Well Drilling and coming up dry...

[ArlyA]

You got that right and oil deposits are exactly the same. When I was working for Texaco, they pumped from a formation that was about a mile wide and a 7 miles long and been pumping it since WWII. They decided to add a well to that and their geologists said "add one here" so they did just that. Millions of dollars later, we added a dry hole marker to it. In fact, every hole they dug over the course of 5 years within there established deposits, came up dry.

Water geology has strange quirks. I live right by a highway running down the bottom of a shallow valley. My side, they hit 24gpm at 55', across the highway, neighbor went down a couple hundred feet and only got about 4 gpm. Same all the way up the valley, east side tremendous shallow water, west side - trickles.

 

[oosik]

Fortunately, there is a spring on the property. The original homesteader found & used it and I simply improved upon the his work.

 

[flusher]

My brother has about 2000 gallons of deeded spring water for his 65 acres and expensive city water...

He wants to plant about 60 acres and needs water to make it work.

Had professional sounding done, a geologist and the parcel mapped... also, had a Dowser come out as well as reviewing county records.

The driller set up and went down 200' at the agreed spot and came up with only clay.

Had everyone back out and they said another location would be more promising but deeper.

Today, he should be down to 650 feet and just about all clay with a little shale at 550 so far.

I would guess he is into it about 18k now so taking it kind of hard.

Don't know much about wells but sure do feel bad for him.

I had my first (an only) well drilled in May 2005 on my new 10-acre property (square, 660 ft=1 furlong per side) in Tehama County on the floor of the North Sacramento Valley. I was not worried about a dry well because my eight nearest neighbors each had a good well. I figured my driller had excellent well maps for my part of the county so he was not drilling blind.

It took the driller about 8 hours to drill the well into the third stratum (154 ft deep, static water level at 54 ft, install the 6" casing and the sanitary seal). It measured 100+ gpm. Next day the pump (hanging at 120 ft level), tank, valves and other plumbing were installed. Total cost: $5500.

I can't imagine the anxiety your brother is experiencing especially having done everything correctly before the drilling started. My property is small compared to your brother's and the neighboring wells were only 500 to 800 feet away from my drilling site. The only requirement I had was to observe the 300 foot minimum separation between adjacent wells.

Good luck

 

[EddieWalker]

That's disappointing. I remember HGTV had a sweepstakes house on TV that they built in North Carolina that they gave away to a lucky winner, except they where never able to drill a well that had water. Eventually, the builder bought the house back from the winner and it sort of fell out of the news. That was a huge gamble that everyone involved lost on.

 

[check]

When we built our college in 2002 the driller had to go down 400 feet, through solid granite, and even then he only got 1.5 gallons per minute. However, the static level was 20 feet, so we had about 380 gallons of water in the pipe. Needless to say, with that much, we never run out, even when we were filling the hot tub!

Meanwhile, another property about 600 yards away, he drilled down to 45 feet and got 15 gallons per minute!

Both of these are water front properties, but as he told me, that does not mean you're going to get water. The water situation is all over the map, and it is very difficult to predict how deep you have to go.

 

[ultrarunner]

It's been quiet since yesterday morning... I'm guessing there is no good news.

The property is mostly hilly for 60 acres and flat for 5... the first bore was in the middle of the flat area and this one is at the toe of the hill which would be just about a perfect location.

Permits, inspections and proper sealing is required to abandon so without water I can't think of any use...

The drill stems are 20' long and they have had to pull up a few times because the fluid would not clear the heavy clay...

The driller has/had other jobs lined up in the valley... last I heard several have reconsidered.

 

[ultrarunner]

Both of these are water front properties, but as he told me, that does not mean you're going to get water. The water situation is all over the map, and it is very difficult to predict how deep you have to go.

Yep... there is a creek nearby... the 150 year old barn has one corner just on the edge of the creek... in winter with rain the creek is a torrent... in summer it all by drys up... the creek made national news a few years back as the a family of beavers moved in right in the downtown section shortly before the creek flows into the SF Bay.

 

[JRobyn]

Similar for my B-I-L. He bought their 45 acres partly because it had an existing well. They moved their homesite ($mil log house) about 100 yds away. So far have drilled 3 nearly dry holes. All in the 200-300ft range. I think one was way deeper, but then they hit a very sulfurous layer. The best one yields maybe 5gal/hour of "OK" water. So, add about $10k worth of cistern tanks and special low-flow well pump controllers. About $30k total so far and they still have to be constantly in fear of running out of water. He brings his 500 gal portable tank trailer over to one of our hydrants occasionally for a "fill-up". SO frustrating!

Having a reliable, plentiful source of clean water is a HUGE blessing! I'd really like the self-sufficiency of having a good well, but I do not begrudge the municipal water utility district one bit for my supply.