Driving A New Well

[trailbuilder]

SUPER IDEA. I like the idea of the electric jack hammer to drive the point! I will try this next time.

 

[MNBobcat]

I'm washing in four 1 1/4" x 5 foot long points.

I hit water bearing sand at less than 10 feet. I originally tried 3" PVC for washing it down but couldn't get enough water volume. I'm using 2 water sources (both connected to the jet head). The first is on the end of about 300 feet of garden hose from the house - I can't get much water pressure/volume.

I hooked up a second hose feeding from a 210 gallon tank and a shallow well pump.

Using the 3" PVC it would empty the 210 gallon tank before the 3" would get deeper than 11 feet.

Late evening yesterday I tried a 2" pipe and got down 10 feet in about 3 minutes. Used much less water and it was WAY, WAY faster.

At least now I know I'm on the right track. Not sure if I'll be able to try it again before next weekend.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Keep us posted. There may come a day when this base of knowledge will be needed. Most of the 24" wells around here were hand dug years before the big rig 4-6" plastic wells became the norm.

 

[MNBobcat]

I have a tip that might be helpful. We do have a well here at our house. Its 175 feet deep. But its 250 feet from the garden, which is why I'm putting in a shallow point near the garden.

Here is the tip...I contacted my county and was able to get a copy of the paperwork from when the house well was put in. It said there is sand from 0 - 20 feet, then clay from 20 - 53 feet and then hard gravel from 53 feet to 68 feet. Hardpan is at 83 feet.

Here I was thinking I was hitting hardpan at 20 feet and that I may only need to go 6 - 10 feet to get through it. Ha! I'd be trying to go through 33 feet of clay! So...that tells me I'll need to go down 20 feet and stop and take the water sitting on top of the clay.

I'm 1,000 feet from a river on the west and have a swamp to the east. When digging with the backhoe I hit some water at 11 feet. So I should be good for water at 20 feet. My main concern was it going dry on me but given its either 20 feet or go 114 feet to next layer of sand I'm sticking with 20 feet.

If you're doing a well, see if you can find paperwork from when your house well was put in. Most useful!

 

[speedbump]

I'm not sure why I just got a notification about this thread today... but this is the first I have heard of it. I guess I'm kind of late, so won't say too much other than, wells are different everywhere you go, shallow or deep. There is no one size fits all. But the most important thing is the size of your wrenches or the handles you put on them. If you don't butt the 1-1/4" pipes together inside the coupling, your just asking for trouble. Butt them and you won't have any broken threads or air leaks. Back in the day, I used 24" wrenches and sat down with a foot on the bottom wrench and pulled on the top one until the pipe came to a screeching halt. That's how you know they're butted.

Good luck...

 

[Edenfarm]

You will want to tighten couplings every so often as you drive so they stay tight and won't develop an air leak. Pumps can suck air easier than water so they will, but then they burn out.
Be sure to test water for bacteria etc. because the couplings can leave a void around the pipe through the clay layers thus letting contaminated surface water follow the outside of the pipe down to your point. This has happened to our well.

 

[MNBobcat]

I'm not having good luck. I've concluded that I don't have enough water in my well to support the well. I really can't (I don't think) go any deeper. I was going to go down another 5 feet but the jackhammer won't push it down any deeper so I must be right on the edge of the clay. Although when I pulled the point last night there was no clay on it yet.

Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't move the well about (approx) 300 feet which puts it right next to a swamp. After work, I'll measure the exact distance. Problem is, I'd have to pump water 200 - 300 feet to where it would be used. I can get 2" black poly water pipe for $95 per 100 feet. Curious, if I go that large of a diameter would you expect there would be very little loss in volume/pressure over the distance? Also, don't know how you would flush that in the fall before winter. You think blowing air in the lines would get enough water out?

 

[kc5dlo]

My local store has the 1 1/4 well points in a 36" and 48" length. I am thinking of going with the 48" but dont know if there are disadvantages to watch out for. Any chance damaging the longer point while driving it in?
Not sure of the depth or thickness of a water bearing layer. No clay, just sand.

 

[bp fick]

My local store has the 1 1/4 well points in a 36" and 48" length. I am thinking of going with the 48" but dont know if there are disadvantages to watch out for. Any chance damaging the longer point while driving it in?
Not sure of the depth or thickness of a water bearing layer. No clay, just sand.

If you're looking for volume, the 25% increased area of the 4' over the 3' makes it attractive. The price difference is up to you to judge it's value.
I've driven both and there's no discernible difference in risk while driving.

