep but it gets stuck on the way down. When something drops in it, information technology sounds like bullets hitting it and we don't hear it reach the bottom.

We can't find any records. How do we measure it or find out more about it. There's wells in the subdivisions here for the city but no record of one on our property. How do does it take to be to hear that sound? Information technology's very distinct.

@Dennis Angers,

I'm not sure, Dennis but if mud comes up on your weight you probably hit well bottom;

An culling is to inspect the well diameter using a camera.

Hi! I'm trying to find the depth of a well without removing the submersible pump. I've dropped a minor weight (about 2 inches by ane inch) at the end of a nylon rope and I've got a depth of 58 feet on both sides of the pipe going down in the well.

In your opinion, am I reaching the lesser of the well or is the pump blocking the weight and preventing it from going deeper? Thanks for your time. Information technology'due south greatly appreciated. Dennis

@Anonymous,

You would measure the depth of the well using the procedure above. Know how far the pump is from the bottom you would either hold pipe and mensurate its length or you lot might go close to that figure using a well camera inspection. Before trying those procedures with shock given above on this page, y'all might look thoroughly around your property and likewise contact local well installers who may accept installed your pump because it's normal for the installer to document that information for you.

How practise I find out how deep my well pump is?

Jeff

Some unproblematic depression-toll means of measuring the height of the water column in the well (its static head) are given in the article to a higher place. Please take a look so inquire further questions as needed.

I need to monitor the amount of water in my well. The pump is prepare at 400 feet. What devices are available to measure this? Cheers, Jeff

Cris

Y'all might hear the penny hitting the water if the water is near the acme of the well. The depth of the Well from the ground to the well lesser does not tell us where the water acme is.

If I drop a penny in a 200 foot deep well will I hear it hit the water?

...

Continue reading at WELL LOCATION, HOW TO FIND or select a topic from the closely-related articles below, or see the complete Article INDEX.

Or see WELL DEPTH, HOW TO MEASURE FAQs - questions & answers about well depth and its measurement, posted originally on this page.

Or see these

Suggested citation for this spider web page

WELL DEPTH, HOW TO Measure at InspectApedia.com - online encyclopedia of building & environmental inspection, testing, diagnosis, repair, & problem prevention advice.

Or see this

INDEX to RELATED Articles: ARTICLE Alphabetize to WATER SUPPLY, PUMPS TANKS WELLS

Or use the SEARCH BOX found beneath to Inquire a Question or Search InspectApedia

...

Ask a Question or Search InspectApedia

Attempt the search box simply below, or if yous prefer, postal service a question or comment in the Comments box below and we volition answer promptly.

Search the InspectApedia website

Note: advent of your Comment below may be delayed: if your annotate contains an image, web link, or text that looks to the software as if it might be a spider web link, your posting will appear after it has been approved past a moderator. Apologies for the delay. Our Comment Box is provided by Countable Web Productions countable.ca

Technical Reviewers & References

Click to Show or Hibernate Citations & References