Yesterday after work, I had to go to my in-law's house to work on their water system. They don't have city water, so they rely on ground water that's captured in a hole in the ground for water. Over the weekend my FIL found out that there was no more water coming out of their water pipe in the hill side.
To start with, there's no access to this hole due to FIL younger self buried the lid to the hole under 3-4ft of clay/rock/dirt. The only way to get to it is to start digging the hillside up. I started at the pipe that was sticking out of the ground and dug the trench toward the lid. in the photo, the rubber liner was placed right on top of the lid to the hole. After 2 hours of digging and swinging a pickax I was able to uncover the liner. Here is the work with the liner put back on top of the lid.
Here is the pipe as it goes out the side of the hill.
Once I got the steel plate off it was obvious there was several issues. One was the sediment of the hole had built up and so it reduced its capacity to hold water. Second issue was the pipe coming out was going upward instead of downward and so the water was not able to go into the pipe easily. Third issue was the water was able to weep out of the hole past the pipe and so the water was not able to get high enough to get out of the pipe due to the leakage was below the pipe.
So after getting the muck out of the hole so more water can be collected in it, digging under the pipe enough to bring the angle of the pipe down some, and packing clay around the pipe to slow the water leakage down, I was able to get the water to flow out of the pipe again and this allowed them to get water to their 300 gallon tank by the house again.
Currently, I left it all uncovered and just threw the liner back over the steel plate of the opening due to a storm coming. I will go back over there this weekend most likely and take some hydraulic cement to repair the dam (wall side of the hole were the pipe goes through) to help seal the wall better and restrict the water from leaking out instead of going into the pipe. I can't seal all of the wall or else I'll keep the water from collecting inside it, but I just want to take care of the downhill side of the hole to help retain the water a little better. I'm thinking of adding an elbow to the end of the pipe that's in the hole to provide a way for the sediment to settle out of the water as it's being collected in the hole. I'll also place a sump basin with the bottom cut off on top of the hole opening and then seal the basin to the top of the hole to prevent dirt from falling in the hole when we back fill the basin and pipe. Keep in mind, this hole is just lined with flat rocks that's packed with clay on the wall basically. Hopefully with the sump basin in place this will allow easy access to the hole to clean sediment out, easier inspection of the water, and also provide a lid to keep critters and crud from getting inside it. I'll also work on lowering the pipe angle some more and I'll also have to install an overflow pipe since it's possible when I seal the dam up, it might overfill and find another weak place to leak out of.
Why a sump basin you ask? well, septic tank riser appears to be 20"-24" wide and I think it's going to be too big. The sump basin is 18" and has a way to secure a lid to the top also. Easily attainable at the big box store too was a plus.
Considering this little water source has provided the house water for 100 years almost, I figured it's worth doing a little work to improve it. The big metal lid in the first photo is the lid to the original tank, but something happened to the old tank and so the new pipe and tank at the house was installed to bypass it all.
Semi-cleared bench and temp table.
