Drill your own Water Well?

[ultrarunner]

Anyone ever drill your own well successfully?

My brother in California called last night and mentioned that he is considering buying a do it yourself rig from RockmasterDrills.com.

Mandatory water rationing is in force where he lives and it is taking a toll on his landscaping.

He talked with one of the commercial well drillers in his area. Any well would need to be in his backyard due to setback requirements. Side access is extremely limited and would involve taking out at least 2 mature trees... so this is a big factor in looking at a portable drill rig.

Any advice I can pass along?

Has anyone used a Rockmaster portable Drill Rig?

 

[LBrown59]

Anyone ever drill your own well successfully?

I've never drilled one but I did have a well drilled and cased it myself and saved some money that way.

 

[chadincolo]

If they are under water restrictions, tells me it's a dry area. I would check and see what permits are required to drill a well, if one is required and not obtained and you are caught, they can fine the bejeezus out of you, AND plug the well...could end up with a very very expensive lesson, and no well. In Colorado you need 35 acres (I think it is) of surface area to get a permit without serious work... Don't know about other states, but I would recommend he ask before spending money.

 

[ultrarunner]

All of the municipal water comes from Sierra Snow Melt 150 miles away and the snow pack has been down for a few years... most of the San Francisco East Bay is under mandatory rationing.

The local well driller said no problem on permit and application... but, he only has large and very large equipment that is too large to get into the only area setbacks allow drilling...

My brother asked him about the small rigs advertised on E-bay and such... the driller's response they were little more than toys and might work if a person was looking for a hobby.

 

[Highbeam]

I would cut the trees needed for access and never look back. The water issues are bound to get worse as population goes up.

Soon he will forget that there ever was a tree there and will be able to enjoy the improved access for other projects and uses like fire protection.

 

[Richard]

My well:

Total depth 310'
Depth to bedrock 63'
Static level 104' (I think that means where the top of the water is??)
Pump intake at 220'

I'd think that would be very tough to do yourself without the big rigs??

(btw, I've got a 100 gpm well )

 

[schmism]

My well:

Total depth 310'
Depth to bedrock 63'
Static level 104' (I think that means where the top of the water is??)
Pump intake at 220'

I'd think that would be very tough to do yourself without the big rigs??

(btw, I've got a 100 gpm well )

in contrast

my well that serves the garden, pool and anything else you do with a hose, is ~25' deep, 3' diam and brick lined. on a "full well" (non-high water season 3-4' down from the surface) i can pump for about 30-45 min at ~10gpm

recharge rate is 12-24 hrs depending on season and rainfall that week.

durring the wet spring, it stays within about 2' of the top of the ground (seasonal high water table) and i could pump almost all day long and never run dry.

in the hot dry aug summer it runs about half full with a recharge to half full in 24+ hrs.

 

[Highbeam]

Schmism's well is the kind of well that is likely to be "surface water influenced" meaning keep your livestock away and hope that nothing dies anywhere near it. The 100' and deeper wells are fed by a deeper aquifer where water down there has moved through lots and lots of dirt.

I am still impressed that someone had the nerve to go 25' underground and stack bricks. The cribbing must be quite good and the water kept out of the well while digging it. Not for the weenies.

 

[ultrarunner]

Looks like no one has gone the do it yourself route.

Brother's home is on a city lot in a tract built around 1950. Neighborhood is very good, so they plan on staying.

One side yard is 6' and the other is 7' from the adjoining neighbors... a little too tight for a drill rig.

I've run into quite a few people that are using rationing as an excuse to just let their entire yards go... not a drop of water for plants and then can always blame it on rationing.

A co-worker has a 3' dia, brick lined 45' deep well left over from when the tract she lives in was part of a vineyard... A couple of years ago they got an estimate to fill it in... boy are they glad they didn't.

She bought a $65 pump and dropped it down the well last year and they have unlimited garden water...

 

[CurlyDave]

Anyone ever drill your own well successfully?

Maybe 35 years ago a friend and I bought a do-it-yourself well driller from an outfit called "Deeprock".

It was a gasoline powered auger head with a special drill bit holder in place of the auger. We we able to drill to ~ 65' in rocky ground, although I will warn you my buddy was STRONG (only man I have ever seen who could lift, not just move, a telephone pole all by himself). We were young and operating on a shoestring budget, but had lots of pure brute strength and ignorance.

The drill string is 3/4" or 1" steel pipe, and you have to lift it all out of the hole to finish off the well.

The well it drilled was quite small, maybe 2" in diameter, which was limiting. They sold special small diameter well casing for finishing the well, although we gave up after reaching 65' and never cased the well.

I would not be afraid to do it again, especially if the alternative was for all my landscaping to die, but I would rig up an engine hoist and some kind of a pipe holder for lifting the drill string.

 

[EddieWalker]

I've been playing around with drilling/jetting a well to add water to my small pond when it gets low. I made a bit out of a pipe end cap and put a hole in it for water to shoot out of. I then welded a one inch bolt to a threaded coupling so that I could spin it with my 3/4 inch impact wrench. I used half inch pipe for the drill stem.

My theory is that the bit will spin and break up the clay and the water will force it up and out of the hole. It's sort of worked really good to about 20 feet, but then I got it stuck. Now I have to pull it out, and I'll use the backhoe for this, but I'm going to have to come up with a better design.

