well drilling / puunding

[tommu56]

I was talking to well driller yesterday he has a "pounder" type rigg the other person I have talked to have "rotary" type the pounder said the pounder is more costly per foot than the rotary and the pounder said he dosent have to go as deep because he fractuers the rock. The other cabin on the ridge had theirs rotary drilled and went 440ft to get water. did any one else ever have a well pounded in the mountins elevation about 2100' valley is just over 700'.

tom

 

[beenthere]

Each will naturally argue for their own respective method. Any indication what one will cost vs. the other to get a finished well that produces a reasonable flow of water? Do you have to take all the risk?

I used to live next door to a 'pounder' and there were more horror stories from that method than the 'drillers' have. You don't have an easy decision to make.

Myself, I wouldn't consider a pounder but that may just be me. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[GuglioLS]

I am not a well driller - my mountain well was drilled through almost solid rock 160 feet. - done in 4 hours (29 years ago). A Pounder would have been there 3 weeks or more, if not still pounding away to this very day.
Eventhough it's Rotary, there is still considerable rock fracturing. The "rotary" works very similar to a Hammer Drill in that there is high impact along with rotation. Additionally with rotary the material chips are ejected out of the bore hole with high pressure air and a slurry solution to carry the material up and out the top.
With pounders all the dislodged material is packed against the sides of the well hole. So you decide. Weather you believe in it or not I would consider "witching" the well site - you can do this very easy - no experience required. Get two 3 foot 1/8" diameter copper coated Oxy, Acetelene welding rods from Home Depot or welding supply. Bend one end of each rod @ 90* so that there is about 6" to hold onto. Then one rod in each hand hold them parallel to the ground, parallel to each other and straight out away from you, can tilt them down slightly for better stability and fewer false readings. Walk around all over the place You WILL know when you walk over something, you can even find underground pipes and electrical conduit. It's no guarntee you will find water but what the hay. I use this method to find my underground pipes all the time.

Either way good luck to you.

 

[osprey]

The rotary driller will go a lot deeper than the " pounder " you are talking about and a lot faster. My well is 509' deep water was found at 435' It took 24 hours drilling time to reach 509' I was told the water is usally in a layer of sand,which is where my water is,in a 70' thick layer of sand.

 

[scott_vt]

Mornin Tom,
A good friend of mine who lives just down the street from me is in the water pump business and a few years ago expanded his business with a rotary well digging truck. An exoensive piece of appartus for sure. As others have said, a rotary is much faster, and usually on site no more than a few hours or no longer than a day. Depending upon soil conditions, and amount of rock that you are drilling through can determine how water flows into the well. In our area in the northeast, quite often to get sufficient gpm for a useable well a fracing sp? rig is brought in to systematically flush the walls of the well and allow better water flow to occur. Years ago when pounding a well with the conventional rigs of that time, that procedure was not used. There are very few pounders left in this area now, simply because it takes much longer, not cost effective, and everyone these days has some kind of a schedule to meet! There are a few old timers that still provide this service, but not many.

When I drilled my well at my Ct in 82, I had a pounder do it. They dug 165 ft and I had about 5 gpm at the time. As more and more homes were built in the area, and the aquafer was effectively lowered, we began to run out of water! Then in 2000 I had a rotary rig come in and deepen the existing well to 450. After they completed there work I still wasnt getting much water, so I had to pay to have the well fracked, which is a way to cleanse the veins in the rock in 20 ft intervals I believe. After that I had plenty of water, my static water level is abou 40 ft below grade at present, giving me a pretty huge reserve. This method was expensive, but it worked. For the redrilling and fracking I paid about $6000. When the well was originally drilled with the pounder in 82 it was $7 per ft so the total was about $1200 plus the price of a pump and hookup.

Hope this helps.

scotty
ps If you have the time to get the well pounded and the cost savings are there it could work for you.

 

[SnowRidge]

In most cases, there is local government office that issues well permits. The people there should have their ears to the ground on this sort of thing. I would make some discreet and polite inquiries and see if you can't get a heads up on the drillers that are held in high regard by the locals, and those that aren't.

It costs nothing, and could save you a bundle.

 

[dubba]

You should have a water resource board somewhere in state government.

The interesting thing in my state is all wells are reported, so you can find out how deep your neighbors wells are, how much they produce, & who drilled them.

I have 2 wells on my property.

One that was pounded 68ft deep 20 years ago that gives 20 gpm -Except for 2 weeks in July when it dries up to 3 gal min /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
The other is a drilled well that is 600 ft deep & we get 15 gal min all year. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

The pounded well came with the property, I've got $10,300 into the drilled well /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[3RRL]

tommu56,

We had our well rotary drilled and the experience was very interesting to watch. It is done exactly as GuglioLS described above. Our well was washed out and purged and we got clean water after a couple of hours of letting it run. I don't know about pounding but would think it might take more purging to clear out the "shrapnel".

We were fortunate in that we hit 15gals/min water at 220'. We continued deeper an got 100+ gals/min at 442' deep. Interesting about water witching as that we used coat hangers and found this spot ourselves. We found several places in the area but this one particular spot just yanked the coat hangers together. I called my wife over without telling her and she found the same thing at the same place. Then had our son do it too without telling him so they did not "expect" the reaction at that spot. We all tried it and were blown away!
Here's a pic of the start.

 

[3RRL]

This is what happens when you hit "the spot"...

 

[goaliedad]

I've only been around witching for one well- it is amazing how the wires crossed at the same point for everyone. A buddy had some experience and got us started. We drove a sand point almost 100" and got great water.