Well Digging

[roysallis]

Does anyone know a good way to clean out a dug well? The previous owner of my property dug out a spring and put in 3 well tiles. He used the wet well for years until his pump froze and bursted in 1989. Since then the well has not been used. It has about 4 feet of water in it so I put in a shallow well pump system and in about 30 minutes pumped most of the water out to my garden. I pumped it down until the water level was just above the check valve and strainer. The water is very slow about coming back in. It took several hours to fill back up. I took a piece of pipe and could sink it in the sand at the bottom of the well about a foot. So, I guess I need to get out a lot of sand so that hopefully the water will come back in quicker. The well tiles are about 3 feet in diameter so I am thinking of climbing in and hand digging out the sand. Does anyone know of a better way?
Thanks

 

[DarrylG]

I suggest you rent or borrow a centrifugal (trash) pump. You can probably rent one for a half day for $20 or $25. They will move mud, but be sure to use a strainer if it doesn't have one one it. They don't like rocks. They pump pretty fast. You will probably have to pump it dry several times while stirring up the sediment.

 

[TomG]

Generally digging a well deeper gives more storage capacity but doesn't do much for the flow. There's not much room to work in a 36" casing. A person, ladder, bucket and shovel pretty much fills it up. A friend's wife was the only person small enough to go into their well, and she got stuck. I don't think she's ever forgiven son and husband for a couple of laughs before they got serious.

I remember seeing a well dug with a wide hand auger. I imagine they're designed to drill holes for the outside diameter of a tile. Thirty inch well tiles also are common, maybe an auger for 30" tiles would fit inside a 36" casing.

 

[roysallis]

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to try the trash pump. I'm hoping that the flow into the well is obstructed by sand and stuff so that it will recover faster.

 

[DarrylG]

Keep in mind that the trash pump can only lift about 20 to 25 feet. If the bottom of the well is deeper than that you will have to try something else. Also, many of these pumps claim to be "self priming" but even those usually require priming and take some patience to get going.