Driving A New Well

[Stimw]

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.

I haven't read through this whole thread but I am in St. Johns County between Jax and St Aug. I have washed down close to a dozen wells and it's amazing how easy is is with our soil. I have gone 42' with just a garden hose. You DO need a state license to go farther than 50' just so you know. My water table starts about 2' where I am now.
Some simple tips-
get 2" PVC 10' long and glue Female fittings on each end, give the glue plenty of time to dry. Make up a short section (so it can be changed quickly) of 2" with two 90's (like a "J")so when washing fitting is pointing down so it dosen't kink hose.
Join together when washing with Steel Close nipple (a lot stronger connection)
Cut notches in plain bottom 10'er so it can cut as you wash.
Best bet is to use 2" gas pump (I bought one at H F around $200.) If you don't have a good source of water to pump, I dug a hole and put a piece of plastic in it and recovered my water as it came out of the hole to reuse.
Once down you can drop 1 1/4" PVC with at least 10' PVC well point in the 2" and remove the 2" casing to reuse next time, or sell as a kit to someone else.
Make sure 1 1/4" couplers/fittings fit inside 2" , I have had to grind some nubs off of fittings.
The only expense is a pump, PVC is SO cheap!

 

[HiTechTed]

I drove a well last fall after reading foggy's thread on his well adventure. With the rocks and soil here I couldn't wash one out, but I was able to drive one. I used a fence post driver (one of those that is a 3" pipe with a bottom in it, with handles on both sides). I welded a 3/4" bolt to it and stacked some barbell weights on there, to add a little force. It helped a lot, but boy it was one heck of a workout! I stood on the end of a trailer, lifted the driver up and then dropped it down onto the drive cap. It would move about an inch or two at a time. I checked all local tool rentals, none of them had even heard of an attachment for a jackhammer to do this job...

Prior to using the driver, I tried hitting the drive cap on the well pipe with a sledge hammer...being inexperienced I didn't know that the term "drive cap" doesn't mean you literally hit it with a sledge. Long story short, it doesn't work like that...

Anyway I drove the well in about 18 feet and there's about 8 feet of water in the pipe, so I considered it to be a success. It puts out about 10 gallons/minute. I can post pics if anybody needs to see anything for reference purposes...not trying to hijack the thread here!

 

[bp fick]

Update

Well, it is a year later, I finally got back to the well. Last year, we got down about 20 feet and the driving was difficult and the water was mediocre at best, in volume.

This year has been an awful drought and record breaking heat. True of most places in the center of the country. This has given me the impetus to get back to making this well work. Got another 5' section and decided to have at it. The longest living resident of our 80 acre parcel, an old fellow who is a joy and who really knows his stuff, said "go to 26 or 27 feet".

So, with a little more pounding, we drove the well point down to 24' and began pumping with the pitcher pump. It pumped very hard, but we were drawing a bit of water. Drove it down another foot and pumped some more. Sure enough, it began to pump easy and the muddy water began to pour out. Stuck a cheater pipe over the pump handle and now it is really gushing and the well is getting developed.

Plan is to drive it another foot or two and clear the well. I am very pleased. There was a definite layer of clay between 16 and 22 feet and the driving was very difficult. Not impossible, but hard. Once that layer was penetrated, the old guy thinks we should be entering a rough gravel layer with good and abundant water.

I'll get some photos up later today, if I can. Can't wait to start putting this well to work.

 

[Brake Weight]

Can you hook up on your pipe and pump into the well? It may help with driving the last little bit.

 

[Carl_NH]

Excellent news BP - glad you are getting into a good water seam now. Especially with the drought and getting water should bod well for good producing well for a long time..

It also sounds like you have an old feller thats done one or two of these in your area!

 

[jinman]

You know, those "ol' fellers" are hard to replace. Without his advice, you might have given up. I had a buddy who washed a well in VA near Portsmouth. He went down 27' and had plenty of water to keep his small lawn and flower beds happy. He sure had a muddy mess in his back yard until he finished, but he put it in over a weekend with no problems.

 

[bp fick]

You guys are sooooo right. No spring chicken myself, of course, but ol' Pete was truly a confidence builder. Been on this land for a long time and just had the confidence I was lacking, I guess. I've driven a few wells downstate, so some or maybe a lot of what I had learned applied, of course. But, there's no substitute for "local knowledge".

Here ya go!!! Felt richer than Jed Clampett. :laughing:

 

[bp fick]

Let's see if I can get that photo upright.



Now to get the pump hooked up and run it for a few hours to clear things out.

