Anyone have a good design or know how? I have a couple of natural springs on our land and I am considering building a box for one. It is very dry here. Had a 1/2 of rain yesterday, but none for a month before and still putting out water. I went above where the water seeps out of the ground and dug a small hole and it has filled with water. I have looked on YouTube and there are a few videos.
Thanks in advance.

USDA/NRCS has some really good plans for spring development systems. You can probably google it under usda nrcs efotg for spring development - conservation code 574.

Good advise, I have constructed dozens of these for customers.

Thanks you all for info!

Scout1, how much water per minute you have out of spring now?

I found this website practical preppers they have a really cool design an the material for sale to build it or atleats for off of an build your own very interesting stuff has a 4 part YouTube series on the web page check it out ...I have a spring seep on the side Mt on my property went down tonight an started digging haha

Can't rightly say. It will fill the hole I dug out. I'm going to temporarily dam it and put an overflow on it to see. Now I got another that is already boxed. Probably a gallon or two per minute. It needs a good resavior.

We pumped our well dry a week ago. It has came back. We only ever got 1/2gpm. It was just overused at the time.( I actually conversed with a gentleman on this site a few years back about the well.)
Long story short, I am looking at building a spring to help supplement the well. I have two springs on the property that are the same or more in elevation as the well. Now, I will have to pipe them 100-125 yards, but I believe it would beat spending $20 a ft. to drill and case a new well. As of now we are conserving water.

Count my blessings here in Northern lower Michigan, driven sand points around 20 to 25 foot give up plenty of water. I developed a spring flow at my hunting cabin, used as cooler more than drinking water. I made a stone gabion with a hollow in the center. The center has a 55 gallon plastic barrel filled with holes around the bottom, with lid. Over flow pipe lets spring water overflow and continue on it's natural path. There is LaBatts Blue in it right now, late summer I drop a water melon or two in it... Water temp stays around 47- 48 degrees F

One good thing about the spring i am looking into using, is yesterday is the first rain we have had in over a month and it is still putting out water.

Can you post links to those videos?

I found this guy's site:


Engineer775

Apparently he is the owner of Practical Preppers and that is his YouTube site. There are lots of videos though, too many for me to scroll through. Do you have a link to the specific videos you are referring to?

Type in WROL spring development. Several part series on building a spring. Pretty good info.

That worked, thanks.

Right now just a trickle. I went up today and dug it out a little more. I may dig some more and run a containment, then try measuring. The other spring is the same elevation, but also used by my neighbor. At one time it ran 3-4 houses. I may update it. Clean it out (full of roots now), patch a leak, and run to a 3-400 gallon reservoir. I don't know if it would gravity feed to my well. But i could just occasionally pump a couple hundred gallons to the well. This spring stuff gets pretty interesting.

So what's the math on gallon per minute or whatever oh do you figure this out

I guess once I am done. Just hold a gallon jug under the out put. But Im really just looking to add 2-300 gallons per week to my well.