Troubleshooting lack of water from well.

[Boerdoc]

In searching for water well rehabilitation in my area, Northern Idaho, I found a company that uses "Aqua Freed" technology to rehabilitate wells. It uses a combination of liquified carbon dioxide and mechanical cleaning to rehabilitate wells. My internet searching did not come up with anything bad about the process so I have sent them an email to check it out. Has anyone used this or heard good or bad about it. The cost is $2100-4800 and results look promising. Since my well is old and I am sure in need of cleaning I hope that this helps with the flow. I am not able to do this myself and I have looked into sanitizing myself but that is not for me.

Any Thoughts??? http://www.subsurfacetech.com/aqua-freed

 

[Reach4]

Any Thoughts???

It looks good.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Craigpump]

They used to do that here in CT..... We made a lot of money hydrofracing bedrock wells that they had "rehabilitated". Quite simply, CO2 on its own doesn't do anything except invade the fracture or formation and add some drive to whatever water is there. When the CO2 is gone, the water production drops off, in the meantime you have Seltzer water.

 

[Boerdoc]

I have also reached out to Northwest Hydrofracking for evaluation and Vermillion Well drilling who drilled the well originally to see what they could do.

Thanks Craigpump for the heads up. From those 3 companies I should be able to get something done.

 

[Boycedrilling]

I have sat thru presentations on the aqua freed process. They inject carbon dioxide gas and/or liquid thru a packer assembly into a well. This is a more elaborate process than the old method of dropping dry ice into a well. You get the phase change expansion from liquid to gas. You get the acidizing effect of the co2 dissolving into water, forming carbonic acid. I think they might also claim a benefit from the temperature change or even freezing that takes place in the well. The owner of the aqua freed franchise in Spokane, used to own Ponderosa Drilling.

NW Hydrofracking has been in business in the Spokane are for over 20 years. Lynn passed away in January. I had heard that someone had bought the business but I don't know who it is.

I don't know the owner of Vermillion, he isn't active in our state groundwater association.

 

[Craigpump]

I've heard the claim of freezing..... I find it hard to believe that a few thousand cubic feet of liquid CO2 is going to do anything more than maybe put some frost on that big rock called Mother Earth.

 

[Boerdoc]

Thanks for the guidance. This site and its users are great assets to society. Is there any limitation to hydrofracturing a well that is only 80 feet deep. The water levels are shallow as well.

 

[Craigpump]

We like to see wells with at least 250' of open borehole to develop, the more places to set the packer and the more water objected typically equals better results.

Personally, I'd shy away from a well that shallow around here, but the geology may be quite different in Idaho. In addition you have a liner installed, getting it out may be an issue.

 

[Boerdoc]

We like to see wells with at least 250' of open borehole to develop, the more places to set the packer and the more water objected typically equals better results.

Personally, I'd shy away from a well that shallow around here, but the geology may be quite different in Idaho. In addition you have a liner installed, getting it out may be an issue.

When you say you would shy away from shallow wells is that to frack them or something else?

 

[Craigpump]

Yeah, I wouldn't Frac an 80' well and in fact it might be cheaper to start and drill a new one rather than paying a set up fee, trying to pull liner then deepen.

 

[Boerdoc]

Time to update the progress. It seems up here in North Idaho getting a well rehabilitated is not easy unless you do it yourself. I contacted Northwest Hydrofracturing 8-10 times without a return call, even on their website. When they did return the call, the job was contracted to be done. 4 well drillers that advertise Well Rehabilitation would not do it. They just wanted to drill another or deepen the one I have.

I finally went with the Water Recovery Services that used the Aqua-Freed process. They were the only ones that I could get to look at it.
They videoed the well, pulled the liner, scrubbed the well, screens and whatever else. Then they installed the liner, a new pump, wiring and controller at my request. The initial results from them were that it was producing 5 gpm. We ran it at 15 gpm for 14 minutes before it kicked off "dry" . That calculates to 3.5 times what we did have. Some off the CO2 may still be frozen and we could improve that regeneration rate.

I know that I was advised against using this method by members here. I simply had no other choice but to do it myself. Not an option I wanted. As to the effectiveness of the process, I cannot speak. The company was great to deal with. They were prompt. Now I have 3.5 times more water than I did before. Even if it was just the cleaning of the screens by them I would be happy with the service and results.

I installed the Cycle Sensor and just need to tweak the run dry reset time.

2 questions.

1. With such a shallow well and not much reserve in the well itself, what should I set the reset time for 15 minutes, 30 minutes?

2. Would it be better to "throttle back" the inflow into the cistern to keep the well pump running longer between running dry periods?
If I throttle it back to 4 gpm it would almost run constantly when needed. Where is the sweet spot for running the pump?
BTW. With the differential valve in the cistern I can set the amount of draw down before the pump is needed. If I let it draw down 1000 gals, It would take 5 hours to refill at the current regeneration rate.

Thank you everyone for helping with this. I wish I had more choices but I am glad it worked out for me.

Kent

 

[Texas Wellman]

I'm probably not the best to give advice on the questions you asked but sounds like it turned out good. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.