I have a well and over the past week the water has been getting brown - I think that it is fine sand. Now today, we ran out of water. After shutting down the pump for awhile and not using any water, the pressure tank refilled and the pump ran OK. However, the water is still sandy brown. I am guessing that we have been using more water than our well can produce. I have a well guy coming over tomorrow to look, but I am fearing the worst - that I will need to have a new well drilled. This one is only about 10 years old and I haven't had any trouble before, but we have 3 kids and mom home all day doing a lot of laundry, dishes, baths, etc. I think we have a well problem since when I shut the power to the pump off and gave it some time, the system seemed to work normally except for the brown, sandy water.

I have a submersible pump & a six inch casing, but I don't know how deep the well is.

Any advice is appreciated. I don't know much at all about wells, except that to have a new one drilled would be very expensive!

The information about your well should be logged with the county. It should show how deep the well is, the depth to the water table and how many gallons per minute it pumped at the time it was drilled.

If you pump is setting in thirty or forty feet of water it might be possible for the pump to be lifted several feet to get it out of the sand but still be in the water table.

I am sure the well guy will tell you all of this.