Well Water And Government Water

[Karen51]

What are the pros and cons of getting a property with well water or Government water?

[Karen51]

can anyone advise re well water?

[Gary A]

can anyone advise re well water?

In the US we always called it drilling a well. On this forum they normally call it a bore hole. It involves getting a drilling rig in and they drill (bore) a hole down until they hit water. It is not an inexpensive project. A fairly shallow two inch casing well will cost around 15,000 baht and a deeper 4 inch casing well can cost 60,000 baht or more.

My village has its own water supply and it is fairly reliable. They charge three baht per cubic meter. For that price it's not possible to justify drilling a well.

[chownah]

Around where I live the water isn't very deep and a well costs about 3,000 baht for the labor of drilling the hole and installing the liner....with a guarantee to hit water or they will drill again for free.

On top of this you need to buy a pump (around here a 2,000 baht pump is adequate...deeper wells require more expensive pumps) to get the water out of the well and into a holding tank (about 5 to 10 thousand baht) then you need to get electricity to the pump (cost depends on distance) and perhaps build a small shelter for the pump (1,000 baht is probably enough for this)...and then a pump with a pressure tank and switch to pump the water from the holding tank to the house (about 5,000 baht). It is possible to not get a holding tank and just hook up the house pump (the 5,000 baht one) directly at the well and pump directly to the house if there is enough water all year round and you don't need to store any. Also, you might need a filtration system for the water depending on the condition of the water you get from the ground and what you are using it for.... This is all just a rough estimate and I'm just trying to help you get a feel for what all is involved in setting up a domestic well system complete.

don't know about gov't water....never had a chance to get it.

Chownah

edit: I almost forgot that if you hire all of the work done to intall the pumps etc. you should probably through on another 2,000 to 5,000 baht or so depending on how cheaply you can find capable help.

Chownah

Edited March 15, 2007 by chownah

[elkangorito]

Water from a well (bore) has an unknown make-up until tested, therefore it's highly recommended that any bore/well water be tested for bacteria/toxins before drinking it, as well as being tested for hardness. The hardness will tell you how much of a corrosive (scale) affect the water will have on metals.

As for Thai 'town' water, it is treated but is delivered to you at low pressure. This low pressure system can allow an ingress of foreign matter into the water supply, as opposed to high pressure systems, which tend to virtually eliminate this possibility. Also, Thailand does not implement the use of 'backflow prevention devices', which are critical for the prevention of toxic chemicals/bio hazard substances from entering the water supply.

Take your pick.

[stevejones123]

In Lanka people use a water tower, either concrete or plastic, and then the water will enter the house by gravity. So you'll need the well, the water pump and the water tower.

Now one thing to do is to check that you will get water all the year round. If there is a long period with no rain then the water table might sink, and you will find yourself with no water. The standard solution in South Asia is to have a proper old-fashioned well (the kind you can drown a buffalo in) going down around forty feet and then have a couple of bore holes going down a hundred feet feeding into it. If you have more than one bore hole and a wide well above you will get water that a single bore hole going down a hundred feet won't do.

I don't know about Thai prices; in Lanka I paid $1700-$2000 for the well, water tower, pump and wiring.

If you have town water as well then you don't need to worry so much about drought, and you can get a simple bore well going down to the water table for around $200 plus the cost of the water tower. Then if town water goes off you have well water, and vice versa.

[billd766]

It really depends on where you live.

We live in the central region backing onto the Mae Wong national park and around 1 metre under the surface there is rock. Nobody on this side of the road has a borehole. My wife was told that we would probably need something like an oil rig drill to get a borehole.

Last year we bought land on the other side of the road and it is possible to have a well there though the stream we usually use is now dry.

We have not had government water for a couple of months now but when we do it is 2 baht a cubic metre (1,000 litres). We buy it by the 4,000 litre tanker load at 200 baht or 25 times the normal price. I we don't pay that price there is no choice other than using 4 or more x 200 litre drums and going 7 km each way to the stream which still has water, filling the tanks ourselves using the petrol water pump and the diesel pickup truck and that would probably cost more and take much longer.

It happens every year ans we just get used to it.

[Karen51]

Water from a well (bore) has an unknown make-up until tested, therefore it's highly recommended that any bore/well water be tested for bacteria/toxins before drinking it, as well as being tested for hardness. The hardness will tell you how much of a corrosive (scale) affect the water will have on metals.

