If you can drive a nail into a board, you have the skills to augment your water supply. Drilling companies charge thousands of dollars to tap ground water sources that you can often reach yourself with a few common tools and about two weekends of work.
Methods ranging from digging to blasting are used to reach the underground layer of fresh water that lies beneath dry land. Most of these are too technical, expensive, or dangerous for the average person. However, at the turn of the century the U.S. Army developed a fast, effective method to provide bivouacking troops with water that did not involve a lot of expensive, cumbersome equipment. Soldiers simply drove a pipe into the ground with a sledgehammer until they reached the aquifer. Subsequently, it has proven to be ideal for supplying water to homesteads, second homes, and remote villages in developing nations.
If driving a pipe 75 feet or so into the earth sounds like a job for Superman, I've given you the wrong impression. Too hard of a blow can damage pipe threads. It's better to soften the ground as much as possible before you begin. I recommend digging a hole at the site you've selected and allowing water to settle in it for a week. The softer the ground, the easier the work. A shallow hole (5 to 10 feet) is best because deep ones too often need reinforcement to prevent them from collapsing.
Choose a location as far as possible from septic tanks, sewer lines, chemical storage tanks, animal pens, and other potential contaminants. Check with county health officials concerning regulations and permit requirements. County officials have access to well logs and other geological data and can advise you as to subsurface composition (silt, sand, and decomposed granite are suitable for driven wells; hard clay or rock may prove difficult or impossible to penetrate), the approximate depth at which you can expect to find water, and the quality of the aquifer beneath your site.
You can also check with your neighbors. A fishing weight on the end of a string dropped down a neighbor's well can give you a rough estimate of how far down you will have to go (measure to the point where the string becomes wet). Neighbors, particularly old-timers, can often give you some idea of what lies beneath the subsoil.
You'll need a 2-inch drivepoint with screen (a hollow,
conically shaped metal point adjoined to a fine mesh screen), several spools
of teflon pipe thread tape, 2-inch galvanized couplings to attatch pipe
lengths together, 5-foot-long threaded lengths of 2-inch galvanized Schedule
40 pipe, 2-inch galvanized caps for the pipe, concrete mix, a fishing weight,
a foot valve, and 85 feet of 1/2 inch inside diameter, thick-walled, flexible,
UV resistant, flexible polyethylene tubing (I used Toro "funny pipe"
irrigation tubing).Once you've dug a pit and allowed the subsoil to soften, it's time to start using the drivepoint. Make sure it is absolutely perpendicular to the ground - check it frequently with a level. If it is not straight, pull the drivepoint out and start again. A slanted well wastes pipe and may be difficult to pump.
Use a sledgehammer or similar heavy metal object (I used the reverse end of an old-fashioned one-piece post hole digger) to drive the capped galvanized pipe into the ground. Hit the capped pipe as evenly as possible in the center of the cap and avoid side-to-side swaying of the pipe. A well-placed blow will make a dull sound rather than a ping. When the cap becomes cracked or dented, discard it and screw on a new one. Establish a steady rhythm and the work will go easier.
When the cap is about even with the bottom of the pit, unscrew it and screw on a coupling and a new length of pipe. Use teflon pipe tape on the threads, and make certain all connections are tightened securely with a pipe wrench. You may occasionally need to work from a step ladder in order to reach the cap with the sledgehammer.
If the drivepoint hits a large rock, pull the point out and start again in a new location. To pull out the drivepoint, place two hydraulic automobile jacks on opposite sides of the pipe. Attatch a pipe clamp to the pipe for the jacks to lift against. Once the drivepoint lifts a few inches, it should be easy to remove.
When you believe you have reached water, tie a weight onto a length of string and lower it into the pipe. If it comes out wet, repeat the test several times over the next two days, and if the results are the same, you've found water. Drive the pipe down some more to compensate for seasonal fluctuations and periods of drought.
Pitcher pumps like the one in the photograph at the beginning of this article are ideal for shallow wells. At depths greater than 25 feet, however, they stop working due to the limitations of atmospheric pressure. Inertia pumps (one-way footvalves attatched to flexible irrigation tubing) like the one in the next photograph are the simplest (they contain only one moving part) and least expensive (under $25) manual deep well pump.
Remove sand or dirt within the well by lowering a garden hose to the bottom of the well and flushing it with water. A high-velocity stream of water loosens dirt that has become imbedded in the screen during the process of driving the point and washes the finer particles upward and out of the pipe. Backwashing under pressure may help to increase the flow of water into the well.
