Driven Well w Point

[SteppedInIt]

Anyone ever use a well point for water in remote area? Success?

Looks to be a pain in the azz but would be worth it, if it worked in a remote location.

Found this site for description.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/drive-your-own-freshwater-well/

 

[M-5]

If your first table is fairly close to surface it should not be very hard to do. The shallow well at my house was driven with and old buick in the 50's its 18 ft to water. If you can get a volunteer with the fire dept to come out with the tanker you can get it done pretty quick with a good water supply to help cut the hole.

 

[bbirder]

There are numerous You Tube videos on the subject. Might pick up some tips. Like M-5 stated, if you have water supply it works pretty good jetting it down.

 

[SteppedInIt]

If your first table is fairly close to surface it should not be very hard to do. The shallow well at my house was driven with and old buick in the 50's its 18 ft to water. If you can get a volunteer with the fire dept to come out with the tanker you can get it done pretty quick with a good water supply to help cut the hole.

How was it driven with a buick?

There are numerous You Tube videos on the subject. Might pick up some tips. Like M-5 stated, if you have water supply it works pretty good jetting it down.

I could only find one of someone pounding one in. Unfortunately I don't have a backhoe to excavate.

I think I am 10'-15' to water. I thought I would have to pound it in w a post driver or try push it in w a tractor. I think I would work my azz of getting through the clay with the post driver.

 

[Supa Dexta]

Have had a couple dug with an excavator, mid size machine can get down to around 20ft, little more if they dig themselves down also. Takes less than an hour to dig a couple holes. Then I stick a plastic culvert in upright. 24" culvert holds roughly 250 gallons half full. I also drill a few dozen small holes in the bottom 6' or so, and surround with a ton of rocks, this acts as more reservoir down there.

Here's one here, guess it just depends how remote it is, but yeah, looks like work.

 

[bbirder]

After getting well in, how will you pump it? Is electricity available?

 

[M-5]

They would build a scaffold attach a weight to a pulley and run a rope over to the car. The car was jacked up and a rim was bolted to a rear tire . it was put in low gear and the rope 1/2 hitched when weight was up a little slack would allow it to slide on rim hitting top of pipe travel of the weight was only a few feet. My great grandfather explained it to me and he drove quite a few for folks back in those days.

 

[SteppedInIt]

After getting well in, how will you pump it? Is electricity available?

I would like to use a 2 cycle gas pump like this guy did at 6:53 of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yIX-YCNKh0

 

[Bigfoot]

Have had a couple dug with an excavator, mid size machine can get down to around 20ft, little more if they dig themselves down also. Takes less than an hour to dig a couple holes. Then I stick a plastic culvert in upright. 24" culvert holds roughly 250 gallons half full. I also drill a few dozen small holes in the bottom 6' or so, and surround with a ton of rocks, this acts as more reservoir down there.

Here's one here, guess it just depends how remote it is, but yeah, looks like work.

I talked a friend in to doing one those. Only place I had ever seen them was on here. Failed miserably. Seemed like it should have worked. We both have wet weather wells on our places, that stay full. Oh well.

 

[Jogeephus]

I prefer washing wells to driving them. I tried to drive one well but it was a train wreck. I've washed three wells and this is pretty easy. Deepest is around 30 feet with a four inch casing. For these shallow wells I use Ruth Berry pumps but the pipe can't go but about 20 feet before the water column will break and it won't pump. I've got one washed well with a pitcher pump on it just in case something happens to the power.

I once used an auger type digger. It took two of us to work it manually but dug a nice wide hole but I wouldn't recommend this route because its a lot of work but that well has never gone dry. Of course none of the others have either.

 

[greybeard]

Yes, I have seen one driven. It looked to be a PITA but they got it done. Had a wooden beam tripod and pulley with something looked a lot like a teepost driver hung off a rope. About 40 ft deep and heavy wall 2" or 1 1/2" pipe with square (not tapered) threads. Their first try, they pounded too hard and collapsed the perforated section right above the wellpoint and could'n't get their string down to check for water and had to move over and do it all again. I don't remember how they pumped it.

