Spring box
A spring box is the covered collection box in a spring development, built to trap sediment and store water to meet peak demand, with a tight-fitting cover against surface runoff, animals and trash. That description comes from a federal conservation standard written for livestock and wildlife water.
From the seep, through the box, to the conveyance pipe
The spring box standard behind this entry is a USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service practice standard for spring development, in the Vermont state office's January 2021 version. It defines spring development as the collection and use of water from seeps or springs, and it lists the parts of a typical collection system.
- Where the spring emerges. The standard puts the collection site down slope from the point where the spring or seep comes out of the ground. What counts as a spring in the first place has its own entry.
- Tile or perforated pipe, gravel and a cutoff wall. The standard lists these with the spring box as typical parts of the collection system at the site.
- Spring box. The box traps sediment and stores water to meet peak demands, under a tight-fitting cover meant to keep surface runoff, animals and trash from getting in.
- Conveyance pipe. Water leaves the box through it toward wherever the water is used.
The collection system typically consists of tile or perforated pipe, gravel, cutoff wall, spring box, conveyance pipe, or other collection means appropriate to the site.
USDA NRCS, Conservation Practice Standard 574, Spring Development (Vermont, January 2021)
The word typically matters. The standard allows other collection means appropriate to the site, so a box that has served a farmhouse for a long time may not match this list part for part.
Written for livestock and wildlife water, and silent on the kitchen tap
The NRCS standard states its purposes in conservation terms, among them improving water quantity for livestock and wildlife. No Virginia construction standard for a spring box that supplies household drinking water was found in the research behind this entry, so this page gives no build standard for one.
Virginia's private well regulation does not fill that gap. It excludes wells constructed for the purpose of the modification or development of springs, so the well construction rules are not a stand-in for a spring box standard.
The cover is meant to keep runoff, animals and trash out of the box. Whether the water in it is fit to drink is a question for water testing and the local health department.
VDH points owners of private water systems to the Virginia Household Water Quality Program of Virginia Cooperative Extension, which it describes as offering practical information about systems such as wells, springs and cisterns.
Septic setbacks, water rights and a water test, when the box serves a house
Virginia's onsite sewage regulation measures septic distances to a developed spring in two tables that are easy to mix up. The spring entry sets them side by side, and the health department reads how they apply on a given site.
Who may take the water, and from whose ground, is a different question from how the box is built, and it is covered in springs, creeks and water rights.
Whether a buyer or a lender will want the water tested before closing is taken up in do I need a well test to sell. A spring that feeds open water rather than a box is a different arrangement again, described under spring-fed pond.
Is a spring box serving the farmhouse or cabin you want to sell?
Tell Lowell where the spring sits and what the box feeds, and he will lay out the water questions a buyer is likely to raise and which office answers each one. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions about this term
Does a covered spring box make spring water safe to drink?
No. In the federal conservation standard that describes it, the tight-fitting cover is there to keep surface runoff, animals and trash out, and that standard was written for livestock and wildlife water. The U.S. Geological Survey says local groundwater quality generally determines spring water quality. Water testing and the local health department answer the drinking water question for a particular spring.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Conservation Practice Standard 574, Spring Development (Vermont, January 2021, PDF) USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
- 12VAC5-630-30, wells excluded from the private well regulation, including spring development Virginia Administrative Code
- 12VAC5-610-597, Tables 4.1 and 4.2, separation distances to developed springs Virginia Administrative Code
- Springs and the water cycle U.S. Geological Survey
- Private well water information, including the Virginia Household Water Quality Program Virginia Department of Health