Our well has a coyote? pump to protect it from burning out when we run out of water. With three kids, we try to conserve water but there's always laundry to be done, toilets to be flushed and five showers a day! We make sure we all time our showers with no water run at least a half an hour beforehand. We had our local well company come out last summer and they dropped the pump as low as they said they could, only an additional 10 feet which really didn't make much of a difference. I have no idea how deep the well is and asked the kid who did it and he didn't know either? but said it's deep. After living like this for two years, I'm ready to move, but that's not an option right now. I know we have other options - drop a new well or get some kind of a holding tank to store a days worth of water or something? Would a holding tank really help much or is an iffy thing? I know that a new well is iffy. In our neighborhood, it's pretty much mixed with great wells and one family even has to truck water in. Also, where would we put a big tank? In our basement? Or is outside better? Another question - when the water finally comes back on, of course there's lots of air coming out of the faucets but most times the water looks black, like it has lots of dirt in it. If we run it for a minute, it's fine. Is this anything to worry about or is there a way to prevent this? We only use bottled water for drinking. Thanks for your help!