What are the chances of Brush & Bailing well, increasing wells GPM?

[Zoomschwortz]

I have a nearly 60 year old, 1.250 GPM well. I have no way to prove it, but I am guessing that when the well was new, it had to have been producing more than 1.250 GPM.

I was talking with a local Well drilling company and they said that for just shy of $1,000 they could Brush my 65 foot well casing and Bail out the sediment from the bottom of the well.
In order to do the Brush & Bail, I will need to remove a portion of my pump house's new roof and cut a hole in the ceiling above my well casing to allow access to the well.

What are the odds of Brush & Bailing the well making any improvement in my GPM?
Is it usually successful or more than likely a bust?

If I get the Brush & Bail done, would there be any advantage in getting a plastic casing liner installed?

I have checked into getting a new well put in, but the County I live in is not exactly easy to work with when it comes to new wells, especially if there is already a producing well on the property. One well driller instructed me to tell the County that the well runs dry in the summer and technically it does run dry, but it doesn't stay dry and the well will usually have enough water to start up the pump in a few minutes.

Thank you for any help you can provide
Ken

[Cary Austin]

I could have swore I answered this.  I hate getting old.  Sorry. 

Brushing and bailing will usually help, especially with steel casing.  Most counties would consider 1.25 GPM a dry well.

[Zoomschwortz]

Thanks Cary,
Yes, you did answer this question on another website.
I posted here the morning of Sat. Sept 30 and I posted on the other site that afternoon before you answered here.

I agree with you on 1.25 gpm being considered a dry well. Unfortunately common sense on the left coast is not as common as it is in Texas and the county I live in has an alternate sense of reality.

I will check again with the well drillers to see if there has been any changes, for the better, in my county.

What is the average percent of gpm increase that you have experienced with a brush and bail?

 Would it usually be worth spending $1,000 and removing a new roof from a 12' tall pump house?

Thanks again
Ken

[Cary Austin]

I have seen dramatic increases with steel casing.  PVC not so much.  But the brushing and bailing only cleans up the perforations so what water is there can get in.  If the water isn't there it won't help much.

[Zoomschwortz]

Update and closure for this thread.

I chose not to brush and bail and here we are in 2026.

With great fear and trepidation I went to the County Health Department and told them about my 1.25 gpm well and asked what my options were for drilling a new well.
I had to make a plot map at home, went back to Health Department and had to go back home to make changes to plot map. We're talking close to 2 hour round trip each time with all of the traffic.

The next week I returned with an updated plot map and a different person waited on me.
To my great surprise I was told that a well like mine was considered an emergency and if I wanted to move forward I would be put on the top of the list with the highest priority. I just about fell over and waited for the other shoe to drop.

Permit for a new well and a permit to decommission the old well after new well was complete and connected to my home, cost, a little over $1,600
I said I wanted to get the permits and they sounded a little surprised and looked at the plot map, said it looked good, then said I was closing down old well and drilling new well so there would be no environmental changes so all studies would be waved.
Still not believing what I was hearing, I asked how long it would be for permits to be approved and was told 3 to 7 days. I asked how long before I could start drilling and was told it depended on driller's schedule but should be less than a month. It was about a month and we dropped the pump down my miracle well yesterday.

Miracle Well.
Approved and drilled in little over a month when normally taking months of studies and permit approvals.

Miracle Well
Yesterday, using Franklin 1 1/2 hp, 25 gpm pump to clean and check well (no Tank) and throttled down to 27 gpm.

Within 30 minutes clarity was 0.4, requirement is 10.0 or lower, bottled water requirement is 0.5 or lower.

Driller crunched the numbers and said if it wasn't for my 6" casing restricting pump size, the Aquifer we hit would support over 480 gpm.

Going from 1 1/4 gpm to what will be approximately 23 gpm that has very little chance (short of natural disaster) of ever going dry, to me is a miracle.

Yesterday, instead of 4 minutes to fill a 5 gallon bucket, it only took 11 seconds or to look at it another way, instead of 40 minutes to fill a 50 gallon barrel it only takes 110 seconds.

Currently waiting for lab results for approval to connect to my house.

I also need to start looking for and comparing 25 gpm filters so I am prepared should the need arrive.
Neighbors to east and west of me have iron.
Neighbor to north of me that has unlimited high volume water gets a small amount of sand and has no iron. It almost sounds like we share the same aquifer.

Ken