Easy Way to check Well water Level...?

qbwebb · By: **qbwebb** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:34 am

I was wondering if anyone here has ever rigged up a sensor to tell them how much water remains in their private well? I was thinking a small pressure sensor that wen't down the well bore could be rigged to a voltage monitor of sorts, and then using Mr Bernoulli's equation could be easily correlated to current volume of water in the well....very useful information in these abnormally southern New England dry times.....

coalnewbie · By: **coalnewbie** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:01 am

I'm all ears on this one. My water sometimes is only 9' down and other times I don't know how deep it goes. As we run a 20 horse operation and the house from one 3/4HP Gould pump. The pump seems to keep up even when we water the rings through a 1" line and 17 years after installing it I still wonder. I guess I could be an ad for Gould pumps but that well level does interest me. The hole goes down 200' but if your not keeping up eventually you run out. An automated system to measure this would be great. However. I have another hydrology question. The well is 30' up the hill and of course you have worked out if the well level is only 9' down n then I have an Artesian well at the bottom and indeed I do. If you go to the Gould website you can see tables on my pump of flow at various depths but how much will I pump if the water table is 20' above the hose (1") spigot. Only geniuses need respond.

qbwebb · By: **qbwebb** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 11:32 am

Something similar to this;

http://www.omega.com/ppt/pptsc.asp?ref= ... Nav=dask01

rigged to a pressure sensor may fit the bill, it can be powered locally by 2 C batteries, and you can set the PC/smartphone interface to warn you of certain conditions.

With any well I don't think you will get a nice linear volume remaining vs. pressure relationship, the way I might do it is to calculate a pressure at the depth based on just your well bore size, take say 85-90% of that number and set up a low pressure alarm condition. Once you have a feel for how your specific well behaves you could then decide for how close you want to push that limit.

steamup · By: **steamup** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 11:59 am

qbwebb wrote:I was wondering if anyone here has ever rigged up a sensor to tell them how much water remains in their private well? I was thinking a small pressure sensor that wen't down the well bore could be rigged to a voltage monitor of sorts, and then using Mr Bernoulli's equation could be easily correlated to current volume of water in the well....very useful information in these abnormally southern New England dry times.....

You are thinking on the right track. What you want to do is rig up a bubbler water level measurement system. It uses a tube the runs to the bottom of the well and a restricted flow air source. The back pressure on the line is your water depth. This could be measured with a magnehelic guage or electronic sensors.

Attached is a technical article on it. Also search the web as there is a lot of manufacturers that provide this technology.

ISWSRI-23.pdf: (929.68 KiB) Downloaded 58 times; Select:BBcode: [nepafile=34611]ISWSRI-23.pdf[/nepafile]

Note this is a freeze proof method and a simple plastic line could be run from the house to the well, keeping the electronics or meter in the house.

coalnewbie · By: **coalnewbie** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 12:28 pm

A genius DID reply -thx.

qbwebb · By: **qbwebb** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 12:49 pm

Another interesting Gizmo I found, kind of steep though @ $800, but on the plus side the install would be a piece of cake, no lowering a device into your water well.

http://www.enoscientific.com/well-watch.htm

I think it could be easily rigged to a wireless RS-232 transmitter or you could download data locally.

CapeCoaler · By: **CapeCoaler** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 2:23 pm

A weight, a floater, string and a flag...
Just setup like ice fishing...
When floater gets to preset depth flag pops...
FF should like this...

coalnewbie · By: **coalnewbie** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:50 pm

A weight, a floater, string and a flag...
Just setup like ice fishing...
When floater gets to preset depth flag pops...
FF should like this...

s

There is always a pooper in every party.

4" schedule 40 in the horse water tub, inside 1" schedule 40 with an end cap and markers on it to see how much water the horses have left. Self waterers are too expensive. I wuz liking the NASA solution.

Phil May · By: **Phil May** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:07 pm

get a mirror and look down the well with sun light.

freetown fred · By: **freetown fred** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:56 pm

What do I do if I don't have above ground access in this 200 yr old well???

KLook · By: **KLook** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:31 pm

Here in the blueberry fields, a young man that used to work for me uses something like or the same thing as was described above. He uses a bicycle pump to pump all the water out of the tube,(remote well locations) and when the pressure stops rising he knows it is all out, and knowing the capacity per ft and the weight of water he can calculate the depth above the tube. knowing the depth of the well, he can calculate the height of the water. simple

Kevin

cArNaGe · By: **cArNaGe** On: Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:34 pm

Mine runs over the top... Makes a big mudhole in my yard.

steamup · By: **steamup** On: Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:18 am

KLook wrote:Here in the blueberry fields, a young man that used to work for me uses something like or the same thing as was described above. He uses a bicycle pump to pump all the water out of the tube,(remote well locations) and when the pressure stops rising he knows it is all out, and knowing the capacity per ft and the weight of water he can calculate the depth above the tube. knowing the depth of the well, he can calculate the height of the water. simple

Kevin

Easy to calculate - 1 psig of air = 2.31 feet of water

Just make sure you use a fairly accurate gauge.

VigIIPeaBurner · By: **VigIIPeaBurner** On: Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:05 pm

steamup wrote:Easy to calculate - 1 psig of air = 2.31 feet of water

Just make sure you use a fairly accurate gauge.

steamup, does this figure remain linear when you're measuring a fairly deep well with a static colum of 470'?

freetown fred · By: **freetown fred** On: Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:45 pm

Sooo, I gues what all you experts are not saying in regard to my question--is--wait for it--" when the water stops running, I'm probably in trouble" :clap:

What would the world do without all them thar fancy doo-dangles???? Thanx car-na-ge-- an answer that makes sense to this old farmer.

freetown fred wrote:What do I do if I don't have above ground access in this 200 yr old well???

Easy Way to check Well water Level...?

Easy Way to check Well water Level...?

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