drill your own water well...I need info
 

There was a thread a couple years ago on GIM about drilling your own water well. I did a search but couldn't find it.

Would somebody here please help me find it?

thanks

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

Got county water but your own well is a nice back-up.

Here's mine with a frostless spigot for the garden plot.

One of my latest land grabs. 50 acre lake about 150 yds away.

Think I might do some fishing this summer ...

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

True, if you leave it be more than an hour or so, it'll cease up tighter than a bat's ass stretched over a rain barrel.

They're really only for shallow wells, jet pumps.


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Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

that pretty well sums up what I needed to know.

It wouldn't work for me.

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

You might consider a cistern instead. This is the direction I've been dragged by my putrid cesspit of a well. I've done everything in the book to make my water less stinky and gross but the only thing that helps is dumping bleach down it every two weeks or so. I won't drink that, and I won't give bleach water to my animals either.

Polyethylene water storage tanks are available from many sources and aren't too terribly expensive. Since the water shouldn't be sitting in the tank for any length of time leaching shouldn't be a problem if you're concerned about such things. Then it is just a matter of calculating your average monthly water useage, average monthly rainfall and allowing for some extra. I've heard that 1 inch of rain on 100ftx100ft surface equals 1,000 gallons of water so you can do your calculations from there.

I'll keep my well as a backup to my cistern and I'll probably even need it from December to March. Now that I'm thinking of it maybe it makes more sense to use well water for utility purposes and the rain water for drinking, showering and other places it matters.

I'm going to try to get my temporary system in this year and a couple years from now when I build my new house to replace my ramshackle hut I'll build in a real live ferocement water tower. I also need to install manual pumps for both the well and the septic system's lift tank since I have a mound system.

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

Tractor Supply Company sells drive point screens, etc for a DIY well. Our primary well is the old hand dug concrete curbing type, but I did drive a water well closer to my home and cap it as a sceondary source. I only have to go down 30-50 ft to hit good clear water though. DIY projects for deep wells might get kinda hairy.

I like Rev's idea about the cistern. If possible, take advantage of your roofline for water collection.

Also, just FYI, if you are calculating for a cistern, use 1 inch rain over 1 acre=27,200 +/- gallons of water. 1acre=43,560 square feet. Figure your drainage and collection area to the cistern and then use your average rainfall and average consumption to size your cistern. Include periods of dry weather and/or the potential for drought.

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

THANK YOU STRANGER !! for the numbers . I am in the experimental stages of collecting water as we type. Can't stay long but I'm using 55 gal drums welded together into mini towers. I have 700 sq. ft. so far collecting. Thanks for the help.

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

From Google ( you got to love it ):

1 cubic foot = 7.48051945 US gallons

Take your roof area, say 700sqft, and multiply by 7.48 = 5,236 gallons.....for a FOOT of rainfall.

Divide by whatever rain you just got.....1/12 ( or multiply .0833) for 1" of rain......

5236 / 12 = 436 gallons for 1" of rain on a 700sqft roof.


To make it simple......using Google's number for a cubic foot of water = 7.48gal/sqft

7.48/12 =.623 gal per inch of rain per square foot of roof.

In Rev's example, a 100x100 roof, is 10,000sqft ( and a HECK of a roof by the way ), so 10,000 x .623 = 6230 gallons per 1 inch of rain.

Better have a BIG tank Rev..... :D

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

Same results from my numbers. Roughly 2/3 gal for every sq ft of collection area per every one inch of rain.

Thanks for simplifying TnAndy.

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

My husband and myself have put down more than one shallow well, by this method. It consists of pipe, and a weight. We used a piece of a tree for a couple of them. The weight is needed to drive the pipe down. You just pound the pipe down, until you hit water. If you have a water source it helps to run water down the pipe. (Remember the hose getting stuck in the ground as a child?) Now there may be more to it than this, I will admit to being a minor player in the well drilling. But anyone can do it, if they have to, if times get bad. It also helps to have a high water table as we do in my area.

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

That's the key lynnda with a driven well....a high water table.....like Florida or other coastal areas.

Here, the shallowest well I know of is about 60'.....and most average a couple hundred, of which 100-150 are thru solid rock....mostly limestone.

Problem with a well over 50-75' is you can't use a jet type pump, which is one that the pump sits on the top of the well, and uses a pipe down the well...it lifts the water up out of the well. Deeper than that, and my understanding is you have to go submersible.....pump down the well hole.....and you need a 3-4" well to be able to use even a small submersible......and most use 6" wells. That kind of hole takes a BIG well drilling rig......way beyond the "Deeprock" type drilling rig that advertises in every Mother Earth type mag.

One area the Deeprock MIGHT be real handy is in horizontal drilling. Many times around here, you can find 'springs' that don't really collect in any one area where you can built a collection point.....just a general "wet" spot over a wide area. I'd often thought one of these Deeprock rigs would be valuable in 'slant' drilling into a hillside to develope a good spring.

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

http://www.fdungan.com/well.htm Lots of information here.

Re: drill your own water well...I need info
 

In an emergency a "thief" implement lowered by hand on a rope into the well will retieve enough water for survival.