Need to dig a small diameter well...

[bobcat]

Dave
I've gone as far as 42 feet with with tha hand auger typ post hole diggers. But if you get down to the gravel and can't go farther if your in water just start pumping. If you're not in water then drive your point inside your caseing.
These shallow wells are worth the effort we have 3 off them on 6 acres. Good Luck Chris

 

[SPIKER]

I hit a gravel layer at about 4' deep at my place, below that is a mixture of gravel, rock & sandstone. above the layer is hard clay and gravel bits mixed in. dug pretty easy to that 4' point from there down it got much harder!.

I've got a 175' deep main house well which if you shower for more than 15 min will run dry. (mostly cause it was/is used very lithgly, not enough to keep the water pathways flowing.)

I'm planning on uning a couple septic tanks and burrying them by my barn and running rain awterinto them. with a trickel fill if they get very low. useing that awter with 2nd pump for yard & garden watering along with possably using it in the non-potable fixtures (through filters of corse).

I figure washing the cloths with filtered rain water is aobut 50 times better than our iron filled water at the farm.

anyhow I was thinking of using that 4' gravel layer too, it is surface water but hell it runs into anyhole you dig at that dept faster than you canget the gravel out.

I can make up a nice 20 foot 2" square tube frame work errect it and then use auger head and 1 1/2" pipe and use a electric gear driven motor on top to push the auger system into dirt pretty easy. system would look like 2 ladders standing up about 24" appart with cross braces that let the system slide down in between it. use electric cable puller looped over top end to pull up dirt & sections.

You could built it with all NEW parts for about 500 or so. Just as long as you can Weld and have a place to fabricat it at...

Mark M /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[EddieWalker]

One of my childhood horror stories was digging the well.

Dad used the clam shell auger and lengths of threaded pipe. It went down quick enough and turning was never a problem, but it took my dad, my two brothers and me to pull that thing out of the hole.

We dug next to our two story house and one brother was pulling from the second story window and I was on the roof. We tried a winch on a tripod to help, but at 30 feet we spent more time pulling it up than actually digging. I was about 14 at the time and my brothers were younger.

Good Luck,
Eddie

 

[Alan L.]

Wow, yall must really have some soft dirt where you're drilling wells with manual post hole diggers! Down here in North Texas, it dang near impossible to dig a post hole with one of those without having a heart attack in the process.

You know those 6 or 8 foot ground rods that you are supposed to drive into the ground? Around here, its like driving a noodle into concrete.

 

[DaveInColorado]

Great ideas! Gathering all the information into one bucket: I really like the suggestions about doing it by hand. I am expecting that I'll get 6' down and not be able to go farther through the clay with the hand auger - so that just about throws that idea out. I wish I knew whether I was going to hit 100' of clay past the gravel or if I would find another gravel layer. I have a good indication that it is probably just clay - especially around 25' down. We have an old, old creek on the edge of our lot that has dug itself about 15' below grade over the years and just stopped at some sort of semi-rock/clay layer. At the location of the proposed well, I have 25' before I reach that layer.

One of the messages mentioned that he had several of these shallow wells around his lot. If this one works well I plan on putting in at least one more. You can never have too much water, and electricity is cheap!

If I don't do this job within two weeks (not likely) the ground is going to be frozen and it will be very difficult to start the hole with a hand auger. I think it will be early spring before I can do the job. My spring TODO list is very full.

I worked another 20 minutes on getting that darn wellpoint out of the clay - using the front loader on the tractor. It can't be more than 10' down and it wiggles very easily. It is stuck - hard. The next time I try it I'm going to connect to the 3-point where I have more lifting power. The wellpoint was almost free and I have another one. I'm tempted to just unscrew the pipe off the wellpoint and leave it in the ground.

 

[centex]

You might try pumping water down the well point while you try to pull it.

 

[Egon]

Use water when digging post holes in hard clay.

Egon

 

[RonR]

We tried filling our clay post holes with water overnight--planning to dig them deeper the next day.

Only the next day they were still level full of water, just like we filled them.

Ouch!

 

[BBELL]

I'm not sure but isn't the trick to digging the hole with a post hole digger without getting bound-up is to constently go in and out of the hole to pull out the loose dirt. In order to do that the auger must come close the the top of the hole. So if your 20' down and you got a 4' auger with 4 more sections of shaft, won't that loose dirt pack in tight above the auger and in turn jam the auger in the hole? The water in the hole might be a good idea, it would keep the dirt soupy like mud.

 

[missourihick]

What iffin ya cut some 4" pipe into 6 foot sections(or whatever your tractor will lift) and weld you up a good heavy digging point for the bottom,it'd need to be somewhat bigger than the pipe..Cut holes for perforations in the first few sections and build an adapter to fit your gearbox on your digger to fit the pipe. It'd be alot of cutting and welding ,but I think it'd work. You could then fill the 4" pipe with water to lube the digging process. just my idea,might work.