ᐅ Well Construction for Garden Fountains – Is It Worth It?

nordanney schrieb:
A well is always worth considering, as long as the garden isn’t tiny or you don’t prefer rock gardens.
Our costs for a 9m (30 feet) well, including a submersible pump, pressure switch, and some accessories (we also flush our toilets with well water), are about €1,200.
Just filling the kids’ pool several times (unfortunately it tipped over once) already uses 14 cubic meters (490 cubic feet) of water, plus regularly watering the lawn and flower beds in front of the house and in the garden.

Not everyone has a 14-ton pool like that. We probably need much less water for the garden annually than you do just for filling the pool once. With your well costs, we could easily cover 20 years of water expenses. So whether it’s worthwhile really depends on the individual situation.

Saruss schrieb:
Not everyone has a 14-ton pool like that. For the garden, we probably need much less water per year than you do just to fill the pool once. With your well costs, we could easily cover water expenses for 20 years. So whether it’s worth it really depends on the individual situation.

The pool is only about 3.x meters (around 10 feet) in diameter but had to be filled multiple times.
You must have a small garden, right?

P.S. Connecting to the toilet can also be worthwhile. With five people (the kids are always running to the toilet, and it’s great for little ones to be able to flush on their own), we use about 30 cubic meters (about 1,060 cubic feet) JUST for toilet flushing per year!

nordanney schrieb:
The pool is only about 3.x meters (10 feet) in diameter – but had to be refilled several times.
So you have a small garden, right?

P.S. Connecting the toilets to the water supply can also be worthwhile. For five people (the kids constantly use the toilet, and it’s great for little ones to be able to flush on their own) we need about 30 cubic meters (1,060 cubic feet) JUST for toilet flushing annually!

The garden size is mentioned above. But that has nothing to do with the pool size — even a 3m (10 ft) pool would easily fit on our terrace. I personally prefer smaller pools for paddling, since they warm up faster and can be replaced more quickly when dirty. I’m not interested in dealing with pumps and filters. For a lot of water, I go to a swimming pool or public outdoor pool. In the first year, I used about 50 cubic meters (1,765 cubic feet) total, but my children are still small. So I’m surprised by your consumption figures, for example, 30,000 liters (7,925 gallons) just for toilets.

400sqm (4300 sq ft) garden – I had overlooked that. For a garden of that size, I would definitely recommend using a garden pump. Just for the lawn watering in summer, calculations should assume 10-20 liters per sqm (1-2 gallons per sq ft).

Toilet water use is easy to estimate. Three children, each using the toilet 4 times a day, one adult 4 times a day, and one adult 6 times a day (working from home) equals 22 toilet visits per day. At 5 liters (1.3 gallons) per visit, that’s 110 liters (29 gallons) per day x 330 days at home = 30 cubic meters (39 cubic yards).
This is a rough calculation but fits quite well. I would have thought it was less, but the water meter doesn’t lie ☺

Well, a 5m (16 feet) pool at our place holds about 25,000 liters (6,600 gallons). We also have a well since it was already there before, but even if you refill it 2.3 times, that only costs around 600 to maybe 100 euros from the mains… meaning at 5,000 euros it would take 50 years to break even. But that’s a tricky thing. I don’t think a well can really be economically worthwhile.

Hello,

could a conventional water cistern be an alternative?

We had a cistern with a capacity of 5,000 liters (1,320 gallons) installed beneath our garage driveway, and we use the collected water exclusively for irrigating our garden (property size just under 400 m² (4,300 sq ft)).

This cistern collects rainwater from 75% of the house’s roof area as well as both garages.

During our first summer, despite newly seeded lawn and long watering periods due to the hot weather, this system worked well for us.

Our “pool” on the terrace (volume about 2,000 liters (530 gallons)) was filled from the outdoor water tap only four times throughout the summer.

Regards,

Dirk