Can your well be inside your house ? (Cortez: houses, subdivision)

[Hyperviktor]

I haven't seen anything about his but hopefully I can get some info - both based on rules and local practice.

The question is : do you need a pump house to be a separate building or can you build your house around your well and have it enclosed in a utility room ?

[CortezC]

I have built industrial buildings where a well was inside the structure, but we are talking about the ceiling line being 25 feet above the floor, giving plenty of room to service the well (i.e., pulling out the jet pump).


I have never seen a well inside a house, but I know they exist. If you need to pull up the jet pump, you need some room to make it happen. BUT, you need to check what is allowed by code. Some states (e.g., Michigan) do not allow wells inside houses. ALSO, some states have minimum distances separating the well from a septic system.


What if your well ran dry and needed to be drilled deeper? That would be a problem for a well inside a house.


I grew up where our well was upslope from our house and our septic system was downslope from our house, probably 200 feet between the two. Our well house was a simple low profile structure heated by a 60W light bulb in the winter.

[Hyperviktor]

Thanks Cortez,

Some good practical points. In theory the utility building could have a two storey space, this could be incorporated in the design of the house - good height would probably be useful anyways to accommodate water tanks etc.

So it seems the most important part is to check if it would be allowed by code.

[AsFarSouthAsSouthGoes]

I have owned houses back east (Illinois) where the well was inside the house. These were shallow wells with jet pumps and you could always hear the pump come on, even though it was in the basement of the house. I have never seen it done in Colorado and I don’t know if the code would allow it. The big disadvantage would be if you ever need to extend the depth of the well (if the water table drops), you would not be able to set up a drill rig over the bore hole to deepen your well.
Most wells here have 4 inch submersible pumps 220vac but if you are going to be off grid, eBay sells 12vdc and 24vdc pumps. They draw a lot of power so you have to make sure you have the array and battery power to run the load. Also these pumps will have a pressure head limit so you have to check the specs to see how high they pump. Of course that will be determined by the depth of your water table.
I have a friend in the SLV near Joyful Journey hot springs. He said they hit their first water bearing layer at 30 feet, but they went deeper because the flow was higher. So it really just depends on how you size your system. With a solar pump, it might make sense to go as shallow as you can with a lower flow but that’s assuming you can. You may not hit water until you drill much deeper. The state has a record of the well logs in different areas so you can research an area so you can get an idea of when you will hit water. Also the well drillers are very knowledgeable and they can usually tell you what to expect.

https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sit...mitguide_1.pdf

Just to give you an idea of what is normal, my well in Chaffee county has a 5 inch steel casing with a 4inch submersible 220vac pump and flows 6 US gallons per minute which is considered OK. My water table is 93 feet below the top of the well casing which is in a submerged pit about 9 feet deep. So my water table is 93+9 or about 102 feet below ground level. I’m converting my house to solar and eventually I’ll pull the pump and change it out to 24vdc. My pump pit is big enough to store 2 big water tanks with room left over for a wine cellar.

[brown_dog_us]

What does it cost to drill a 100 foot deep well these days?

[AsFarSouthAsSouthGoes]

You have to shop it out. I know a group of 4 neighbors in the SLV who got together and got the price down to $3500 each for 0-200 feet, 4 inch pvc casing, top 40 feet steel (for the seal). The well drillers like to drill 6 in bc they make more so make sure you insist on 4 in. That price was good up to 200 feet so I idk about deeper wells. And I would consider that price cheap bc they got the volume discount. Transportation and set up cost the drillers so if they are drilling multiple wells in one subdivision you can often negotiate a discount.
You can also go deeper for geothermal but now you’re talking 1200 feet (or more) and that gets expensive fast. Like any service, the price will depend on how badly they want the job.

[ColoGuy]

You don't need a pump house and I would not advise a well within a house at all. Just why -for one thing. Septic system must be 100' from the well by the way.

[Hyperviktor]

Can you use a pipe to have your septic system further from the house ? I'd rather have the well close by then the sewer and would just run a pipe out from the house as you would to an urban system.

[AsFarSouthAsSouthGoes]

So a typical septic system here consists of a septic tank and a distribution field. Your design process will start with a percolation test (perk test) to see how well your soil absorbs liquid. Once you know that, you can size your distribution field. Your septic tank is typically a concrete vault buried between your house and your distribution field. If the septic tank is too far from your house, waste may settle out in the sewer line and cause a blockage. So it’s better to have the tank closer to the house. Once the sewage has broken down in the tank, it exits as black water. Since there are no big solids in the water, there is little chance of a clog between the tank and the field unless tree roots find their way into the pipes. So basically, it’s fine to have the distribution field far away from the house and better to have the tank closer to the house. Most of the systems here are gravity feed so your field should be lower than your septic tank so the black water flows out by gravity. The size of the tank that will be required by the building/health department is determined by the size of the house and number of toilets. There is a lot of info about septic system design on the internet so do some research. Also, you will be required to comply with setbacks from property lines, water wells, structures, etc and you’ll find out what the county requires when you start your application process. I usually draw a site plan in autoCAD, then draw in the setbacks so I know where all the exclusions are, and then you can look at your topography and choose where to site your system. If you have a 5 acre parcel, you should have plenty of options as long as your soil percs.

[Hyperviktor]

Yeah, I don't know yet what to soil can take there so that's up to the test. As you said, 5 acres plenty of space. We'll need to map out the entire property first - CAD or otherwise to mark everything like trees, larger rocks maybe etc. and the slope as well. If I can get a drone flying around with a camera than the best option is to do a 3D scan so I'd have everything precisely digitalised and then work from there.

What's the typical distance of the tank from the house ? Since the whole land has a slope I can definitely do 10-15 meters ( 32 - 50 feet ) and than the field even further away - the land is roughly 100 x 200 meters so plenty of space.


How well can you use the field once it's working ? Would you notice on the ground that it existed ? Does it promote any growth on the surface ? Does it make the soil softer ?