My well is about 45' deep with a submersible pump. The system has the typical cut-on/ cut-off switch and a bladder tank that is performing properly. After a couple showers and some water into the clothes washer, the well water expires and the pump runs continuously. When this happens, I throw the disconnect to the pump while the well recovers. Usually, the recovery only takes about 20 minutes to satisfy the cut-off pressure and all is good. We are tired of this whole thing with the water system. Would it be a good idea to install a holding tank in the basement or would I be better off having a new well drilled?

That is a question which gets asked rather frequently here. It is difficult to answer. The advantage of a holding would be this: You can supposedly pump during night hours, and other times when the pump would not normally be used, and hopefully build up a reserve which could be used during the day. But you have to remember a few points:

1. It requires a second pump to pump from the holding tank.
2. It would need a timer of some sort to prevent the pump from running dry during pumping cycles.
3. All in all, it might be cheaper to drill a new well since you already have the pump, tank, switch, etc. In your case, going down a hundred feet would be more than twice as deep as you are now.
4. On the "headache scale", it would be a lot more simple to simply have a well that works properly than to have a holding tank, timer, second pump, etc.
5. So I would get a local pro out and get a dollar and cents estimate of where you need to go.

One more thing. If you put the whole system on a timer, you could possibly put in two large pressure tanks to have a substantial reserve of water.

Hope that helps, at least a little. Wells, I can say from personal experience, can be a pain.

If you put in a holding tank, you will need a pressure pump because there will be no pressure when the well runs out. You said... "new well drilled". 45 ft. is very shallow for a drilled well. Depending on the water level in the pipe 8"? And then a submersible and piping, unless you have an extremely high water table, you probably don't have more than 30gallons of water in the well casing. That's why you run out. My well is 100 ft. from a year round flowing river in North GA. It is 220 ft deep with 200 ft of piping above the pump. I routinely have 4-6 people taking baths, washing dishes, clothes, watering plants and I never run out. I would go with a much deeper well and new piping.

Well stated, ma0641.

Thank you for the replies. It doesn't seem that a holding tank is what we need, and I surely do not want to add other pumps etc. and extra maintenance. Looks like a new/deeper well is what we need.

Thanks Again,
J