 

[ayelvington]

I've had much better luck using a shop vacuum to suck water out of a hose instead of trying to blow the water out. Either way, it takes A LOT of air!

Do keep an eye on the slope of your installation, and leave opportunity to let gravity do a lot of the work for you.

Wishing you luck!

Al

 

[Brake Weight]

Depending on how much volume you move through the 2" pipe would determine your frictional pressure loss. Open ended it would be much more than if you kept back pressure for a sprinkler set up. If you were to feed a pond or something where a lot of volume is needed, you could use the initial pump to charge a secondary pump at the other end.


As far as winterizing it, if you had a 'T' with a valve at each end, I would think that the expanding ice would have an outlet to push out the trapped water. But, I am from the south. Maybe you could blow a racket ball or something through it with a compressor to pig it out with.

 

[foggy1111]

I've had much better luck using a shop vacuum to suck water out of a hose instead of trying to blow the water out. Either way, it takes A LOT of air!

Do keep an eye on the slope of your installation, and leave opportunity to let gravity do a lot of the work for you.

Wishing you luck!

Al

The folks that clear out underground sprinkler lines typically use a big air compressor and blow those lines out. Just sayin.....

It's a whole lot easier to push water than to pull it. You can push water up a long way....you can only pull water about 25' via a vaccum.

 

[Bobcatter]

I've enjoyed this thread, had to do some research about these wells after coming back from Florida. All I've ever seen is a big rig grinding through rock day after day to get a well here in PA!
Helped some people set up their place in Florida that had a well to fill a swimming pool. The well was a piece of 2 inch PVC pipe coming out of the ground with a check valve installed. The old pump had been removed with a saw. This is a Harbor Freight pump (with 4 gal storage tank, all one unit) that cost about $90 and worked flawlessly. I connected it up, it took a gallon and a half of water to prime it, and away it went. Over three days, we ran it about 20 hours to fill a 10,000 gallon pull - works out to 500 gallons an hour. The "trick" was to set the pump outlet valve to keep some pressure on the pump at about 30 pounds. The big blue hose went to the pool, it was 1 1/4 inch diameter. The garden hose worked great for other clean up jobs - I did not use both hoses at the same time.
Now this thread has me thinking about installing one of these wells here to use for washing the car, etc.

 

[ayelvington]

This is a Harbor Freight pump (with 4 gal storage tank, all one unit) that cost about $90 and worked flawlessly.

I have the same pump in my orchard, and it has been a fantastic value! I put on beefier pressure switch and connected it to an external volume tank to keep the duty cycle down.

Excellent value from HF

 

[dieselscout80]

I've enjoyed this thread, had to do some research about these wells after coming back from Florida. All I've ever seen is a big rig grinding through rock day after day to get a well here in PA!
Helped some people set up their place in Florida that had a well to fill a swimming pool. The well was a piece of 2 inch PVC pipe coming out of the ground with a check valve installed. The old pump had been removed with a saw. This is a Harbor Freight pump (with 4 gal storage tank, all one unit) that cost about $90 and worked flawlessly. I connected it up, it took a gallon and a half of water to prime it, and away it went. Over three days, we ran it about 20 hours to fill a 10,000 gallon pull - works out to 500 gallons an hour. The "trick" was to set the pump outlet valve to keep some pressure on the pump at about 30 pounds. The big blue hose went to the pool, it was 1 1/4 inch diameter. The garden hose worked great for other clean up jobs - I did not use both hoses at the same time.
Now this thread has me thinking about installing one of these wells here to use for washing the car, etc.

How deep is your well?

 

[Brake Weight]

Anyone with updates?

 

[ayelvington]

I had to abandon my well here in PA. I hit something very hard (many boulders in our area), and I couldn't pull the point even with one of the largest tractors in this part of the county. I'm going to cut and cap the pipe with concrete in the spring, and then it's back to the drawing board...

 

[gorillarms]

Lots of good info here. Going to try putting a well in here. The area is near the gulf coast northwest of Ocala. Existing well is 70 '. Purpose is for watering animals and such. Also if power grid goes down can get some water for me and mine. iMO a hand driven well would be best. Any thoughts from you more experienced folks? Thanks.

 

[gorillarms]

Another idea is to hand dig as deep as possible insert a 6" pipe in ground. Then start jetting a smaller diameter as deep as possible, and then again next smaller diameter. Thoughts?

 

[Brake Weight]

That's how oil/gas well are done.