Home made Hydraulic post hole digger for drilling a well

[MtnViewRanch]

I only brought it up, because you had mentioned it.

I have a Universal Quick Attach on my full size New Holland 555E, so hydraulic power and down force should be a given. All I have to do is attach the hoses from the pump running the auger to the lines I already have in place that open and close my grapple. Then I can turn the auger, or reverse it if I need to. I have 4,000 lbs of lift capacity, so weight wont be a problem.

 

[Dozernut]

I applaud your go-to attitude and will be following the project, your posts are better than tv. First to clarify, I have never drilled a well. I have put in a well with an excavator and used 40" x 4' concrete casings with a gravel base. I am wondering, maybe you mentioned it and I missed it, what will you use for well casing to keep the shaft from collapsing on itself?

I think if you put air pressure with your water you will easily remove the spoils, at least that is how the drillers around here do it. Sounds like a fun project.

Are you planning on using the water for human consumption? The reason I ask is I know you have a hoe. You could go beside one of your ponds and dig to the maximum depth of your machine. Trench close to your pond without breaking through so you don't flood your hole, line the bottom of the hole with gravel. Put in some casings, fill your trench nearly full with gravel, cover your gravel with a fabric so dirt won't infiltrate, then cover it up. The water will not be able to be consumed but it will water plants, flush toilets, wash cars, water livestock and ect. This is what I did years ago to relieve the demands on my main well. We now have city water.

Good luck on what ever you do and I always enjoy your posts.

 

[Renze]

We regularly make wells for homeowners for a small garden pump, on average we try to get 6 meter, sometimes we went to 9 but mostly you'll hit the gravel layer sooner than that. When you hit the gravel layer, your water will run away, slumping down and getting the drill stuck. you need LOTS of water when drilling wells, your domestic water supply will not be enough. We had a 2x2x2m hole dug as silt pit, a piston pump re used the water after the dirt settled, but we had to get a manure tank full of water twice a day to keep the supply. When drilling a gravel layer, the 6m3 would rapidly be empty.

your loader will have radius lift, which makes it hard to aim straight down. the guys that drilled the well for us (28 meter, 6" pipe for irrigation) used a modified forklift mast with downforce. the guys that drilled the 98 meter well for cattle drinking water (3" pipe) had a truck mounted drill rig. Even the truck mounted shook like crazy when it hit the gravel layer, rocks larger than a fist would come up.

I dont know what soil you are on, but 100 feet is a looong way with simple means...

 

[user.69169]

Funny thing is the taxpayers already published the book that tells you more about wells and drilling them than you ever thought existed.
You can get it all free at FM 5-484 Table of Contents

Plan on spending a little time on this education.

 

[bindian]

Eddie,
I have a Danuser hyd. auger that takes about 8-9 gpm to run it. I'm thinking something around 20 gpm will work. 30 gpm even better.
hugs, Brandi

 

[mrmikey]

IMHO and this is just a guess and free so you get what you pay for

I don't think you'd have enough volume or pressure to push the dirt out. If you've got a 6" hole and it's only filled up above the auger with a 2" pipe (2 3/8" od) , that's a lot of area open. I think the dirt would just settle out of the water and fall down around the top of the auger.

Using a standard tapered pipe thread for the connection, you're going to have one heck of a time getting it apart. That is if the couplings don't split, unless you're using heavy wall couplings, 10Klb I think they're called.

Reverse, what'll happen if the auger gets hooked around the end of a boulder that can't be pulled up without being able to back out.

Just my 2 cents worth....Mike

 

[J_J]

You might look at hyd wheel motors.

Hyd fluid can turn any auger, and the larger the displacement, the slower it will turn, but more power.

You need to know the GPM's.

You can make adapters to connect to the hyd motor.

Look for high torque ratings.

Something like this

Surplus Center - 28.3 cu in WHITE RE WHEEL MOUNT HYD MOTOR

If your tractor has 10 GPM and the above hyd motor, then the rpm will be about 82 .

They have a bunch of these motors and a good torque rating.

Any GPM will turn the motor, but high GPM's will turn it faster.

Surplus Center - 28.3 cu in HYD WHEEL MOTOR W/5 BOLT HUB

Surplus Center

 

[R W]

Have a look at Home Page

 

[TheGoose]

If your "water table" is 40' down, why are you drilling for 100'? You need to set casing where you have a good aquifer.

You need to not use an auger like used for post holes but instead use a bit. The auger will quickly get bound up once you get past about 10' of drilling and it will not allow the cuttings to come up.

4,000# sounds like a lot on your tractor but once you get downhole you will quickly find that it's not enough. You also need to go with 5' joints and not ten, and try to find some smaller pipe that is made to drill with, not 2" water pipe, which weighs a lot but doesn't have a lot of torsional strength. You also need pipe that has threads made for drilling and not NPT threads.

Use the water supply from your house to fill a trough or pit where you are drilling and then use a 2nd gasoline pump to supply your drill.

FYI we attempted to drill a well near Henderson with a small drilling machine back in the 80's but did not have any luck. I think after you buy all the materials and put in the time you will be much better off hiring a drilling crew to do the well and then if you want DIY your pump etc and I can help you with that. If you're at a pond I would say go solar unless you can get utility power.

I want to drill a well. My water table is about 40 feet down, and I'm thinking that I should drill a six inch hole, 100 feet deep. If this works, I will want to do at least two more of the, and maybe more.

My thinking is to do this with a six inch auger attached to two inch pipe, ten feet long. Drill down ten feet, unhook it, and attach another ten foot pipe. To get the dirt out of the hole, I'll attach something like this Water Swivel Well Drilling DIY Ers | eBay

I have a 1 1/2 inch water line into my house and can easily run a one inch line to where I want to drill the well. If water is going down the pipe and out near the auger, the water coming back up the hole will carry the dirt with it. Is this correct?

I have a Universal Quick Attach on my full size New Holland 555E, so hydraulic power and down force should be a given. All I have to do is attach the hoses from the pump running the auger to the lines I already have in place that open and close my grapple. Then I can turn the auger, or reverse it if I need to. I have 4,000 lbs of lift capacity, so weight wont be a problem.

I also have enough height that I can do this in ten foot section. I'm a little nervous about getting the pipe apart after it's threaded together, but with some thread stuff to stop it from locking, I might be alright. Really , If I can get the hole dug, I can pull it up in one piece and deal with getting it apart down the road.

That is my thinking so far. My question is what pump should I get, and where can I get a it, to run an Auger that I can adapt to run two inch threaded pipe?

Thank you,
Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks for all the great information. I'm rethinking everything.

To add to what I'm hoping to achieve, we have cleared half an acre for a garden and want to run a solar pump on the well to fill a 2500 gallon tank during the day that we can use to water the garden every evening. Just kind of drain the tank once it's full type of system.

My soil is mostly red clay, but there are pockets of sand and in some places, a layer of iron ore. Rocks are rare, but there are a few of them.

I was thinking of going deeper then the water table so the water would collect in the hole. With the water table 40 feet down, I thought I needed to go deeper to allow the water to seep into it so I could pump up clear water.

Thank you,
Eddie