Driving A New Well

[Brake Weight]

Depending on how much volume you move through the 2" pipe would determine your frictional pressure loss. Open ended it would be much more than if you kept back pressure for a sprinkler set up. If you were to feed a pond or something where a lot of volume is needed, you could use the initial pump to charge a secondary pump at the other end.


As far as winterizing it, if you had a 'T' with a valve at each end, I would think that the expanding ice would have an outlet to push out the trapped water. But, I am from the south. Maybe you could blow a racket ball or something through it with a compressor to pig it out with.

 

[foggy1111]

I've had much better luck using a shop vacuum to suck water out of a hose instead of trying to blow the water out. Either way, it takes A LOT of air!

Do keep an eye on the slope of your installation, and leave opportunity to let gravity do a lot of the work for you.

Wishing you luck!

Al

The folks that clear out underground sprinkler lines typically use a big air compressor and blow those lines out. Just sayin.....

It's a whole lot easier to push water than to pull it. You can push water up a long way....you can only pull water about 25' via a vaccum.

 

[Bobcatter]

I've enjoyed this thread, had to do some research about these wells after coming back from Florida. All I've ever seen is a big rig grinding through rock day after day to get a well here in PA!
Helped some people set up their place in Florida that had a well to fill a swimming pool. The well was a piece of 2 inch PVC pipe coming out of the ground with a check valve installed. The old pump had been removed with a saw. This is a Harbor Freight pump (with 4 gal storage tank, all one unit) that cost about $90 and worked flawlessly. I connected it up, it took a gallon and a half of water to prime it, and away it went. Over three days, we ran it about 20 hours to fill a 10,000 gallon pull - works out to 500 gallons an hour. The "trick" was to set the pump outlet valve to keep some pressure on the pump at about 30 pounds. The big blue hose went to the pool, it was 1 1/4 inch diameter. The garden hose worked great for other clean up jobs - I did not use both hoses at the same time.
Now this thread has me thinking about installing one of these wells here to use for washing the car, etc.

 

[ayelvington]

This is a Harbor Freight pump (with 4 gal storage tank, all one unit) that cost about $90 and worked flawlessly.

I have the same pump in my orchard, and it has been a fantastic value! I put on beefier pressure switch and connected it to an external volume tank to keep the duty cycle down.

Excellent value from HF

 

[dieselscout80]

I've enjoyed this thread, had to do some research about these wells after coming back from Florida. All I've ever seen is a big rig grinding through rock day after day to get a well here in PA!
Helped some people set up their place in Florida that had a well to fill a swimming pool. The well was a piece of 2 inch PVC pipe coming out of the ground with a check valve installed. The old pump had been removed with a saw. This is a Harbor Freight pump (with 4 gal storage tank, all one unit) that cost about $90 and worked flawlessly. I connected it up, it took a gallon and a half of water to prime it, and away it went. Over three days, we ran it about 20 hours to fill a 10,000 gallon pull - works out to 500 gallons an hour. The "trick" was to set the pump outlet valve to keep some pressure on the pump at about 30 pounds. The big blue hose went to the pool, it was 1 1/4 inch diameter. The garden hose worked great for other clean up jobs - I did not use both hoses at the same time.
Now this thread has me thinking about installing one of these wells here to use for washing the car, etc.

How deep is your well?

 

[Brake Weight]

Anyone with updates?

 

[ayelvington]

I had to abandon my well here in PA. I hit something very hard (many boulders in our area), and I couldn't pull the point even with one of the largest tractors in this part of the county. I'm going to cut and cap the pipe with concrete in the spring, and then it's back to the drawing board...

 

[gorillarms]

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.

 

[gorillarms]

Another idea is to hand dig as deep as possible insert a 6" pipe in ground. Then start jetting a smaller diameter as deep as possible, and then again next smaller diameter. Thoughts?

 

[Brake Weight]

That's how oil/gas well are done.