To cleanse your well of any particles that remain, use a foot valve at the bottom end of a long length of polyethylene tubing (it's called an inertia pump) to manually pump the water until it is silt free. The foot valve (a heavy-duty brass valve can be ordered from the author by clicking on the order button below this text) is a one-way check valve that allows water to enter the tubing as it is manually jerked up and down. Since water cannot be compressed, the water level within the tubing rises with each stroke until it exits at the top. Because even miniscule grains of sand can cause pump burnout, it is best not to use an electrically powered pump to perform this task.
Although the inertia pump cannot provide sufficient volume and pressure to operate household plumbing, its low cost, durability, and ease of maintenance make it an ideal choice wherever low pressure and volume will not pose a problem.
Ordinary vacuum pumps will not work with wells deeper than 25 feet due to the limitations of atmospheric pressure. Electrical deep-well pumps are available in cylinder, jet, and submersible types. Used or rebuilt pumps can be obtained for a fraction of the cost of a new pump. Since each well has unique characteristics which can greatly influence your choice, it is often best to wait until after the well is completed to purchase a pump.
A professional driller puts a handful of chlorine tablets in each new well to kill bacteria introduced into the aquifer during penetration. A half gallon of ordinary household bleach is the liquid equivalent and is less expensive. Pump the well immediately until the chlorine smell and taste vanishes.
If your well's volume of water is too small for your needs, two or more driven wells can be connected in a series. Adding a storage tank to your system will also help to increase its efficiency during periods of peak demand.
Commercial laboratory testing is expensive, but is advisable if your well is going to be your primary source of potable (drinking) water. However, if your well is going to be used for agricultural or irrigation purposes, there are cheaper methods to determine its worth. Acidity and alkalinity tests can be done with litmus paper or kits bought from a pool supplier. A drop of well water placed on agar in a petri dish and incubated may indicate the presence or absence of bacteria. Keeping a male beta (Siamese fighting fish) in a bowl of well water is a colorful way to test its quality.
Common sense is perhaps the best test of all. How clear does it look? Does it have an odor? Rotten egg taste denotes sulfer (which can be substantially reduced by aeration and piping the water through a canister filled with activated charcoal). Salinity can also be tasted. Hard water (i.e. water containing a substantial amount of dissolved minerals) leaves a ring around containers and deposits on fixtures. My two Labradors actually prefer water from our well to water from the city system (most likely due to the absence of chlorine).
Water Pik makes filtration devices for home use. They remove impurities, improve taste, and eliminate odors.
If you have any doubts concerning the quality of your water, I suggest you drink and cook with bottled water until the problem is resolved.
one 2 inch diameter drivepoint with screen (from well supply dealer), $135
TOTAL ESTIMATED COST: $492.50NECESSARY TOOLS:
1 level
1 ladder
1 sledgehammer and/or one-piece solid steel post hole digger
2 large (18 inch or greater) pipe wrenches
- DRIVEPOINTS: Global Drilling
- ROLLS OF POLYETHYLENE TUBING (FUNNY PIPE): Toro Irrigation
PHIL AND TRICIA WRITE ABOUT THEIR SANDSUCKER WELLDate: Thursday, May 13, 1999 10:02 PM
Subject: Driving a WellFred,Thank you for your home page section on driving your own well. I searched the internet for info when I was interested in looking into it and your page was the only one out there on the subject! I really used your encouragement to get me started. I ended up doing what is called "Sand Sucking" my well to drive it down. I started with an auger style post hole digger to get me down to the water table (only about 20 feet here in Spring Lake). Then the hole keeps falling in on itself when you finally hit water. At this point you send a 3" PVC pipe down and begin "sand sucking" your 3" pipe down. The sand sucker is a pipe that just fits into the 3" pipe. It is open at both ends with an upside down funnel at the bottom. There is a steel ball in the pipe (the pipe is about 2 1/2 feet long), that lets the sand and gravel in, but the water bubbles out the top. You keep lifting the sand sucker up and down till it gets some sand in it and then pull it up and empty it out. In the meantime, the 3" pipe tends to settle down farther and farther till you are as far below the water table as you want to go. I hit water at about 20 feet and sucked my 3" pipe down to 29'. At this point, I placed a 2" PVC pipe with a 5' PVC point attached into the 3" pipe and attached sections of 2" pipe until the point was resting at the bottom of the well. Then I pulled the 3" pipe up to expose the 2" PVC point (5 feet or more). Then you cut off the 3" and 2" pipe at the surface and attach a pitcher pump to clean out the well.I am planning to use our well for watering our lawn because I do not want to pay the city for its water. I purchased a 1 1/2 horse jet pump. With a 1 1/2" pipe as output from the jet pump I am getting 60 gallons of water per minute! This is PLENTY of water for my little 100' X 150' lot. I am laying the automatic sprinklers out this weekend.I have attached a picture of the well in progress. I am the one in the flannel shirt, the other is my buddy Skip.In the picture of my wife and Skip you can see Skip holding the sand sucker. The 3" pipe is sticking up quite a ways, too far in fact to work the sand sucker. We ended up cutting it off to a managable 5' sections so we could work it from the ground rather that on the ladder. Our dog Mango (a Jack Russell Terrier), is also in the picture. She is going to love the sprinklers as she loves chasing water...Thanks again for your information,Phil & Tricia DeVriesSpring Lake MIThe well has a flow rate of 60 gallons per minute and Phil says he can operate twice as many sprinklers at one time as his neighbors who depend upon the municipal system. If you have further questions, you can reach Phil and Tricia by clicking on the address at the top of the message. They live in Spring Lake, MI.
