New Well - vacuuming a hole?

[MossRoad]

Moss; have you ever had the privilege of using one of those in dry hard clay?:thumbsup:

I have dug my share of holes in clay saturated moondust (granulated limestone) at the ball park and not matter what the hand tool I used, it was not fun! :laughing:

For those instances I find it best to bet two teenage boys that they cannot dig a hole faster than the other one and promise some food to the winner. Hole gets dug real fast.

 

[foggy1111]

OK all you nay-sayers. :laughing: Today I hooked up my old sears vacuum cleaner *(shopvac) taped the joints and used a file to make some saw teeth on the hard plastic hose opening.

Turned the vac on.....and held it against the ground. in a few minutes I had a hole about three feet deep. :thumbsup::thumbsup: A small root stopped me at about 1 foot deep....but I had a post hole pounder that just fit into the hole....one wack and the root was severed.....and the hole was good to about 3 feet. I have mostly sandy loam soil....no rocks....so this works good under these conditons. (Not sure about other soils) Another root stopped my progress...and I didnt have pipe long enough to sever the root....but I am sure it would go a few feet deeper without much problems if the root could be dealt with.

The jagged edge of the rigid pipe opening kinda breaks up the soils...and the fines are easily deposited into the vac canister. I had a neat 2" diameter hole in very short order. Im sure if you have rocks or clay this method is of no use....but with the right soil its pretty slick.

I have my well drilling materials bought and will post pics of this method and my well driving techniqes on another post in about two weeks....when I get my well project underway. (I just couldnt wait to try the "starter" hole method :laughing

 

[beenthere]

I'll be anxious to hear (and see) how deep you can go with this vacuum technique. I am surprised you made it three feet, but glad it worked so far.

 

[tommu56]

The vacuum idea is good if you keep air flow down the outside of the pipe in that soil condition you should go pretty far.

The reason I say this we have material fans at work that pull stuff 100's of feet but you need a lot of air flow to pick up the stuff and suspend it in the flow.

tom

 

[PatJD950]

Just finished vacuuming a 10 foot deep hole using 1-1/2 pvc electrical conduit and a 5hp 4 gallon shop vac. I used a 2 handle post hole digger to start my hole then dropped a 6 foot piece of pipe in and started vacuuming out the sand and rocks. Every so often a rock would get stuck in the end of the pipe. I 'd pull the pipe, remove the rock and continue. then I changed to my ten foot long pipe when I was deep enough. I'm in my basement digging this well so I have height restrictions.

My questions is now that the soil that is coming out of the hole is moist how much further do I need to drive a point?

We haven't had rain in a few weeks and I have wetlands about 150 feet behind the house. Standing water at the bottom of the hill about 15 feet or so below the upper grade.

 

[foggy1111]

Just finished vacuuming a 10 foot deep hole using 1-1/2 pvc electrical conduit and a 5hp 4 gallon shop vac. I used a 2 handle post hole digger to start my hole then dropped a 6 foot piece of pipe in and started vacuuming out the sand and rocks. Every so often a rock would get stuck in the end of the pipe. I 'd pull the pipe, remove the rock and continue. then I changed to my ten foot long pipe when I was deep enough. I'm in my basement digging this well so I have height restrictions.

My questions is now that the soil that is coming out of the hole is moist how much further do I need to drive a point?

We haven't had rain in a few weeks and I have wetlands about 150 feet behind the house. Standing water at the bottom of the hill about 15 feet or so below the upper grade.

For me the hole vacuum idea really panned out well. I was able to vac a hole about 4 feet deep and the hole diameter was about 3" (whatever the tube diameter was for the shop vac). I sucked the hole in just a few minutes time. I did run into two small roots....and used a metal pipe to pound through those....then back to the vac....no sweat. I did not use any auger or other means....just the vac and hose.

I'm sure I could have sucked another few feet deep.....but I did not have enough pipe to do the job.....and I started pushing flex tube into the hole. I was afaid I would not be able to pull the tube back out.....so I quit.

To answer your question on depth......I dont think anyone can tell you for certain....as wells vari so much. But if you have damp / wet soil coming now.....its time to drive your sand point.

I drove mine too deep (over 25 feet) and lifted it back up with a handyman jack. It now is 21 feet into the ground and I have measured 11 feet of water in the pipe.....using a length of string and a nut for a weight.

If I were more experienced at driving sand points.....I beleive I may have saved driveing two 5foot lengths of pipe. I just did not perform the right checks for water along the way....or didn't realize when we had good water.

 

[foggy1111]

A pic of my end result.