Municipal Water?? (how much, house, living) - Idaho (ID) - City-Data Forum

Meleemadness · 05-25-2019, 08:12 PM

In northern Idaho, how do some communities end up with municipal water and others not? I understand there are several water type services but this is all foreign to me. I am used to everything or everyone being on city water. I understand the logistics would make it not so feasible but there are communities next to each other and one is on piped in water and the others are on well or cisterns....why is that?

Clark Fork Fantast · 05-25-2019, 08:56 PM

The limitations of urbanization! Some areas are simply not connected to municipal water because they are rural, and so everybody has to provide their own water supply, generally by digging wells, or (in our case, so far) hauling water.

Meleemadness · 05-25-2019, 09:34 PM

Yea, I was quoted $30K and up to $40k for a well by two different companies....I was shocked at how expensive it was. Then I stumbled across someone's video on how they used a cistern. I suppose that is hauling water? If so, how does one keep it from freezing through the winter?

mistyriver · 05-25-2019, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meleemadness

Yea, I was quoted $30K and up to $40k for a well by two different companies....I was shocked at how expensive it was. Then I stumbled across someone's video on how they used a cistern. I suppose that is hauling water? If so, how does one keep it from freezing through the winter?

Our well at the river place pumps about three gallons a minute. Drilling it cost us about $3500 back in 2002. We could have gone deeper and possibly gotten a faster well but we were building our place and didn’t want to spend more than we had to so we put in a 2000 gallon cistern filled by the well which is mostly buried. We built a well insulated “house” around it and even when it got down below zero it never froze on us.

Meleemadness · 05-25-2019, 09:47 PM

Ahh, and the water pipe from the well house to the living house was buried several feet deep? Now I am off to check your drone post, that was a really nice photo of you complex, really nice!

mistyriver · 05-25-2019, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meleemadness

Ahh, and the water pipe from the well house to the living house was buried several feet deep? Now I am off to check your drone post, that was a really nice photo of you complex, really nice!

I thinks that pipe is about three feet down.its been awhile.

Meleemadness · 05-25-2019, 10:46 PM

That is good, it is doable. I am happy, I was a bit stressed when I saw the estimate for the well, and you still pay if they find nothing....scary.

Cnynrat · 05-26-2019, 08:42 PM

3 feet is roughly how deep you need to be to be below the frost line in north Idaho, so that's how deep water lines are typically buried. Not sure, but it may vary a bit depending on where you are located.

The state maintains an online record of all well permits. IIRC, they have a map based interface that lets you click on wells near you and see the relevant info for every well. You can look at the well driller's report for wells in the vicinity of your property. These reports show how deep they went to find water. There is no guarantee your property will have similar water table characteristics, but it may help give you some confidence about investing in having a well drilled.

It is a bit of a hit or miss deal here though. Our well is 500' deep, and only flows 7 gal/min. They found water at shallower depths, but kept going to try to get higher flow. Meanwhile, friends about a half mile away are only 100' deep, and they get 30 gal/min.

BTW, we have no problems living on that well without a cistern. Just two of us living here now, but it was a family of 5 that built the house and lived here for about 10 years.

Dave

redwood66 · 05-26-2019, 09:12 PM

Here is the IDWR (ID Dept Water Resources) well log/ground water management GIS map. You can zoom into an area and click on the dots to pull up the permit and log. Not every one is listed but it helps to see how deep and how much water from existing wells. Don't expect dots to be in the exact right place either because the state GIS programs are in their infancy depending on the agency and recording the exact lat. long. was not done in the early days of well permits.

https://idwr.maps.arcgis.com/apps/we...63057bc267d741

Edit - our well is 300 feet deep and 25 gpm.