Driving A New Well

[Brake Weight]

You could get a workover oil rig to do it for that price.!?!!

 

[MNBobcat]

I'm torn between going with 1 1/4 or 2" pipe and point. What do you think? Is there that much difference in how much water it can flow?

 

[ayelvington]

Given that the water table is unlimited, then two factors impact the amount of water you can draw:

area of the screen = 2 * pi * r the screen area will be almost double for 2" pipe

cross section of pipe interior = pi *r^2 2" pipe has a cross-sectional area almost 3 times that of 1 1/4" pipe.

You can draw a lot more water (if you need it) with the 2" pipe if your water table can provide it...

 

[bp fick]

I'm torn between going with 1 1/4 or 2" pipe and point. What do you think? Is there that much difference in how much water it can flow?

Driving a shallow, sand point is not difficult. We're down roughly 20 ft which is just about ideal for a shallow well jet pump. Total driving time, if you just added the time we were actually pounding, not resting, was less than hour.

Driving a 2" pipe would seem to me to be more difficult, but then, I've never driven 2" pipe and haven't looked to see if anyone has a 2" point. Around here, all the points at local hardware stores are 1 1/4".

What most folks do is buy a longer 5' point, stack two points, or drive multiple points tied together in a "well field" for additional capacity. The washed in or driven shallow well point is kind of a "do it yourself" deal.

 

[bp fick]

Purchased off Craigs last year for $90.

1/2 horse. Pump, tank and check valve all by Do It Best, a local hardware chain. I've disassembled all the elbows, fittings, nipples, hose clamps and what-not. Might do some cleaning. We'll think about some paint.

 

[Chilly807]

Purchased off Craigs last year for $90.

1/2 horse. Pump, tank and check valve all by Do It Best, a local hardware chain. I've disassembled all the elbows, fittings, nipples, hose clamps and what-not. Might do some cleaning. We'll think about some paint.

I'm guessing you need the check valve at the pump to maintain the prime? There's no foot valve on the well pipe, is there?

Sean

 

[bp fick]

That looks a little better.

 

[J_J]

I'm guessing you need the check valve at the pump to maintain the prime? There's no foot valve on the well pipe, is there?

Sean

You could use a foot valve, or a vertical check valve. Brass or PVC.

 

[bp fick]

I'm guessing you need the check valve at the pump to maintain the prime? There's no foot valve on the well pipe, is there?

Sean

You could use a foot valve, or a vertical check valve. Brass or PVC.

Chilly, J.J. is correct. You need a check valve, of some kind, to maintain the prime. Since a drive point doesn't have a foot valve, you have to put one in the intake line. The price on them varies greatly from PVC to brass. Turns out, I have to go get a new one as the old one is crud. If this was our domestic setup, I'd no doubt pop for the brass, but on an irrigation pump, I doubt I will. We shall see.

 

[foggy1111]

I've read that pounding a 2" well point is pretty tough. Some suggest that it's like 3x or more work than a 1 1/2" point. Dunno....never tired it.....but the smaller pipe is good to work with and gets more flow than my city water.

IF you go with big pipe....I'd go with the electric jack-hammer approach for sure. Takes lots of the work out of the game. :thumbsup:

 

[Gale Hawkins]

My body states washing it the way to go if you have a water pressure source.

For those driving does keeping the pipe stem full of water seem to help or hurt?

 

[bp fick]

My body states washing it the way to go if you have a water pressure source.

For those driving does keeping the pipe stem full of water seem to help or hurt?

Little difference, Gale, in my experience. I'm sure every situation is different.
Agree on washing. It REALLY helps to have water pressure. Landscaping companies that wash in wells use a pressurized system, similar to a power washer. Of course, if you hit a big old rock that the glacier left behind, you have to start again.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

If I had water pressure I think I would try a 3/4 pipe first. That would check for big rocks, etc and leave a pilot hole. The water pressure would be the same as the pressure of the water system unlike with the 2" casing.

Cave-ins might be a problem but you could note the sands coming out. I could work for driving a well too perhaps?

There is a company that sells a small drilling rig that I wanted about 30 years ago but laws prevent custom drilling in our state without licenses now.

 

[Brake Weight]

If you did a pilot hole and tried to come back in the same hole I don't think it would work. I would imagine that your second run would just pump your surface water into the ground water you just washed into.

Maybe start over a few yards away from the first hole.

 

[bp fick]

The well is down. The pump has been all cleaned up and all fittings removed and re-taped. I has a small list of things to fetch.

6' of 1 1/4" flexible plastic pipe
3' of 1" flexible "hose"
check valve
barbed fittings

Might go tomorrow and pick these up. Supposed to be 90F which is a killer. Might have to take a ride in the A/C to get stuff.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

That was a great job on cleaning up that jet pump. :thumbsup:

 

[Gale Hawkins]

If you did a pilot hole and tried to come back in the same hole I don't think it would work. I would imagine that your second run would just pump your surface water into the ground water you just washed into.

Maybe start over a few yards away from the first hole.

Maybe some rethinking is required here on my part. :laughing:

 

[Brake Weight]

I've got an above ground pool and an unused 1 hp inground pump. We've got a pretty good clay here (when they did the dirtwork for my house a track hoe couldn't scrap it up) and above it is that ol red clay. I'm thinking of using the community water to do what I can and then swap over to that pool pump and pool to punch through those clays. I've got about 100' of 1" laying around to flow back with and at least 40' of 2" to spud it in with. I'll have to buy all the needed fittings, too. I need some more gravel for the drive and I may get them to bring pea gravel and steal some of that to pack it with. I'm excited, but it'll have to wait til next month as the job has me out of state right now.

 

[foggy1111]

Late last year I started a thread with the exact same title as this one...if you want more info: "Driving a new well"

The above talk about holes reminded me of my "starter hole"......which is pretty important when starting to drive well pipe. (You need a straight hole to start). Some use a post-hole digger or other methods. (I also considered just hammering a 6' long pipe into the ground and pulling it back out with my loader.....for a starter hole.)

Anyway........I have sandy land without rocks.....so I took my shop-vac and fashioned a jagged edge on the working end of the hard plastic wand. By twisting the vac wand just a bit to agitate the soil.....the vac sucked a straight hole in the ground VERY QUICKLY. I got a hole about 5 feet deep in a matter of 5 or 10 minutes. I had to stop because I was worried I would get the flexible tube stuck in the ground.

Kinda wished I would have had more rigid tubing to see how deep I could pull the soil.....but alas.

Kinda liked the vacuumed hole idea and thought I would share.......:thumbsup::laughing:

 

[ayelvington]

Spent a few hours raising and dropping iron to get about a foot into the shale layer under my orchard. Painfully slow, but not as bad as hauling water twice a day. I have no idea how thick the shale is, but I'll just pound pipe while I pump water every day.

Heat and humidity left me in a stink today, and the black flies did nothing good for my attitude.

The drive weight was made by my neighbor's father. It's a slug of solid axle shaft welded to a section of pipe. I had to set up a gun tackle to cut the weight in half so that I could manage it myself. Fortunately, the weight falls freely when I drop the line!

The same neighbor helped me set up the tripod of red pine poles that he had cut last winter. I have a great neighbor!

My goal is to have a working well by the end of the month, but I hope that God's green earth cooperates!