drill your own well?

[Sawyer Rob]

Folks use to pound down their own wells in around here, all the time, some still do...

They aren't "drilled" the pipe is "pounded" down, using a "drive" point and "drive" couplers... 20 feet is no problem around here and 30' is possible, but it's hard to pound a well down further without REAL well equipment. Some folks pounded them down through a hole in their basement floor, others out in the barn

A 2" well that is in decent water, puts out plenty of water to use an electric pump on, so that's not a problem...

It really depends on where you live as to what you will end up with for water quality, or even if you have water that close to the surface...

SR

 

[MNBobcat]

Sounds like in your situation you could use a "Kelley well". No idea if that's a real term, but it's what we call it. Dig out a good 6-8 ft or deeper hole, put a good sized piece of plastic or metal pipe (8 or 12") with slits or small holes in it. Wrap the pipe with filter fabric and back fill around pipe with #57 stone. Then simply drop a suction hose in it for a gas pump or even the 1" Harbor Freight 110v pump with a small length of 1" pvc.

You guys are way over complicating things. Just drive in a sand point. As long as you don't need to go over 25 feet deep you're good to go.

I bought a pneumatic jackhammer off of craigslist and used that to drive the point and well casing 17 feet into the ground. It takes about 5 - 10 minutes and you're done. I invested in the jackhammer because I drove 6 sandpoints for my well because I needed a high rate of flow (40 gpm). I plumbed all 6 wells together.

But for what the OP needs, a single sandpoint would be plenty. You can either pound the casing in by hand or rent a jackhammer.

 

[MNBobcat]

By the way, a shallow well isn't generally considered potable as it can have contaminants. They are fine for watering plants.

For the cows, I might opt to run a water line from the house to the barn. You can rent a walk behind gas powered trencher for under a $100. I trenched 200 feet with one a couple of years ago. Its not a big deal. Just make sure you have utilities located first.

 

[paulharvey]

You guys are way over complicating things. Just drive in a sand point. As long as you don't need to go over 25 feet deep you're good to go.

I bought a pneumatic jackhammer off of craigslist and used that to drive the point and well casing 17 feet into the ground. It takes about 5 - 10 minutes and you're done. I invested in the jackhammer because I drove 6 sandpoints for my well because I needed a high rate of flow (40 gpm). I plumbed all 6 wells together.

But for what the OP needs, a single sandpoint would be plenty. You can either pound the casing in by hand or rent a jackhammer.

You guys actually drive them? Every job I've been on, where we used well points, we jetted them in. Of coarse we also where using well points for De-Watering; but same product, same objective, get water out of the ground. Guess it's just we always have track hoes and such around when we are messing with them.

 

[MNBobcat]

Yes we drive them. They have a "Drive Cap" that screws onto the end of the well casing and are meant to be hammered on. The trick is to keep giving the pipe a clockwise turn with a pipe wrench every so often to keep the joints tight. The point has a solid steel tip for driving into the ground. The common size, I believe, is 1 1/2" though I believe 2" might be available.

 

[MossRoad]

You guys are way over complicating things. Just drive in a sand point. As long as you don't need to go over 25 feet deep you're good to go.

I bought a pneumatic jackhammer off of craigslist and used that to drive the point and well casing 17 feet into the ground. It takes about 5 - 10 minutes and you're done. I invested in the jackhammer because I drove 6 sandpoints for my well because I needed a high rate of flow (40 gpm). I plumbed all 6 wells together.

But for what the OP needs, a single sandpoint would be plenty. You can either pound the casing in by hand or rent a jackhammer.

Yeah, but the OP is in Pittsburg.... whole lotta rock there, as I recall.

 

[blucoondawg]

You can easily use electric pumps on driven point wells, there's a lot of them around here. My folks have a 1.25" point with a shallow well pump, the point is down 28 feet, I can't remember what the level of the water in the pipe is. If you have to go deeper than what a shallow well pump will pull then you can drive a 2" point and use a jet pump, that system will go quite a bit deeper, 80 to 100 feet max in some cases depending on the pump size, this requires you to sink a 2 inch point then lower a smaller pipe down it with a foot valve at the bottom it forces water down to push the water back up. The problem will be getting a point down to the water, we are in cobbly mixed rock area and got down almost 50 feet but we drove it with a good sized Bosch electric jackhammer my cousin borrowed from work

If you do try to drive a point buy your material from a reputable plumbing supply house, get a good quality point, we had trouble with pipe from the big box stores not holding up well to driving even with keeping the couplings tight

 

[ultrarunner]

Just got a bid for a 150' deep well in easy to access and good drilling conditions... 21k and it does not include development such as a pump, power or storage...

About a third is regulatory fees... the days of sinking a well are fast going the way of the dinosaur.

 

[blucoondawg]

You could drill to China for 21k around here. A minimum depth well around here would go around 4k everything done you start going 150ft it might be up to 10k depending on rock and stuff like that

 

[Sprinklerman]

Sounds like in your situation you could use a "Kelley well". No idea if that's a real term, but it's what we call it. Dig out a good 6-8 ft or deeper hole, put a good sized piece of plastic or metal pipe (8 or 12") with slits or small holes in it. Wrap the pipe with filter fabric and back fill around pipe with #57 stone. Then simply drop a suction hose in it for a gas pump or even the 1" Harbor Freight 110v pump with a small length of 1" pvc.

Thats similar to the old hand dug wells , we did something similar a few years back. Dug a 10 ft square hole about 14 feet deep we hit water at that point . Set some 12 inch pvc sewer pipe in it . I took a circular saw and cut slits in the pipe and the double wrapped it with filter cloth. We then lined the hole with filter cloth and filled it with large wash gravel . I then hung a 4 inch submersable pump down the pipe and pressure tank about 20 ft away . In the summer when it was dry it we always had water . It was pushing 15 gpm at full bore .



Drilling a well in central maryland 400 ft well $ 15,000