Home made Hydraulic post hole digger for drilling a well

[speedbump]

There are two kinds of wells. Screened wells and rock wells. Rock wells and screened wells both need casing to hold the hole open. In screened wells, the casing goes all the way down to the aquifer where ever it may be. Then a screen is put down into the aquifer and is sealed to the casing in a couple of ways. Rock wells are made by putting casing down until rock is encountered. It is driven into the rock a little ways to seal it off. Then an open hole is drilled into the rock until enough water is available. In Florida there is an ocean of water. In the mountains sometimes its hard to find humidity.

The way to look at this is ask yourself why all Well Drillers use a real Drilling Rig to drill wells.

Mikes site "How to drill your own well" is basically for surface water. The method he uses couldn't go to 100'. 40 feet would be a stretch. And the man who said your household water wouldn't be enough to bring the drilling cuttings up was absolutely correct... I'm just trying to save you some money.

 

[Dr Dave]

A coworker has a truck with an A frame boom, pulley on top, a rope attached to a large homemade post driver. There is a hydralic motor with a steel car wheel, to pull the weight up, then gravity does the rest.

He uses 2inch sand points with 10 ft pipe, and drive couplings and a drive cap. Most wells he installs are 40 to 80 ft, and has gone over 100 ft. He charges $500 plus materials.

Dave

 

[Dr Dave]

You could install a pulley on your backhoe, add the hydralic motor and hub from surpluss center, bolt on awheel and start driving.

Dave

 

[bdog]

I do drilling of holes like this quite a bit. Not as deep as you are doing most of mine are only 10-20' but same principles apply.

If you use an auger you are going to need a lot of torque to spin it. I have seen people drill 60' with augers but they have a lot of HP behind them. With lower HP numbers your augers will get stuck and stop spinning. You can't pick them up without reversing the rotation, especially with 4000lb lift. My rig has 7000lb pull back and I have to reverse at times to get my augers out.

You can drill with water to flush the cuttings but you are going to need more pressure than a garden hose to do it.

I like to use compressed air to drill on shallow stuff. It takes a lot of air to do and the bit needs to be sized properly to the pipe so that you have the proper uphole velocity of the air to carry the cuttings out. 6" bit with 2-3/8" pipe ain't going to work to good.

 

[hr3]

6" pipe = 6.5 outside diameter 6" auger = 6".. The auger will need to be bigger I think..

 

[MNBobcat]

I put in 6 sandpoints at 18 feet depth and 10 feet distance between each point (H pattern). I plumbed all 6 together using 1 1/2 pipe. I wanted volume and that required multiple points.

I'm pumping 30 gallons a minute at 40 PSI. I'm able to run 6 sprinklers at once and water my whole garden without having to move sprinklers.

I used a pneumatic jackhammer that I bought off craigslist for $75 to drive each of the points.

 

[Oliver1655]

I liked the idea of recycling a forklift mast. It will give you height & keep your hole vertical. Use an 8" auger to allow the 6" casing to be inserted easily. Instead of using threaded pipe, why not just bolt it like you do to attach the auger to the gear box normally? (Use 2 grade 8 bolts per joint)This way you can reverse without problems. The bolts shouldn't cause a problem, your hole is 8". While it will take a little longer to drill, you would save the time in setup/ mess if you dug the depth of the auger then pulled it up to empty it instead of using water. The forklift mast should allow you to lift 10' sections at a time easily. The following setup will make adding/removing the extensions quick & easy. A cordless impact gun would handy. If you don't have one this will be a great excuse/reason to buy one.

To support the auger while adding/removing the extension pipes: Have a heavy duty saw horse on each side of the hole with a pair of 3" x 1/4 angle iron across them that has a 4" gap between them. Weld a cross support 2" off center then across the end of the angle irons on the same side to keep the angle irons gapped & from twisting. Leave the other side open to where once you have added/removed the extension you can move the angle iron assembly out of the way. To hold the auger/extensions while adding/removing the next one, take a threaded steel coupler the same size as the pipe is & cut it in half the same direction a pipe would thread into it. Then center the 2 halves in the jaws of a pair of large mouthed visegrips & weld them to it. The treads for the coupler will be able to provide a firm grip on the pipe to hold it in place resting across the angle irons. You may want to weld a small piece of metal to the end of one of the jaws which go sideways so when the visegrips are on their side it will hook over the side of the angle iron to where the end will not be able to slide off the angle iron. To visualize: Take the 2 halves of the coupler you cut, place them on each side of a piece of pipe then clamp them in place with the pair of large mouth visegrips. This specialized clamp will rest on the angle iron assembly & hold the pipe/extension keeping it from dropping into the hole. This same system will help you when you go to install the well pump/pipe.

Awhile ago I had to have my deep well pump replaced. It took them less than an hour & it cost me over $1,200 just in labor to have it done. I could have built the above setup for a 3rd the cost & have it for other projects later. (I now have a boom for my loader I can put my 12,000 lb winch on which sticks up 28' in the air & a spare well pump on hand. I will be able to replace the pump on my own next time.) A pump in my area normally lasts 12-15 years.

I think drilling the well this way is doable. I would go 60 feet.

Keep us posted,

John

 

[radioman]

Dont be discouraged from cost standpoint. Its your first well after all. You never know you might need to do this again. You might be lucky to breakeven with first well, but you cant put values on hard lessons learned. Why not have coffee with the man who used to do it himself. he just might have ideas for you based on his experience. The worse you can do is lose a day in chatting with lessons learned. After all , at least you would know how things would go in your type of soil.

have you checked out this? http://www.drillyourownwell.com/index.htm I love the fact where you can use cheap inexpensive stuff from lowes/home depot.

 

[buickanddeere]

You are not saving any money with your project. The yellow pages are full of well drillers and well borers.

 

[Scooby074]

Well if this guy in China did it with a walking tractor and some scrap metal...