 

[lavacarancher]

I'm reading the water table for your well locations is only 10 - 20 feet deep. What do you use the water for? I'm just wondering if only 10' of filtration it is good enough to be drinkable for humans?

 

[Supa Dexta]

People dug their wells with a pick and shovel for years.

 

[Jogeephus]

I'm reading the water table for your well locations is only 10 - 20 feet deep. What do you use the water for? I'm just wondering if only 10' of filtration it is good enough to be drinkable for humans?

Our water is fine at this depth. Never heard of anyone getting sick from it but if you are going to do anything commercial with it you'll have to have a deep well and have the water tested and approved. I've drank fro these shallow wells for years and most of the older homes are still using hand dug wells. I only have one hand dug well left and the water from it is really good.

 

[M.Magis]

I'm reading the water table for your well locations is only 10 - 20 feet deep. What do you use the water for? I'm just wondering if only 10' of filtration it is good enough to be drinkable for humans?

Am I wrong that the filtration doesn’t come from the 10’ between the well point and the surface? After all, the water is in a pipe at that point. I thought the filtration comes from the water moving through the earth?

 

[SteppedInIt]

For the application I'm considering, I would use it for livestock watering and utility purposes. I hear the high iron content is the human problem for shallow wells here.

 

[lavacarancher]

I'm reading the water table for your well locations is only 10 - 20 feet deep. What do you use the water for? I'm just wondering if only 10' of filtration it is good enough to be drinkable for humans?

Am I wrong that the filtration doesn’t come from the 10’ between the well point and the surface? After all, the water is in a pipe at that point. I thought the filtration comes from the water moving through the earth?

Surface water can contaminate a well in a heart beat. The water well diggers go to great lengths to isolate the surface from the water point with casing and cement. Same for putting a water well too close to a septic system. I'm just asking the question, not criticizing. If it works then it works. When I was a kid we used a hand dug water well and never had any problems. Our first "potable" water table is at about 80 feet but you can get some water at about 20'.

 

[M.Magis]

Surface water can contaminate a well in a heart beat. The water well diggers go to great lengths to isolate the surface from the water point with casing and cement. Same for putting a water well too close to a septic system. I'm just asking the question, not criticizing. If it works then it works. When I was a kid we used a hand dug water well and never had any problems. Our first "potable" water table is at about 80 feet but you can get some water at about 20'.

That makes sense. I was thinking about it backwards.

 

[Jogeephus]

I'm reading the water table for your well locations is only 10 - 20 feet deep. What do you use the water for? I'm just wondering if only 10' of filtration it is good enough to be drinkable for humans?

Am I wrong that the filtration doesn’t come from the 10’ between the well point and the surface? After all, the water is in a pipe at that point. I thought the filtration comes from the water moving through the earth?

Surface water can contaminate a well in a heart beat. The water well diggers go to great lengths to isolate the surface from the water point with casing and cement. Same for putting a water well too close to a septic system. I'm just asking the question, not criticizing. If it works then it works. When I was a kid we used a hand dug water well and never had any problems. Our first "potable" water table is at about 80 feet but you can get some water at about 20'.

When I wash a well down I use 4" PVC pipe and this goes in the hole and I continue to wash the hole down till I can get about 16-20 foot of this casing in the ground then I leave about 18-24" of this out of the ground. I also always put the well in underground creeks which are anywhere from 4-10' wide and these are flowing creeks so as long as you prevent contaminants from going down your well head you are in pretty good shape. I think these eventually flow into the aquifer or into our river that eventually disappears in the aquifer as well. If I keep going deeper I can hit more water at around 60'. This is what we call a semi-deep well and most new homes have these. Punch another 240 foot and you are into the main aquifer. Its pretty neat when you wash a well and you hit what feels like pudding and the casing just goes down on its own. When you hit this you know you are in water.

 

[skyhightree1]

This is interesting stuff and I want to try a dug well or wash and see how that works.