water pressure/volume loss vs. reduced pipe size

[juanbenae]

my house is served by a well with a variable speed on demand pump that during escrow was giving 8 gallons per minute at about 60PSI. the lines from the well head to and from my filtration system are all 1". I do not know if there is a reduction in line size from the where it leaves the pump house to serve the residence.

the well is deep, to the tune of 700' with the pump sitting at about 650'. never an issue with the GPM or pressure to the house even with the three-stage filtration to clean up what is a very high iron content well with all 1" lines as described above.

as part of the filtration system there is a 5mil washable/disposable in line "big blue" filter, and from there it runs through an induction intake device of a bleach/water mixture that has the finite iron molecules glob together so the green sand filter next in the system is more effective. the current 1" intake unit that is a repurposed agriculture fertilizer unit has gone bad.

instead of ponying up $1k to replace it in kind I got an amazon unit for a couple hundred buck that has a 3/4" inlet and outlet (could not find a 1" in/out offering). I will bush it down and back up for the 3/4" inductor unit to the 1" existing lines and was wondering what I could expect in the way of pressure and possible volume loss? i can increase the existing 60PSI regulator a few pounds to compensate for what im doing.

any hydrologist here?

[908/930]

Quite sure you wont notice any difference, 3/4 should support 8GPM. Does the filter say what flow rate it can support? If you are using super fine filters and do see a pressure drop at max flow you could run two filters using a T fitting prior and aft run the filters in parallel. Most faucets these days are pretty low flow about 2.5gpm so I doubt you will notice any change.

[Baz]

I agree with 908/930 above.

Doubt you will see any difference at all.

Good luck!!!!

[Evans, Marv]

^^^^ What they said.

[flatbutt]

700 feet!!? Holy hannah.

[mgatepi]

From my experience, we had very poor flow in our kitchen faucet. For years my wife complained and the flow truly was miserable. I checked everything I could with the exception of a small area where the water line transitioned through the basement floor into the kitchen. Everything I could see in the basement was 1/2" Everything I could see in the kitchen cabinet was 1/2" I could not figure out why the poor flow. Every where else in the house was fine. I replaced the faucet and no help. Finally my son was able to squeeze himself into an area to see where the line was going up into the kitchen and what do you know, someone had necked it down to 3/8" to go through the floor for some reason. We cut this area out and replaced with 1/2" HUGE difference!! Had great pressure and flow. So with this in mind, I would be very reluctant to neck this area down to 3/4"!!!
Also, 700' deep well is WOW!!! My well is 80'

[Gretch]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

700 feet!!? Holy hannah.

Not that deep.......

I have a pretty common well in the north of the granite state and it goes down 1,000 feet....... had to be "fractured" to get flow up above 3 gal a minute......

the beauty of a 1,000 foot well is I have an 800 foot column of water in it as a reserve.........

have had a house full of people plenty of times......... and never concerned about running the well dry..........

With a water softener system in place, I am more concerned about the amount of salt that gets flushed into the septic system............

Actually a high flow rate is better for the septic system......... as long as it is "healthy".

[unclebilly]

The friction in the rest of the system exceeds the pressure drop associated with a 3/4 nominal restriction on either side of the filter. It will make no difference at 8gpm.

[juanbenae]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

700 feet!!? Holy hannah.

while in escrow I contacted the county looking for well reports and confirmed the info with them I got from the local guy that does the pump and piping for most of the local wells. it was initially at 250' and went dry a couple times in the early 2000's during drought years. like i mention the downside is very high in iron content to the point during the escrow well inspection it looked like tomato soup. the guy i note above said it was likely to do with the fact the well had not been used for 3-4 months while the house was on the market. he suggested we run it over night to turn it over and when we returned in the morning the water was clear. he stated it was a bacteria that consumes the iron in the water that is not harmful, but ugly as heck... the system the seller installed is very good, although i was pretty worried at the outset. i have to rinse the washable filter cartridge once every couple weeks or so depending on the time of year. i keep a log of water quality before the filtration system and over the nearly 4 years have seen patterns develop depending on season. The property is also served by a gravity fed ditch water system that was originally established during the gold rush from the mountain behind me. i "seed" the well by running water in the drip line of the well and irrigate a bunch of turf during the summer putting a significant amount of water back into the ground. there are many ditches around this area from the gold rush days that have been gunnite lined and used by private residents and the local water provider that treats it prior to distribution. Cal Dept of Fish and Game even plant trout in them for fishing. the one that serves me is about 3' wide and about 8-9 inches deep. some are 7-8 wide and a couple feet deep.

Originally Posted by unclebilly

The friction in the rest of the system exceeds the pressure drop associated with a 3/4 nominal restriction on either side of the filter. It will make no difference at 8gpm.

thanks for a clear, concise answer that I will hang my hat on.... will report back as to results. would have headed up there today but i was plowing snow and hired a guy to remove nearly 2" of snow off my roof before the atmospheric river headed our way. was very concerned about a roof collapse. mountain life!

[juanbenae]

completed the install of the new inductor yesterday and no noticeable loss of pressure. thanks to those that gave their info.