As I went down, I'm digging almost an inch and a half hole. I'm sliding 2 inch shedule 40 pvc down as casing around the metal pipe that is my drill stem. My bit will fit insed the 2 inch pvc, and the pvc sort of cuts it's way into the smaller hole with just a little effort.

I'm not in a rush on this and it's just something that I'm playing around with.

My two issues are the cutting bit and the hose connection to the pipe. Both need allot of improvement.

Eddie

 

[Egon]

My Grandfather and Father had a home made well drillring. It did drill many wells and was simplicity in itself.

 

[MarkV]

It would seem to me the first question to ask the well drillers in the area is how deep are most of the wells they drill. Of course that can vary considerably from one side of a lot to the other but there should be a general average. My well at the cabin is 500 plus feet deep and there is no way one of those small DIY rigs would have worked.

On these small 2” bore wells how do you pump the water out? Do they make pumps with that small of diameter?

MarkV

 

[kc5dlo]

I bought a Deep Rock setup about 10 years ago. I bought 200 feet of drill stem. Drilled a 2' hole the full 200 feet. Followed that with a 4" reamer bit to 200' also. Put on the 6" reamer and the rig was really taking a beating. Not sure why. At 65 feet the stem broke 15 feet from the bit. Tried unsuccessfully to retrieve the lost stem and bit. Hole eventually caved in and I gave up.

Do they work? Yes. They are very slow. Each trip down was 12 to 14 hours. It was hot, muddy work. If there is much in the way of rocks where you are drilling it might not be the way to go. It is like compareing a moped to a Harley.

I would consider cutting the trees and getting the rig in there and be done with it.

 

[moeh1]

I looked into this several years ago and most of the folks that tried had similar issues tyring to get the well hole large enough to get a pump down there. Unless you have easy diggin and a high water table, the consensus was to leave it to the pros.
The new drill rigs are mostly all rotary and really big, but some of the old pounders aren't that big at all ( basically a long flatbed truck). It may be worth expanding you search radius for a driller with a smaller rig.

 

[dfkrug]

Anyone ever drill your own well successfully?

My brother in California called last night and mentioned that he is considering buying a do it yourself rig from RockmasterDrills.com.

I also looked into using the rig from DeepRock to drill my own well back in
1996. If you want to do it with permits in CA, only a state licensed driller
is allowed to drill. AND a state inspector must watch while he pours the
50-ft "sanitary seal".

Of course, it can be done without permits, but a neighbor might turn you in....

 

[srjones]

My Grandfather and Father had a home made well drillring. It did drill many wells and was simplicity in itself.

Egon,

This looks interesting. I unfortunately some of the notes on the drawing didn't scan very well. Could you describe the components and how it operates?

 

[srjones]

Oh, and my wells....

Well #1 (current house). 5" casing, 60' deep. Static head at about 40'. I'm lucky if I get .25 GPM.

Well #2 (house I'm building). 75' deep. 6" casing with a 4" pvc screen (actually just a pvc pipe with holes drilled in it). Static head at around 30', 1 GPM.

 

[MarkV]

Oh, and my wells....

Well #1 (current house). 5" casing, 60' deep. Static head at about 40'. I'm lucky if I get .25 GPM.

Well #2 (house I'm building). 75' deep. 6" casing with a 4" pvc screen (actually just a pvc pipe with holes drilled in it). Static head at around 30', 1 GPM.

It sure is hit and miss when it comes to wells. We spent more than I like to remember and got 3.5 GPM at 500+ feet. People less than 1/4 mile away down the hill hit 40 GPM at 200 ft. Go figure.

MarkV

 

[RobJ]

I've been playing around with drilling/jetting a well to add water to my small pond when it gets low. I made a bit out of a pipe end cap and put a hole in it for water to shoot out of. I then welded a one inch bolt to a threaded coupling so that I could spin it with my 3/4 inch impact wrench. I used half inch pipe for the drill stem.

My theory is that the bit will spin and break up the clay and the water will force it up and out of the hole. It's sort of worked really good to about 20 feet, but then I got it stuck. Now I have to pull it out, and I'll use the backhoe for this, but I'm going to have to come up with a better design.

As I went down, I'm digging almost an inch and a half hole. I'm sliding 2 inch shedule 40 pvc down as casing around the metal pipe that is my drill stem. My bit will fit insed the 2 inch pvc, and the pvc sort of cuts it's way into the smaller hole with just a little effort.

I'm not in a rush on this and it's just something that I'm playing around with.

My two issues are the cutting bit and the hose connection to the pipe. Both need allot of improvement.

Eddie

Eddie,

How did you get the water to shoot down the pipe while spinning, just sort of move the hose every now and then. Here is a picture of my rig, I use a Milwaukee HoleHawg drill to spin it. I would get this bit to go down in the clay a couple feet, then back it out and flush with a PVC pipe and sprayer on the end. It worked ok but I gave up at about 30'. It was getting hard to handle the pipe.

There are some things on Ebay. One guy I found used a Milwaukee pipe threader for the spinner, he then sold a piece that you could attach the hose to and still spin the pipe.

Like others I wanted water for the yard only and being close to Cypress creek I was hoping to find itat 25-30 feet. I hit 2 sand layers but both were dry. They say when the well takes water, you've hit water.

Rob