How to determine if you have a low yield well.
A low yield well is defined as a well that cannot produce enough water for the household demand. If you have a low producing well, steps can be taken to fix the issue. First, you need to determine whether or not you have a low producing well. Here are 3 easy things you can do to determine whether or not you may have a low producing well.
3 Signs that you may have a low producing well.
You can not run multiple water-consuming appliances or faucets without losing water pressure over time.
It can take your well a long time to build the pressure back up before it shuts off.
Your well will sometimes run out of water, especially during dry seasons.
If any one or more of these situations are a regular occurrence for you, you may have a low yield well. Please try these three simple tests below to help determine if, in fact, your well is a low producing well.
Test 1
Determine that your pressure switch and pressure gauge is working correctly and gather data.
Locate the pressure gauge near the pressure tank.
2. Make a note of the current PSI reading that the gauge shows.
3. Open up a faucet or water spigot.
4. Find the pressure switch near the pressure tank and listen closely until you hear it click. Once it clicks, that means that the well has turned on. Note the pressure reading from the gauge as soon as the pressure switch clicks.
5. Close the water faucet or spigot and let the well build up the pressure.
6. Listen to hear the pressure switch click again. This indicates the well has pressurized the house and the well has shut off. Note the final pressure from the pressure gauge.
If the pressure gauge was showing different pressure readings at the different steps for this test, and the pressure switch clicked on and off, this would indicate that they should be working correctly. Keep the recorded pressure readings handy to fill out the information form at the bottom of this page, and proceed to test 2.
Test 2
Determine well water volume.
Open up a faucet, water spigot, or any water-consuming appliance.
2. After the pressure switch clicks signaling the well turning on, watch the pressure gauge to observe if the pressure is increasing or decreasing.
Note: If the pressure is decreasing with only one water faucet or appliance on, then you may have a low yield well. However, if the pressure is increasing proceed to step 3.
3. Increase water demand by opening another water spigot, faucet, or appliance.
4. Watch the pressure gauge again and observe if it is increasing or decreasing. If it is still increasing, continue to open faucets until the pressure starts decreasing, or if you have opened enough faucets to be satisfied with how much flow the well is producing.
If during test 1 or test 2 the well ran out of water, you have a low yield well.
If during test 2 you only opened one or two faucets and the pressure was consistently decreasing then you have a low yield well.
If you were able to open multiple faucets and or run water-consuming appliances and the well was able to hold or increase pressure then, depending on the water needs your well should be sufficient. However, if you would like more water and water pressure than what your well is currently producing, your well could still be considered low-producing ( or at least insufficient for your needs).
If you ran out of water during either of the tests, continue to test 3 to determine how much water your well can produce a day by using our Epp Well Solution patented system.
Test 3
Determine how many gallons could be harvested from your low yield well using the Epp Well Solutions patented system.
Materials needed for this test:
2 Or More People
2 Five-Gallon Buckets
2 Or More Faucets Or Spigots With Hoses
Locate the breaker to turn on the power to the well.
2. Turn on as many water faucets, spigots, or appliances as available. Wait until the well runs out of water and there is no more water flowing to the faucets.
3. Turn the well breaker to the “off” position to turn the well off. As soon as it is off, start a timer for 15 minutes.
4. During the 15 minute timer, turn off all the faucets or appliances, except for any faucets that a hose can be attached to. Attach the hoses to the faucets and bring the ends of the hoses to one central location.
5. Take the two five-gallon buckets and place them next to each other. Place all the hose ends into one of the buckets. Have someone hold the hoses in place, so when the water is flowing through them the hoses will not come out. The goal is to capture all available water.
6. As soon as the 15-minute timer has elapsed, turn on the well power. The well will begin to pump water from the hoses into the five-gallon bucket. Start a stopwatch once the well power is turned on.
7. Once the first bucket is full, very quickly move the hoses to the other empty bucket without turning the water off. Dump the water out of the full bucket so that when bucket “A” is filled up you can switch back to bucket “B”. Please repeat this process for as many times as is needed.
Note: Repeat this process keeping a count of how many buckets you are able to fill and dump out until the well runs out of water.
8. Take the number of buckets that were filled and emptied and how many minutes the stopwatch ran for and input it into this calculator to find your gpm and total amount of gallons that could be harvested by using our system, or follow the math steps below to find it.
Math Steps: Take the number of buckets that were filled and emptied and multiply that by 5. Now take that new number and divide it by the sum of 15, also add to this how many minutes the stopwatch ran for. That new number is your calculated Gallons Per Minute (GPM). Take your calculated gallons per minute and multiply it by 1,440. Your new number is the total number of gallons that could be harvested and made available to you by using our system.
The term “Low Producing” is a relative term. To qualify as having a low-producing well can also be dependent on your needs. For example; for some people, 3 gallons per minute is enough water for their household needs. However, if they decide they want to add something like a sprinkler system or if they want to have more water pressure their well is now insufficient for their wants or needs.
We can help in these circumstances as well. With our Well Harvester™, we can increase the amount of water and water pressure available to you no matter how much water your well produces.
Let us help you.
If you believe that you may have a low producing well or you are not sure and need help determining if it is fill out this form with your recorded data from the tests and we will follow up with you and we will give you more information on how our system can solve your low yield well problems.