Driving A New Well

Brake Weight · Mar 30, 2018

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

fried1765 · Mar 30, 2018

Brake Weight said:
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 · Mar 30, 2018

How’d you drive it?

Peter 315 · Mar 30, 2018

Tell us now waiting

Gale Hawkins · Mar 31, 2018

fried1765 said:
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 · Mar 31, 2018

Peter 315 said:
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 · Mar 31, 2018

Thank you nice job

Brake Weight · Mar 31, 2018

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 · Apr 1, 2018

Brake Weight said:
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.