Well drilling experience?

[DutchmenSport]

Before doing any more digging or drilling, it sounds like you've made attempts already and so far, you haven't hit the water you need.

It's time to go old school and put some faith to old ways. .... Water Witching. If you are a "believer" it does work. If you don't "believe" it won't work.

I never disputed the "belief" in Water Witching, but never really believed it myself either. I'm a skeptic.

Then one day, my Father-in-law told me how to Water Witch with 2 wires. I watched him and was impressed. Everywhere on his property where the wires crossed, he said there was under ground ditching.

He had me try it. I was skeptical, but thought, Oh well, why not?

He told me how to hold the wires and I started walking slowly in the direction he told me to go. To my amazement, the wires DID cross and I stopped. He came up to me and said, Yep, you've got the "gift." He knew right where that drainage ditch was, I did not.

After that I read up on everything I could on "Water Witching" and found it works for a multitude of things. I did discover that my "gift" was locating under ground wires.

The true test was when we moved into our current house, 14 years ago. One of the first things I did was walk the property and marked all the underground wires. My electric lines are all under ground, so is the telephone. I was convinced I had them marked and was OK with that.

Fast forward a couple years later, and we had to have some "digging" done on the property, and of course, before the company would do the work, the Under Ground wire hunters had to come out and locate all the wires. They did, and their markings were identical to mine form a couple years earlier.

Bottom line. ..... If you haven't done it, try it before doing your next "dig". You just might hit water the next time!

 

[Rene T]

It's a late reply but I don't I've heard that it can be a pretty challenging process. Have you considered reaching out to a professional well-drilling company for advice?

It’s been 1-1/2 years since the poster was active. Don’t expect a reply.

 

[LarsMac]

Well, I worked for a driller while in college at FSU.
You're sitting on top of the aquifer. Shouldn't have to go very deep, unless you're on a column of limestone.
The land there is kinda like Swiss Cheese. You could drill down and hit water around 60 feet, or end up going a couple hundred feet and missing it entirely. Then move another ten feet and find it. That's why the guy wouldn't nail down an estimate.

 

[Isaac-1]

You might want to check the laws in your state, my state started requiring permits and registration for all new water wells as well as requiring licensing for all drillers about a decade ago.

Before that it was just call a water well driller, they show up and drill a well with state registration being optional, now it takes several weeks to get state approval before the driller can show up and drill the well.

 

[Lou Schneider]

You might want to check the laws in your state, my state started requiring permits and registration for all new water wells as well as requiring licensing for all drillers about a decade ago.

Before that it was just call a water well driller, they show up and drill a well with state registration being optional, now it takes several weeks to get state approval before the driller can show up and drill the well.

That was the case on Marrowstone Island off of Port Townsend in WA state when we built our house there 15 years ago - we had to get state approval before we could hire a driller to sink the well. It went down 210 ft, hit the glacial flow coming down from Canada and gave nice sweet water, not brackish like many other wells on the island. Puget Sound surrounding the island is salt water.

Cindy also had another cabin on Marrowstone that had a 25 ft. well witched and hand-dug by her uncle back in the 1960s. It also produced sweet water and never ran dry, even when other deeper wells in the neighborhood were having problems. One neighbor had to space out their showers and laundry or their well would start pumping air.

Here in Pahrump, NV, about 5 years ago the state hydrologist determined the aquifer below the town is oversubscribed. You can't sink a new well unless you have a lot one acre or larger and first buy water rights from someone who isn't using them.

 

[Ray-IN]

Then there is my well. It was driven in 1968. The driller went down 30', then hit a cavern and lost the bit. He drove casing until it went no further-40', then went another 15' and hit a large stream of water. He could never pump it dry.
I had to cap that well in the 1980's because a large sub-division was being built on the hill above my house (½ mile away) and polluted my well with sewage. Timing was great, the county had came along with city water mains 6 months earlier.
If I had it to do over, I'd have made a 1,000G cistern and bought city water when rain water was insufficient.