As for Thai 'town' water, it is treated but is delivered to you at low pressure. This low pressure system can allow an ingress of foreign matter into the water supply, as opposed to high pressure systems, which tend to virtually eliminate this possibility. Also, Thailand does not implement the use of 'backflow prevention devices', which are critical for the prevention of toxic chemicals/bio hazard substances from entering the water supply.

Take your pick.

Thanks for that Elkangarito - that's exactly what I wanted to know. Am thinking of buying property and have a choice of well-water or mains water. Think we will take our chances with mains water.

[merijn]

I’m finished drilling my deep water well in Phuket and just received the lab results of the well.

Pump is 40 mtr deep and is doing 3 m3/h to an underground storage tank.

From there it is going via an pump into my house and via an second pump to the garden.

All piping is from made from the blue PVC piping stuff.

We don’t use the water for drinking but for the normal other things.

All is fine except for PH = 4.85 ( should be between 7.0 and 8.5 ) and Iron content which 1.59 mg/l ( should be below 0.5 )

I'm a little bit afraid for problems with my laundry because of the iron and for the water valves because of the PH.

Does anybody know if i solve those problems with an filter or something else.

[Beardog]

I lived in Pattaya -towards Jomtien. Our village ran out of water by 11am 7 months out of the year. If you forgot to shut off your valve the neighbors became the benefactor of your water in your tank. I rented & did not want to pay for a check valve (so water only goes one way) & hated it.

Moved to Bang Sare about 20 kilo's from Pattaya area (towards Sattahib) they have government water here . If you can consistently roll a 7 & 11 every 1st roll on a craps table or hit your number on a roulette wheel, it would work for you. Out of 12 people I Know 1 has Govn. water- comes out like a piss stream-He is on the downhill side.the other 11 (me included) either have a dug well Or a bore hole well which is way more reliable. If you have great pressure with the govn. water go for it if not dig a well or a bore- life will be much easier in Thailand & do make sure you dig in the driest part of the year otherwise you will be caught short. I needed 3 more months before I dug & wish I would have waited to the lowest water table time. If I didn't put in 300 trees lawn & several rai of veggies It would have been plenty.

[jaideeguy]

I had an existing well with high calcium content and had the opportunity to hook up to 'baan naam' [mains water] and took a sample in to get tested and saw that both were the same with high calcium content, so i invested my baht that i would have spent on mains water hook-up on a water softner and feel much better being self sufficient.

[dsfbrit]

We had this done outside Pattaya (banglamung) 3 years ago.

We lived at the top of a small hill, so we got the government water only if everyone else was not using it much that day

We had a drillier rig come and drill for about 5 days I recall, had to go quite deep.

Its been fantastic. I would never drink the water anyway, but its 'free' apart for the electricity to drive the pump.

We had the government meter removed last year, we kept the government water connected until then as I thought if the Well failed we would still have water.

It has never failed.

The cost of the Government water was about 800 baht a month. Very expensive, especially when we had to ration it as well - I guess if we could have used all the water we now use it would be double that.

Mind you we used a lot of water at the time as we have a lot of trees and grass etc...

I believe the cost for the Well and all the 'bits' was about 70000 baht.

Not cheap - but they did a good professional job and I am very happy with it.

So Pros - Use as much water as you like, when you like, for minimal cost.

Cons - there aren't any really - it even pays for itself over a number of years.

[soundman]

Just be aware that in some Jungwats you actually have to pay for the water you draw out of a well. Amphur Kabinburi in Jungwat Prachinburi is one example.

Cheers,

Soundman.

[Gary A]

I’m finished drilling my deep water well in Phuket and just received the lab results of the well.

Pump is 40 mtr deep and is doing 3 m3/h to an underground storage tank.

From there it is going via an pump into my house and via an second pump to the garden.

All piping is from made from the blue PVC piping stuff.

We don’t use the water for drinking but for the normal other things.

All is fine except for PH = 4.85 ( should be between 7.0 and 8.5 ) and Iron content which 1.59 mg/l ( should be below 0.5 )

I'm a little bit afraid for problems with my laundry because of the iron and for the water valves because of the PH.

Does anybody know if i solve those problems with an filter or something else.

Regardless of what the filter salesman tell you, it is very difficult to remove dissolved iron from water. We also have an iron problem and the only way I have found to help it is to catch all the rain water we can. We normally have rain water for the washing machine and shower about 8 months of the year. I plan to add more storage tanks for rain water this year.