DeepRock Hydra-Drill

centex · Nov 25, 2003

Has anyone here had any dealings with DeepRock and their Hydra-Drill systems? I have been trying to contact them for days and literally dialed their number over 300 times but their phone is permanently busy. I am wondering if there is a phone problem in Alabama because I cannot believe that a legitimate business would make it this hard to contact their sales department. It is hard for me to believe that they could be taking orders constantly for equipment that costs several thousand dollars. I assume this is a sign about what to expect in terms of customer support once they get your money. If anyone has used one of their drilling rigs, I would like to know how it worked.

BillG_in_TX · Nov 25, 2003

I just called them direct at 334-749-3377 and they said their 800# is "giving them fits". I told them you would call back collect, since that's what is says to do on their web page.

Good luck. I'll be interested to hear more about this machine. My brother is on their mailing list and forwards their "catalog" to me.

centex · Nov 25, 2003

I finally got them and they confirmed that they were having telephone problems. I think I am going to buy their low end commercial setup for digging 250' with the casing and screen as well as a roller cone bit for rock. It will cost me $8K delivered. I need to drill three wells and I expect to have one or two that won't recover fast enough so assuming only 3 250" wells at the going rate here of $11/ft I will break even assuming the rig works. As soon as I drill a dry hole, I will come out ahead. Now I need to learn to witch to find the best spot to drill. Actually, I don't think I would trust a water witch to find water at the depths we have to drill here. There is water at fairly shallow depths but it would not yield enough water to be useful and would likely dry up in severe droughts like we are having this year. (only 4" of rain since February).

I don't think I would gamble on this thing working in the granite around Marble Falls though. I have hard limestone around here but it is still a lot softer than granite. From what they told me, their rig should drill through the hard limestone at 2 - 4 in/hr which is faster than the drilling speeds I get with my 9" Beltec auger but then the drill is much smaller. I have a 2" carbide PHD bit that drills fairly fast but I use a lot of down pressure on it. The rig I am looking at uses 1 3/8" drill stem so you cannot put much down pressure on it especially at deep depths. The next step up is to 1.9" drill stem and the price goes up exponentially or so it seems.

BillG_in_TX · Nov 25, 2003

Don,

I had a quote last year for $6.50/ft drilling plus $3.50/ft for casing. Here's my post on the subject. I can give you the driller's name and number if you want "witching" lessons. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Actually, where we are (up on Backbone Ridge next to Longhorn Cavern State Park), the rock is mostly limestone and dolomite. Called Karst, it's pretty easy to drill through. My next door neighbor has a 250' well producing about 10-12 gpm in the springtime, and he figured he should have a backup well since he blasted out a swimming pool. He was so impressed with my douser that he hired him, told him to pick the spot, and he hit a vein at 150' that tests out at 100 gpm. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Keep us posted.

Egon · Nov 25, 2003

Did they give you any idea on bit life and replacement costs?

Egon

MossRoad · Nov 25, 2003

From what they told me, their rig should drill through the hard limestone at 2 - 4 in/hr 

So is that 3-6 hours per foot? 10 feet of rock would take 30-60 hours? How many feet of rock are you going to have to go through?

Not being sarcastic or anything like that... just curious. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

centex · Nov 25, 2003

Bill, let me know the driller's name if you can find it. I almost bought some land in Hoover Valley before I bought the place I have now. I have friend who lives there and he had two wells drilled by a local douser. One produces 10 times the other although they are only a couple of hundred feet apart. One of his neighbors had the same guy drill a few hundred feet away and came up with a dry hole at 350 feet. That is what I like about the idea of being able to drill my own wells. I can always move over a 100 feet and try again for little additional money.

centex · Nov 25, 2003

Egon, they will replace the carbide on the bits for $25 or they will sell you the carbide and you can do it yourself. The bit life depends on what you drill through so it would vary widely. They will buy back used bits at 50% of new cost at least for the consumer grade bits.

centex · Nov 25, 2003

Mossroad, the slow drilling rate is not nearly as bad as it sounds. The rock here is stratified and the thickest rock I have seen is 2 feet thick. On the exposed ledges around my place there will be maybe a foot of soil followed by a foot of hard rock then 6 or 8 feet of soft material then another layer of rock a foot or so thick. In other areas the rock there is 30 or 40 feet of soft material between rock layers. Even the hard rock varies widely in hardness. I drilled lots of 9" post holes through 1 - 2 foot thick rock last year using a carbide tipped auger. One hole would take an hour to go through 2 feet of rock and the next hole only 40 feet away would take 6 - 8 hours to go through 1 foot of rock. The location of a well is not as critical as a post hole so if you hit the real hard rock you can just move over a few feet and find an easier place to drill. My neighbors had three wells drilled last year. Two of the wells were good at around 230 feet. The third well half way between the others was dry at 350 feet. It looks like you need to invest at least $3000 around here with a commercial driller just to find out if they can find water. They have a set up fee of $1000 which gets you 100 feet but since most of the good wells in the area are deeper than 250 feet you don't really know anything until they have gone that deep and since you are already out $2500 on the hole it would seem foolish not to let them keep going to 300 feet. If they don't then you will be out at least another $3000 plus the cost to case, and develop the well.

