DIY water well drilling rig

[LEGION]

Curb Well; hand dug well with concrete drain piping for wall.

Thanks for the info. That would be some serious back breaking work and I've already had my back broken once, not wanting to go through that misery again, lol.

[LEGION]

Checking to see how the progress went

[yanta61]

funny you posted this.....I'm still working on it , slowly. I was getting the water pump ready yesterday and pretty sure I have everything ready for a test well.

[LEGION]

Almost show time. I know a place you could test it, lol.

[yanta61]

Almost show time. I know a place you could test it, lol.

everyone that finds out I'm building it tells me the same thing. I will defiantly post a video on YouTube when I get her up and running.

[LEGION]

I bet

[FLASH_OUTDOORS]

Watching this!

[Stephenska]

This is a pretty interesting thread to follow and warranted my first TBH post to help out. I've been interested in drilling my own well as well and would like to see how it turns out.

To give some advice from a civil engineer who designs a dozen larger community water wells a year:

- The TCEQ and TWDB will require well completion data including drillers logs, setting information, pump information, etc. A lot of residential style wells fly under the radar and are never reported.

- Make the casing out of SCH 40 PVC. Steel is too expensive and will ultimately fail without a concrete encasement around it. The corrosive waters could eat through the steel in 10-15 years and you'd be back to drilling another well. Of course the use of PVC is dependent on the depth you go. Shallower wells should be ok.

- Used a perforated PVC tail piece for the screen. Wrap the screen in a stainless steel screen wrap. You can buy these from Johnson Screens.

- Make sure to plug the tail before you start lowering the screen/casing into the hole.

- To get an idea of well depth and typical setting characteristics of wells around your location, see this link. twdb.texas.gov/groundwater/data/gwdbrpt.asp. This is the TWDB groundwater data base. Go to your County's record of wells report. Find a well that should be near your location and see how deep they went and what the pumping capacity was. This is the depth you want to go to to get drinkable water from a water bearing sand with sufficient capacity.

- Put in a concrete well head block to protect the well head from backing into it, etc.

- Jet the well thoroughly when you're done with the drilling process. It will clean up the well and increase your well capacity significantly. Jetting your well means pumping compressed air down into the screen area and "blowing" the water back out the top of the well. I'd do this for a while to make sure any drilling byproducts, shavings, debris, etc is cleaned out.

- Test pump the well for several hours after it is jetted to make sure you're not drawing the well down to the pump. If you are, install a gate valve or something like that on the well head to partially close and throttle the production back.

- Once you drill the well, I can help you with the pump setting if you can provide me the static water level, the depth of the screen, and where the well is (County, proximity to other wells, etc.). Your best bet is to hand the pump directly above the screen area (bottom of the pump bowl a foot or two above the screen).

[Sticks&Strings]

Amazed. Can't wait to see the video

[one66stang]

yep thats what we were thinking about doing. the hard part would be to get it welded on straight. it would be great to find someone that had some 2 3/8" pipe that had no need for the threads and would let me cut them off.
AY

You can buy 10` pup joints of 2 3/8 or 2 7/8

[woodsman]

everything I know about drilling a deep hole in the ground I just learned in this thread, and I already can't wait to see this thing in action. Sounds like you have some resourceful guys on standby, too. Good luck to you guys

[Stephenska]

I forgot to mention that it'd be a good idea to drill about 10' past the water bearing sand and install an additional 10' of blank PVC below the screen. It will give somewhere for sand and debris to settle out and not effect your water production.

[BigThicketBoy]

cool

[R Herline Jr]

Watching

[yanta61]

I want to get this thing going pretty bad but probably wont have time until Jan. Have to much stuff going on in Nov and Dec.