water well house - why?

[Jimbrown]

There is no way I would drink water out of a 30ft deep well. You are drinking surface water. Throw some fertilizer on your yard and it will be down 30ft in no time. If you are just going to use it for irrigation then it would be OK. Might as well be drinking out of mud puddle. The very least I would go is 100ft. $7500 would get you about 250ft with a 6 inch casing around here.

 

[Harleymsn]

First thing you need to be sure of, is if you are allowed by law to drill the well yourself. I'm in a county in Tennessee that is pretty well unrestricted on many building projects. We have no building inspectors here, so we only have to comply with state regulations, and the only state reuirments here are a septic permit nad inspection, electrical permit and inspection and well permit and inspection. You can do your own electrical, you can even install your own septic system, but only licensed drillers are allowed to drill wells of any kind.

 

[CurlyDave]

I was going to drill a well for my new house about 10y ago, using the
Deep Rock system.

I actually bought and used a Deep Rock well driller about 30 years ago. It was nothing more than a portable, 2-man, gasoline powered, post hole digger with special bils and extension shafts.

Anyway, we got down about 30-40 feet before we had to quit due to lack of further drilling progress, the hole was only 2" or 3" in diameter, and would have needed a special pump. We never really hit water and finally quit.

I was young and foolish at the time and would not do this again. I have read about the back injuries that these post hole diggers can produce if they hit something solid, and it is just not worth the danger.

I suppose a few lucky people have hit water with this kind of equipment, but it is not nearly as easy as they make it sound.

Going down is slow, but the other issue is that after the well is drilled, the entire assembly of bits and extensions has to be lifted out of the ground. This is very heavy and can be a real challenge. Be sure to have some way to secure the part still down the hole from falling while you are unscrewing each section. It has no good handholds, and if you drop 80' of steel pipe back down a 100' hole, you are going to have a real problem getting it back out...

 

[5030tinkerer]

That's been my concern - a two-man post hole digger engine with some specialized bits that don't work worth a flip. I am allowed to dig my own well - the county doesn't care - but don't want to spend a few thousand on a well drilling setup only to have it not work. Option B is to pay $1700 for the local water municipality to install a meter at the road and then trench the 800' or so to connect to it and pay $50/month adjusted for inflation for all eternity.

 

[Dusty]

In New England, they charge by the foot for the well drilling and the casing and shoe is charged separately. When they drill into the bedrock, they pull the drill out and insert a mushroom type of drill. This makes a chamfered surface that the shoe will fit into. The shoe is screwed into the casing, and then the casing is lowered into the hole. Once in the hole, it is hammered into the bedrock causing a water tight seal. Then they continue to drill till they hit water. My well is 450' down and the well pump is set at 400 feet. I have never run out of water, and I have good drinking water. I have a pit-less adapter set at 5' below the surface of the ground and a 1" NSF approved plastic pipe that goes into the basement. This pipe is run through a 4" PVC pipe, so if it needs to be replace, it can be done easily. The electrical wire also runs through this pipe, but if I had to do over, I would run a separate pipe for the electrical wire. The house electrical panel is grounded to the steel well casing. If you are concerned about the well being tampered with, have them thread the top of the well casing, and then screw on a steel pipe cap. Tighten with a large pipe wrench, and even you will have a hard time taking it off later. You can also have a large hasp welded to the cap and lock it with a secure padlock. There are many ways to protect the well head from tampering, but the best is still hiding it in the garden. I have a fiberglass rock on top of mine that looks like the rest of the rocks in the yard. Dusty