The 1,389 domestic wells on file within 5 miles of Meadville, from the state’s drilling logs: your neighbors’ wells, and the best guide to this ground.
Source: PaGWIS (PA DCNR), domestic wells within 5 miles, retrieved 2026-09-30; older paper-record locations are approximate.
Meadville Wells Are Mostly Open Rock
Two numbers in the Meadville logs pull against each other. Rock comes up early: the 753 logs that note it put bedrock at a median 19 feet, and three in four reached it by 39. Yet by median depth, Meadville ranks third of 16 Crawford County towns.
Casing usually runs down to rock and seats in it, so here it tends to be a short run, with bare bedrock below. The rock mapped under the city is Late Devonian shale, sandstone and siltstone, Berea Sandstone through Riceville Formation. Long holes in rock are the work air rotary drilling is suited to, and they tilt the cost of a well toward footage rather than casing. The new well cost page lists what else sets the figure, and well drilling explains the drilling methods.
What a 96-Foot Well Asks of a Pump
Yield is the calmer number. Of 1,351 logs with a yield, the median is 15 gallons per minute; a quarter logged 10 or less and a quarter 20 or more. That median sits well above what the residential drilling page gives as most homes’ need, so the pump is chosen more for the lift than for the yield.
A hole this deep usually gets a submersible pump, hung on drop pipe and wired from the surface. A jet pump sits above ground and pulls, which caps how far down it can reach. How deep the pump hangs follows where the water stands in your own well, not the bottom of the hole. Inside the city, the Meadville Area Water Authority does the pumping for 5,265 connections, and the Meadville treatment page covers its water.
