Drilling Water Well

[EddieWalker]

3. After getting 30 feet of PVC casing in the ground, I started jetting deeper. I hit gravel at about 40 feet. Unfortunately, gravel/rock is not good for the pressure washer method.
...

This is what happened to me. I hit gravel and all my progress came to a halt. I tried to make a bit that I could put on a half inch metal pipe and turn with my 3/4 inpact wrench, but that just got stuck. I need to come up with a better bit to get through the gravel.

From what I understand, the gravel is where the water flows. If you get through the gravel, then you will hit water. Filling your hole with water and watching it seep out just means that water is flowing through the gravel. How much water is in there depends on your local rain conditions and how big the gravel vein is. There is more gravel down there as iron ore and red clay go together. It's just a mystery as to how much you have and how deep it runs. If you are lucky, it will all be small stones, but I've found some that were rather large and if I hit one of those bigger pieces, I'm never going to get through it in that location.

Thanks for the update. I'm really interested in how you get through the gravel.

Eddie

 

[MNBobcat]

Bobcat:

At the end of the ball pump weld on a chisel the width of the desired hole and thread that onto a one or 1 1/4 in. pipe. Rig up a boom that will raise and fall with the pipe attached by a rope. Fill the hole with water and start the boom going up and down while rotating the pipe. It will chisel out the well bore and pump the debris to the surface.

Egon,

I cut about a 30 degree angle on the end of the sand sucker pipe so that it would work much like the chisel you described. I used the backhoe with an attached pulley as my boom. I clamped on an extension which put my pulley about 12 feet in the air.

On the ground, I had an electric motor which turned a drum. I put one wrap of the rope around the drum. To raise the sand sucker I had only to pull on the rope enough that the drum would raise it. When I let in some slack, the sand sucker would fall. Worked pretty slick!

 

[Egon]

Bobcat;

Put a wider chisel edge on that sand sucker and use the pit and chunk of casing at the top
and rotate the pipe and your in the well drilling business.

With the rope around a bucket [some would call that a cathead] you just let out a little more rope as the chisel bit goes deeper and about every five feet or so [whatever works for you] put another section of pipe on.

About two days for a well to 200 ft. in normal ground conditions.

Grandfather and Father have gone to about 400 feet with this method.

It's also very easy to see when you hit as the pit will overflow water.:thumbsup:

 

[MNBobcat]

Bobcat;

Put a wider chisel edge on that sand sucker and use the pit and chunk of casing at the top
and rotate the pipe and your in the well drilling business.

With the rope around a bucket [some would call that a cathead] you just let out a little more rope as the chisel bit goes deeper and about every five feet or so [whatever works for you] put another section of pipe on.

About two days for a well to 200 ft. in normal ground conditions.

Grandfather and Father have gone to about 400 feet with this method.

It's also very easy to see when you hit as the pit will overflow water.:thumbsup:

'"

Egon,

Would they slide casing down the well as the hole got deeper? If so, did they push it by hand or use something like a tractor bucket to push it down?

Were they rotating the pipe by hand?

 

[Egon]

How to Drill Your Own Water Well

A video of a similar type drilling. It seems it's called "The Baptist Well Drilling Method". Google finds lots of results.

The well was drilled without a casing. The slurry down hole kept it open. Usually a two or three in. hole was made till water was reached. Then it would be reamed out four or six inches and the casing pushed in by hand. Using the drill stem and pumping the sludge around would seal up the casing. Sometimes they added clay to help.

The pipe was rotated by hand. No manual down pressure was required. Just the weight of the drill stem and chisel pump was enough. They had a simple winch using a pipe with a handle on it for raising or lowering the drill stem as it went deeper. The up down motion was given by a boom on a crankshaft with a pulley on the end like you used. A small tractor and belt were used to turn the crankshaft.

It was not really a labour intensive job. Digging the pit and hand auguring the first few feet for a piece of steel casing was the most work. That short piece of casing was removed when the well was done.

If you watch some of the videos you will see a sloppy mess. The way Grandfather had it set up there was no mess. actually it got quite boring just turning the pipe [handle clamped on for that] and lowering the drill stem every so often.

 

[ocaj11]

Hey Guys,

Some great information being posted. I've read through the responses and watched the "Baptist Drilling" video. I'm really intrigued with all the different methods people use to drill wells.

What I really need is a rock magnet.

I likely have water at the 40 foot depth, but I want to go deeper. It's now a manhood challenge to get past this spot, so I'll be working on that this weekend.......

 

[MNBobcat]

It's now a manhood challenge to get past this spot.

No kidding...my mantra has been a quote from the movie "The Edge" with Anthony Hopkins -- "What one man can do, another can do!"

Come he11 or highwater (pun intended) I will have a well!

 

[Jim Timber]

So, it's been 3.5 years - do you have a well yet?

 

[MNBobcat]

So, it's been 3.5 years - do you have a well yet?

I punched six sand points in an H pattern with each point being more than 10 feet apart and plumbed them all together. I'm getting 40 GPM flow. I bought a pneumatic jack hammer off craigs list for $75 and that's what I used for punching the points.

 

[Jim Timber]

How far down did you have to go?