Tapping a deep spring with very low gradient

John C Daley wrote:Your question is not clear.
Some questions and comments to you;
- is the spring higher than your house on the property?
- a shallow well will pump empty very quickly.
- what are you calling a pressure tank?
- what volume is this pressure tank?

bruce Fine wrote:your situation might be perfect for a spring box. usually a stone and mortar or concrete construction unless you have a non porus soil like clay in the area. ii dont think the world needs any more plastic and stone and mortar, concrete or clay will last forever, worry free. as far as moving the water without a slope or gravity assist you will need a pump. ram pumps are pretty straight forward and might work in your situation.
ive seen spring boxes as small as a kiddie pool and as large as a small swimming pool.
not knowing what the terrain is like or where the spring comes from its usually best to disturb the surrounding countryside, trees, rocks, soil, as little as possible.
cut down the forest or bring in heavy equipment to change things around and the spring might become contaminated or even disappear.
your very fortunate these days to have property with a clean natural water source, do whatever you have to to protect and preserve it.

bruce Fine wrote:your situation might be perfect for a spring box. usually a stone and mortar or concrete construction unless you have a non porus soil like clay in the area. ii dont think the world needs any more plastic and stone and mortar, concrete or clay will last forever, worry free. as far as moving the water without a slope or gravity assist you will need a pump. ram pumps are pretty straight forward and might work in your situation.
ive seen spring boxes as small as a kiddie pool and as large as a small swimming pool.
not knowing what the terrain is like or where the spring comes from its usually best to disturb the surrounding countryside, trees, rocks, soil, as little as possible.
cut down the forest or bring in heavy equipment to change things around and the spring might become contaminated or even disappear.
your very fortunate these days to have property with a clean natural water source, do whatever you have to to protect and preserve it.

bruce Fine wrote:your situation might be perfect for a spring box. usually a stone and mortar or concrete construction unless you have a non porus soil like clay in the area. ii dont think the world needs any more plastic and stone and mortar, concrete or clay will last forever, worry free. as far as moving the water without a slope or gravity assist you will need a pump. ram pumps are pretty straight forward and might work in your situation.
ive seen spring boxes as small as a kiddie pool and as large as a small swimming pool.
not knowing what the terrain is like or where the spring comes from its usually best to disturb the surrounding countryside, trees, rocks, soil, as little as possible.
cut down the forest or bring in heavy equipment to change things around and the spring might become contaminated or even disappear.
your very fortunate these days to have property with a clean natural water source, do whatever you have to to protect and preserve it.

John Daily wrote:- what are you calling a pressure tank?

John C Daley wrote:Thanks Joylynn, the 'storage' part of the title confused me.
Tyler, there is nothing out of the ordinary about your spring and its location.
You just work with nature as you find it.
A few more points for consideration;
- create a spring box as described
- allow overflow to continue the life cycle that existed before you dug holes.
- GPM are not important, you install a small pump, with no pressure tank, that may take a bit longer to push the water to your water
 to a large tank above your house, on the hill. [ large tanks allow settlement time for water to allow self cleaning ]
 Just allow the water to enter via tank top.
- Then connect the house to the tank with 11/2" feeder main and use another pressure pump if required with a pressure tank.Also consider capturing rainwater off and roof around and hold it in the large tank. I recommend a 5000 Gal. tank as a minimum.

bruce Fine wrote:one of my neighbors has a spring box its about 8'x6'x about 2 to 3 feet deep. he has a submersible 4" well pump laying sidewaysin the spring box to pump the water into a pressure tank and up a bit of a hill to the house. they keep the concrete spring box covered with roofing tin panels and the water stays clean the pump is suspended above the base of the spring box so dirt can settle to the bottom.
this spring box is concrete about 3" thick. it is fed from a black plastic pipe that goes halfway up a mountain to where the spring is. its probably at least 600' of black poly pipe feeding the concrete box

Steve Zoma wrote:Generally, with seeps you want to collect from the biggest area possible and go to a centralized down hill spot. Most times they do this using perforated 4 inch pipe. Basically they dig trenches radiating out from center point a foot to 18 inches deep. Ideally rock is used to bed around the pipe, but from a big area it collects water, then funnels it to a central spot, often times well tiles which are four feet in diameter, and four feet high concrete rings. Dug down into the ground as deep as you want, you stack 1,, 2 3 of them, or whatever you can, with the bottom covered over with small rock to the water stays clean. In other words, it collects the water from a broad area into a sump if you will. Then this water is run to the house.

Its mentioned that there is not much of a grade at this site, but a steep grade is not needed. As long as the home is downhill in any way from the collection point, you can have water. The steeper the grade, the deeper down the water can be tapped, and the greater the water pressure will be. This is important because you can then run a trench for the water line so it does not freeze in the winter.


I will add this though, properly developing a seep is well worth doing to the best of your ability. We as humans really need fresh water and only when the water stops do people realize how dependent we are upon it. Its worth it to put in as many collection pipes as possible, and to line with landscape fabric and clean crushed rock to keep out sediment. The deeper your well tiles go, the cooler and more volume of collected water you will have. You will never regret doing it right, but surely will if you try and do it the quick and easy way.