 

[chad22]

Great Job. Glad you didn't give up and found water. I love those pitcher pumps. I have one that am contemplating driving a well for someday.

Chad

 

[bp fick]

I know this is an old thread, but I thought to update it a bit.

Last summer was a horrid drought and by my estimation, i pumped around 31,000 gallons out of that little ol' driven well. It never sputtered one bit. Amazing. Would've lost the entire operation had it not been so darn effective. What a blessing.

 

[Brake Weight]

Anybody still using their wells? I've yet to do one and wish I would get unlazy enough to do it.

 

[fried1765]

Anybody still using their wells? I've yet to do one and wish I would get unlazy enough to do it.

Yup!
I have one, that is 2", driven in sand.
In a 9' deep pit, driven with 20' of sked 40 plastic pipe, plus an 8 slot SS point at the bottom.
Am using a Gould's J10 shallow well pump (in the pit)
Ask me how I drove plastic pipe?

 

[Brake Weight]

How’d you drive it?

 

[Peter 315]

Tell us now waiting

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Yup!
I have one, that is 2", driven in sand.
In a 9' deep pit, driven with 20' of sked 40 plastic pipe, plus an 8 slot SS point at the bottom.
Am using a Gould's J10 shallow well pump (in the pit)
Ask me how I drove plastic pipe?

You wash it down? You can do that here if you are on the swamp side of the state highway.

 

[fried1765]

Tell us now waiting

OK...if you insist.

First: Remember, this is at the bottom of a 9' pit, and it is driven in pure sand (there apparently is a thin clay layer about 10' up from the tip of the point).
I used a 6" post hole auger, removed one auger full at a time, added 4' extensions, and drilled the 6" hole to the top of water (about 20').
At that level the sand began to collapse at the bottom of the hole.
I had two 10' lengths of the cheap 4" white plastic drain tile (no holes) already attached together, and quickly lowered that into my 6" dia. hole.
Next I glued 27' of 2" schedule 40 plastic together, put the 8 slot 4" SS point on the end, and lowered it into the open 4" drain tile.
Now the point was resting on the bottom of the hole, slightly in the wet sand.
Next I put together two lengths of used 1-1/4" galvanized pipe I had laying around, and added a driving cap.
I dropped the 1-1/4" inside the 2" Sked.40, rigged up a tripod, and with a 100 lb. well driving weight, drove on the cap, with the end of the 1-1/4" galv. pipe driving on the inside of the SS point (all well points are made with a stout tip casting)
Since the total amount of pipe actually in the wet sand is about 11', I can easily pull it up whenever I might need to.
I did that all back in 1965, and I have pulled it up one in the past 53 years to clean the SS screen.
I call it my poor man's well.
Others around have paid well drillers to put in a 4" casing, and then a submersible pump.
I have basically nothing invested in my well, and I am using a Gould's J10S (shallow well pump) down in my 9' pit ( I always keep a spare pump on hand).
I get about 10 GPM, because that is that approximate capacity of the pump.
Works just fine for me.

Last year they ran town water by my property. Thankfully I am not required to hook up until I sell, but..... I can't sell.
I have my property in an irrevocable trust for my children.
I have life estate.

So....now you know everything!!!!

 

[Peter 315]

Thank you nice job

 

[Brake Weight]

10gpm isn’t bad at all. Was the 9’ pit coincidence or did you dig it for this well? That 9’ hydrostatic is almost a 4psi difference. I bet it helps with the priming, too. I’ve got red dirt after a few feet of topsoil. Then clay at about 6’. I don’t think I could drive one here since a track hoe had trouble getting a hole dug in the clay for my septic tank. We ended up with a 1’ mound in the yard instead of a flush install.

 

[fried1765]

10gpm isn’t bad at all. Was the 9’ pit coincidence or did you dig it for this well? That 9’ hydrostatic is almost a 4psi difference. I bet it helps with the priming, too. I’ve got red dirt after a few feet of topsoil. Then clay at about 6’. I don’t think I could drive one here since a track hoe had trouble getting a hole dug in the clay for my septic tank. We ended up with a 1’ mound in the yard instead of a flush install.

I built the 9' deep square pit from concrete blocks.
I knew I wanted to have enough water in the well to not allow the pump draw it down very much while running.
I decided that 20' from top of water might be just right, but it was 29' from natural ground level (pump will only lift 26' max.) to my top of water estimate.
Now I have 11' of water in the pipe, and the top of the water is at 20' below the bottom of the pit, as planned.
Has worked perfectly, for 53 years so far.
Guess I was lucky, guessing the pit depth.