 

[RayNorthernWI]

I drilled my own well in far northeastern Wisconsin. I tried driving sand points, but continued to hit rock. I have nice sugar sand, but it is peppered with 1-3 foot across granite boulders. I probably have 15 sandpoints broken off in my land. Finally I built my own drill rig loosely based on this one.

Hydra-Drill - Deep Rock Manufacturing

www.deeprock.com

I used a 2 man earth auger with a 6.5 hp motor. I used 2" pipe for drill rod. I found a 4" oil exploration bit with huge carbide teeth and welded that to the end of a short pipe. Finally I built a foam generator that turned Dawn dish soap into shaving cream thick foam. Most drill rigs use water to flush out tailings. I don't have water or I wouldn't need to drill a well. Foam is probably 30:1 in volume over the water that made it. I pushed the foam down the pipe at about 30psi, and increased a little as I got deep.

In the end it took about 4 hours to drill 42' down, including an hour of drilling through granite. Somewhere about 20' under my land there is a 3' across black granite boulder with a hole in it and a pipe going through it.

I was drilling in late November in near freezing weather following a really nasty drought summer. At 42' I had 13' of water in the pipe and it would have sunk farther into the water bearing sand formation if I would have let it.

With a jet packer and a 1/2hp Gould pump I am getting close to 10gpm of the sweetest most delicious water, and 15 years later it still runs great. It can be done..

Pro well drillers-
Last year my new wife had a pro driller come in and drill at a rental that was her house before we got one together. It had water from a sand point but it was stinky and brown. We called in a well driller who drilled into the same bad water and packed up his truck and moved on. Ten grand later I had the same stinky rusty water. The only difference is that I could chlorinate it, whereas a sandpoint's foot valve stops that. I still have to run a UV sanitizer, a 3 huge filter system, a rust filter machine, and a tannin filter. The driller said that he'd come back and drill down to the next aquifer about 200' down, but I was looking at another 10 grand and no promises that the water would be good. Some wells in the area that deep had arsenic. No thanks.
Not happy with the pro well driller.

Given the chance to do it again I'd either go with a deep rock style setup with a carbide bit or go with the nice pro version for about 20 grand. Once the well is in I'd resell it and get half or most of my money back.

 

[Tulecreeper]

I drilled my own well in far northeastern Wisconsin. I tried driving sand points, but continued to hit rock. I have nice sugar sand, but it is peppered with 1-3 foot across granite boulders. I probably have 15 sandpoints broken off in my land. Finally I built my own drill rig loosely based on this one.

Hydra-Drill - Deep Rock Manufacturing

www.deeprock.com

I used a 2 man earth auger with a 6.5 hp motor. I used 2" pipe for drill rod. I found a 4" oil exploration bit with huge carbide teeth and welded that to the end of a short pipe. Finally I built a foam generator that turned Dawn dish soap into shaving cream thick foam. Most drill rigs use water to flush out tailings. I don't have water or I wouldn't need to drill a well. Foam is probably 30:1 in volume over the water that made it. I pushed the foam down the pipe at about 30psi, and increased a little as I got deep.

In the end it took about 4 hours to drill 42' down, including an hour of drilling through granite. Somewhere about 20' under my land there is a 3' across black granite boulder with a hole in it and a pipe going through it.

I was drilling in late November in near freezing weather following a really nasty drought summer. At 42' I had 13' of water in the pipe and it would have sunk farther into the water bearing sand formation if I would have let it.

With a jet packer and a 1/2hp Gould pump I am getting close to 10gpm of the sweetest most delicious water, and 15 years later it still runs great. It can be done..

Pro well drillers-
Last year my new wife had a pro driller come in and drill at a rental that was her house before we got one together. It had water from a sand point but it was stinky and brown. We called in a well driller who drilled into the same bad water and packed up his truck and moved on. Ten grand later I had the same stinky rusty water. The only difference is that I could chlorinate it, whereas a sandpoint's foot valve stops that. I still have to run a UV sanitizer, a 3 huge filter system, a rust filter machine, and a tannin filter. The driller said that he'd come back and drill down to the next aquifer about 200' down, but I was looking at another 10 grand and no promises that the water would be good. Some wells in the area that deep had arsenic. No thanks.
Not happy with the pro well driller.

