Home Made Well - Drilling Your Own Well

[Nifty]

In California we're on our 3rd year of drought and are probably going to see mandatory water rationing.

There are people in our area that have wells, so I've been thinking we should get one.

I'd usually just call up companies and start that process, but years ago a friend told me how her dad and brother dug their own well. The used a manual auger and a LOT of elbow grease. It took a while, but they actually hit water within 30 feet.

I'm not up to all the hand drilling so I did some googling and saw some really interesting designs. Here is one that even has videos:

http://howtodrillawell.com/index.php

So, has anybody dug their own well before (without big machinery)?

 

[Tallman]

I know a fellow who did this with a hand post auger. A person would just have to have enough pipe stems to add to the handle to go along with the elbow grease that you mentioned and hope they hit water before the grease runs out.

 

[TanksHill]

I wish!!! My hill has a 90 ft rise from street to house. I would be drilling for a long time.

 

[MorelCabin]

If you 'witch' it first, you might not have to drill as far to get to the water. Witching really isn't that hard, and contrary to popular belief, having the 'gift' isn't all that rare. Most everyone has a family member or two that will be able to divine water, it just hasn't been done in so long that no one has tried.
We found a spring just three ft below the surface that would have served as a great well if we had needed water. It rushed like crazy as soon as the backhoe hit the spot

 

[k0xxx]

When I was a young fellow (early 20's) I helped my father put in two shallow wells. For one, we used a hand auger and sunk it about 30 ft.

The second we used a hand auger to get it started about 4 or 5 ft., then used we used a special pointed tip and pumped water into the pipe. We drove the pipe in with a device similar to a post driver, while pumping water down the hole.

After we would drive the pipe down to where the "T" was (the point where the water entered the pipe), we'd stop the pump, remove the "T" and the pipe above the "T". Then we'd add another 4 ft. of pipe and replace the "T" and the process would start over.

I can't say that either method was easier. It was just a matter of the types of soils requiring different methods. The main thing was that in our area (southeast Louisiana), we didn't have ANY rocks. Had there been rocks, I doubt that we would have been successful.

 

[PamsPride]

This seem like it would be nice for putting a hand pump out by a barn or something that is not close to the house.

 

[big brown horse]

We have our own well, but when the power goes out, the pump wont work. I would love to find out if we could install a hand pump in an already existing well.

 

[MorelCabin]

We have our own well, but when the power goes out, the pump wont work. I would love to find out if we could install a hand pump in an already existing well.

Yes, you can. Depending on what type of system you have it would be done differently, like for instance if you have enough room in your well to simply put another line down for the hand pump then you might do it that way...or, as in our case, we pump from the lake via a submersable pump so we will simply attach the hand pump to the incoming line in the basement and use it indoors, using a laundry room sink as our drain:>) If you have a push pull type system with a pump (pump with two lines, one to push and one to draw) in your basement there surely is a way to do that as well. Definitely, indoors or out, there is a way to bypass your electric pump and use manual.

 

[sylvie]

Lots of folks around here hook up an auger to the tractor and go as deep as they can, usually 40'. In my area we have so much surface shale that it didn't work for us-we only got down 5'.
Because of rock, some well diggers use dynamite, usually for shallow dug wells with 3' diameter and 25 to 30' deep.

I am a dowser.

 

[big brown horse]

We have our own well, but when the power goes out, the pump wont work. I would love to find out if we could install a hand pump in an already existing well.

Yes, you can. Depending on what type of system you have it would be done differently, like for instance if you have enough room in your well to simply put another line down for the hand pump then you might do it that way...or, as in our case, we pump from the lake via a submersable pump so we will simply attach the hand pump to the incoming line in the basement and use it indoors, using a laundry room sink as our drain:>) If you have a push pull type system with a pump (pump with two lines, one to push and one to draw) in your basement there surely is a way to do that as well. Definitely, indoors or out, there is a way to bypass your electric pump and use manual.

Yea!