DeepRock Hydra-Drill

kc5dlo · Dec 1, 2003

Ok, here is my experience. I bought a deep rock hydra drill a few years ago. It is the one that is a step above the economy model. I bought a honda trash pump and saved a little money. You can also probably buy well screen and casing locally and save some money there as welll as have the convenience of longer sections.
The rig works and I drilled down to 150' You have to start out with a 2" bit followed by a 4" bit and that was no problem but that took about all the daylite hours of a weekend to accomplish. The next weekend I started down with the 6" reamer and it was really tough on the machine. I was down 65' when the stem broke, three sections above the bit. I tried bailing water out of the bore but it was recovering faster than i could bail. I was unable to get the bit and three sections of stem out before a cave in forced me to seal up the hole with several bags of sac-crete.
One of these days I'll try it again and either buy a 5" reamer or add some flutes to a 4" bit. I think the step from 4" to 6" was a little to much.

centex · Dec 1, 2003

That's what I was looking for!!! I was afraid that this thing was too flimsy to work in anything harder than dirt. I would have to drill to at least 250' and through rock. I was considering their 77 Commercial machine with 4" and 6" commercial drag bits and a 4" rotary bit. The whole setup with the pump, drill stems, casing, etc. would cost me $8000 delivered. I was afraid that I would end up like you with a lot of expensive drill stem and bit broken off down in a hole. I think I will look again at either having a contractor drill the wells for me or maybe building my own rig and using larger drill stem.

Thank you again for the input.

Silver_Knight · Mar 6, 2006

Don,

Which property did you almost buy in Hoover Valley?

Lee

MikePA · Mar 6, 2006

Centex hasn't posted in almost 2 years.

PILOON · Mar 6, 2006

Three of us pooled and purchased the deep rock rig as advertised in many magazines.

I could best describe it as a post hole digger with a 4hp Tecomish mower engine that drives 5ft lengths of exhaust pipe that screw together with one end dipped in carbide chips.

An adapter allows water to be pumped in for lubrication.

A rack affair with a 1500lb boat winch is the lifting mechanism.

We drilled for about 15 mins and scrapped the 'bit' and achieved less than what a shovel could do.

Shure the factory indicated we could recoat the 'bit' by brazing on more carbide chips.

Anyhow the total career of 'deep rock' lasted all of 15 mins for us! Junk!

Safetypusher1 · Nov 2, 2014

I own an old Hydra Drillsystem. I have to tell you its not easy to operate if you have no knowledge about drilling process. I am a driller myself and its very simple to operate and service. I advise you to learn about the drilling steps carefully an do not get in a hurry. Safety is essential as this little rig can impose some perils as much as the Oil Rigs can. It is a real deal, just take your time and do not hurry. Once you learn it it will be a breeze.

Safetypusher1 · Nov 2, 2014

First of all you have to do some research about the geology of your property. You may have a soft, medium or hard geology around. In some cases you can NOT possibly drill with a Hydra Drill due to some impossible to penetrate hard geology, for this you may need something like A DR100, which is the bigger brother, and using along a Down The Hole Hammer with a big air compressor. In some other situations you may get away it by with using a tricone rock bit. Cases may very.

SPIKER · Nov 2, 2014

Safety fyi the LAST post was 8 years ago & thread started in 2003 but always nice to hear from people who do own stuff on how well/poor the machine works.

Mark

Enrich Missions · Feb 14, 2016

Safetypusher1 said:
First of all you have to do some research about the geology of your property. You may have a soft, medium or hard geology around. In some cases you can NOT possibly drill with a Hydra Drill due to some impossible to penetrate hard geology, for this you may need something like A DR100, which is the bigger brother, and using along a Down The Hole Hammer with a big air compressor. In some other situations you may get away it by with using a tricone rock bit. Cases may very.

I know this is a big stab into an old thread. I've been searching the internet for an idea of what this machine is like. I'm considering purchasing one to drill small local wells (manually pumped) in the mountains in Nicaragua for schools that don't have any water. I like the small, compactness of it and I can pull it through horse paths with my jeep to remote locations.

Safetypusher, I'm hoping this message gets to you and you may be able to help me understand more about this machine and drilling in general. I've eliminated other machines as an option simply from getting some real user experience. It would be a HUGE help to actually talk to you for 30 mins or so.

Please respond back here or email me wayne@enrichmissions.org. Thanks!