----- Original Message -----From: Phil & Tricia DeVries <pdv@iserv.net>To: A Brent Cook <brent1@InfoAve.Net>Cc: Fred Dungan <fdungan@gnww.net>Sent: Sunday, October 10, 1999 12:34 PMSubject: RE: Question
-----Original Message-----
From: A Brent Cook <brent1@InfoAve.Net>
To: pdv@iserv.net <pdv@iserv.net>
Date: Sunday, October 03, 1999 8:43 AM
Subject: Question
Phil,
I came across your article about your Sand Sucker well. I am obviously researching the possibilities of putting in a well myself. Unlike you I am in Georgia. There are wells everywhere here so I am certain I will find water. Your article is very short and raises a couple questions I hope you can answer for me.
1. Did you just auger down until you found wet sand?
Yes. The water table here is at 20 feet. I augered and kept adding 5' sections onto my auger until I hit the wet sand.
2. You mentioned "At this point, I placed a 2" PVC pipe with a 5' PVC point attached into the 3" pipe and attached sections of 2" pipe until the point was resting at the bottom of the well." Could you give me some more info on this? (i.e. is the 2" pipe glued into the 3" or just what?)
No, the 3" PVC pipe is what I worked into the ground (down to 29') with the sand sucker. First I augered a hole down to 20'. Then I placed the 3" pipe into the hole (I pieced together two 10' sections and one 5' section to begin with). Then I sand sucked the 3" pipe down to 29' (I added
one more 5' section when the end of the pipe got down to ground level). The sand sucker simply fills up with sand via the up-down motion you create by pulling it up and down by hand with a rope you have tied to it. When it's full, you pull it up, empty it, and repeat...). This allows the 3" pipe to 'jiggle' down, little by little until it is at the depth you desire (typically so the top of your point will be at least 4' to 5' below the water table) Then I placed the the 2" pipe (with the 5' PVC point attached to the bottom of it) into the 3" pipe. Now you have both pipes sitting in the hole. They are not attached to each other in any way, simply one inside of the other with the 5' point at the bottom inside the 3" pipe. The key is that you have to pull the 3" pipe up. Pull it up 5' so that the 2" PVC point is fully exposed to the ground (and water). Cut both pipes off at the top. Cut the 3" pipe just about ground level, and cut the 2" pipe high enough above the ground so you can attach your pump to it. The 3" pipe remains a part of your well, although it is not used for anything other
than a head start if you ever have to pull up the 2" pipe to service it.
3. Did you have to create a filter pack and if so what did you use (gravel, sand, a mixture...)?
No. The soil here is made up of sand and gravel therefore no filter pack is necessary.
4. Where on the Internet did you find any additional information you used? Things are still somewhat limited.
You are correct, info is limited! I went to the local hardware store where the owner helped me along (he had a sand sucker that he let me borrow). I was convinced I could do it based on Freds page (the page that has my info on it that you read). If you have soil made up of sand/light gravel, then a sand sucker may work for you. Otherwise you would probably be better off pounding down a steel point with 2" galvanized pipe. You can still auger down a hole as far as you can; it will likely reduce the work of pounding quite a bit. If you would like info on a sand sucker, I can give you the name of the hardware store that I went to in MI. He may be able to help you.
Thanks for any help you can offer. A well will be great for my lawn and for emergency water in case there is an outage. Yes, hurricane Floyd could have hurt us bad!
Brent Cook
Hinesville, Ga.
WARNING: PVC drivepoints can shatter when hit with a hammer.
Fascinating isn't it? For more details, click on the photos. If you have access to a machine shop, you can build your own sandsucker by following Phil's diagram (you will need Word 97 or above to open it).
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