Egon · Nov 25, 2003

Thanks Centex. That sounds like a very reasonable price.

Egon

Kyle_in_Tex · Nov 25, 2003

Don, be sure and keep us posted if you get this thing and start drilling. BTW, do you have to "man" this machine if its going only 4"/hour???
good luck...Kyle

MossRoad · Nov 25, 2003

Thanks for the information from the curiously challenged(me) /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

centex · Nov 26, 2003

Kyle, this is a totally manual rig - no hydraulics but a cable and winch instead. That is where a lot of cost is saved. It also comes in pieces that you assemble at the drilling site, i.e., no trailer so additional savings. The drill stems are 1 3/8" in 5' sections so you have to add them often. The net is that you do have to man the rig just as you would a PHD and the digging rate will vary just as with a PHD. I thought I might build my on drilling rig using my PHD gearbox but it would have too much torque for the small drill stems. I would have to go up to 2" drill stem. The lowest cost drill rig that this company has that uses this size drill stem would cost $16K with 250' of drill stem. I think about $5k of this is the drill stem. I thought about salvaging drill stem at the local salvage company. I have seen lots of it there at times but then I would not know what it had been used for and would not want to use it on a water well. It is also longer so would require a taller rig. The salesman told me I did not want to know what the larger drill bits cost.

Slamfire · Nov 27, 2003

The thing that bothers me about hydro drills is where does the water to power the drill come from? And what supplies the necessary pressure?

Egon · Nov 27, 2003

Slamfire:

Accordingto the web site the drill is engine powered and a separate engine driven pump supplies the water pressure. The cuttings are flushed into a sump pit and the water is recirculated. Mud is also added to the water to help carry up the cuttings. The supply of water must be from some external source when drilling.

Egon

centex · Nov 27, 2003

They claim you need about 1 gallon of water for each foot of depth that you drill so for a 200 foot well you would need about 200 gallons of water which you have to supply from some other source. You also need a container or pit at a lower level than the well site to put the water in. Drilling additives are mixed with the water and a pump is used to pump the water/additive mixture (called mud) down through the drill stem and bit. The mud flushes the material (spoils) removed by the drilling bit out of the hole. This mud/spoils mixture drains back into the pit through a small ditch where the spoils settle out and the mud is reused. The mud also seals the walls of the hole so it does not collapse when drilling through soft formations such as sand and gravel. This is the same process that is uded to drill oil wells. When they drill an oil well the first thing they do is drill a water well and a pit at the drilling site. A chief component of the drilling additives is bentonite which helps seal the pit so it will hold the water.

If you drill at a domestic site the water can come from the tap but if you drill at a remote site you have to either truck in the drilling water or get it from a local source.

A separate gasoline powered pump is used to pump the mud down the drill stem through a swivel connection at the top of the drill stem.

wroughtn_harv · Nov 27, 2003

Don don't pooh pooh the salvage idea too quickly. I found at my favorite salvage yard three hundred pieces of drill stem for Case Maxisneakers. They're the cable plows the telephone and cable tv guys use for drops.

I arranged for my bud who has literally hundreds of Maxi's to buy them. We got them for about five dollars each. They were new. His dealer cost on them through conventional channels was in the sixty dollar each range.

The only thing we could come up with was they were inventory at some supply yard. And someone saw them as scrap and sold them as such. We saved bud about eighteen grand that day. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

When you get you set up I'd like you to check how they're coupled. Most of the drill stem I've seen are taper screwed together. The glitch as I see on that is you can't reverse or you take the chance of undoing a joint gawd knows where. The maxi sneaker system uses a staple looking pin as the retainer.

centex · Nov 27, 2003

The only thing I have seen at the local salvage yard is used drill stem. I bought some to use as fence posts but it would not cut with a torch and I could not weld it. I don't know what it was made of but it sure is hard. The stuff I bought had something in it that was extemely noxious when it was heated. I figure I took at least 5 years off my life when I worked with it.

The drill stem that DeepRock sells is threaded with rolled threads. I don't know if they are tapered or not but you clearly cannot reverse the rotation with them in the ground. The only real danger is that you have cave-in in the bore. The mac;hine is not supposed to have enough torque to twist the drill stem off and and I assume it has a sheer bolt to protect the engine and transmission. I found another manufacturer of portable, manual drill rigs - Mid-Western Machinery in Mo. They call their rig the PortaDrillMini. It has weight bars and a winch/spring setup to apply down pressure.
The disavantage right now is that they are not offering discounts.

I sure wish I could find someone who has actually used one of the things to get their feedback on how they work. I think the military uses them but I don;t know how to get information from them. I guess I should see I can find the Corps of Engineers site again since they publish all kinds of manuals. Of course they don't give the kind of practical experience I am interested in.

heehaw · Nov 28, 2003

won't the drill rig co. give you a list of "satisfied customers" that have used their equipment?
heehaw

centex · Nov 28, 2003

( won't the drill rig co. give you a list of "satisfied customers" that have used their equipment? )

They publish quotes from "satisfied customers" in their literature but I don't trust such filtered information. I suppose I should ask them for contact information so I can get first hand feedback. Of course they could just give the names of some of their employees or relatives and I would have no way to know.