Given the chance to do it again I'd either go with a deep rock style setup with a carbide bit or go with the nice pro version for about 20 grand. Once the well is in I'd resell it and get half or most of my money back.

Why did you quit at 13' of head? We had a well dug at the HQ of the wildlife area where I lived and they went down to 180' with a water table 10' down, so there was 170' of head. Hung the pump at 140 feet.

 

[RayNorthernWI]

It was all of the pipe that I had at the moment. I ran it that way overnight and the water level barely dropped. I figured for a single guy that was good enough.

 

[Ex-Calif]

Old thread, I know but... Unless you know what you are getting into this is one I left to the pros. They put in my turnkey well for about $5k.

The driller was very experienced in my area. They had a map (maybe from the county) of all the wells in like a 5 mile radius of me. They know what aquifer we reside above. By assessing the wells of my neighbors he was confident I would need no water treatment equipment.

They asked me where I wanted the well and then went 250' on the first hole. They said that they were still drilling clay/mud and that if they had hit the aquafer they should have done so by then and be drilling in rock. They moved the hole about 100 feet and eventually my well ended up at 350' similar to all the other wells in my area.

They abandoned the first casing and charged me a few hundred bucks for more casing for the second hole.

The water tastes good and the county assessor says not to bother with a test because all the water in the area tests good. I will have them test it eventually. The only bad part is that it has a lot of iron in it and it stains toilet and shower fixtures. I keep it cleaned up with an aggressive liquid called "CLR" (Calcium/Lime/Rust) remover.

I don't avoid drinking it (brush teeth etc), I do cook with it but I do buy drinking water for consumption. I tried a Brita filter but a filter only lasted about 10 quarts. I used to use it for the coffee maker but the same problem.

They make a whole house system for iron that's a reasonable price but I am not sure about the frequency of consumable replacements.

Sorry for the brain dump, got on a roll.

 

[Tulecreeper]

Old thread, I know but... Unless you know what you are getting into this is one I left to the pros. They put in my turnkey well for about $5k.

The driller was very experienced in my area. They had a map (maybe from the county) of all the wells in like a 5 mile radius of me. They know what aquifer we reside above. By assessing the wells of my neighbors he was confident I would need no water treatment equipment.

They asked me where I wanted the well and then went 250' on the first hole. They said that they were still drilling clay/mud and that if they had hit the aquafer they should have done so by then and be drilling in rock. They moved the hole about 100 feet and eventually my well ended up at 350' similar to all the other wells in my area.

They abandoned the first casing and charged me a few hundred bucks for more casing for the second hole.

The water tastes good and the county assessor says not to bother with a test because all the water in the area tests good. I will have them test it eventually. The only bad part is that it has a lot of iron in it and it stains toilet and shower fixtures. I keep it cleaned up with an aggressive liquid called "CLR" (Calcium/Lime/Rust) remover.

I don't avoid drinking it (brush teeth etc), I do cook with it but I do buy drinking water for consumption. I tried a Brita filter but a filter only lasted about 10 quarts. I used to use it for the coffee maker but the same problem.

They make a whole house system for iron that's a reasonable price but I am not sure about the frequency of consumable replacements.

Sorry for the brain dump, got on a roll.

My house sits on top of a ridge about 100 vertical feet above the surrounding valley. The previous owner connected to municipal water in 2006, but they were on a well before that which was drilled in 1996 when the house was built. I don't know how deep they went, but the water is filled with iron. It's so bad that they had a massively expensive filtration system in the pumphouse with a sand tank, a charcoal tank, and some other tank attached to the system to filter it and the pipes in the house are stained inside. This monstrosity had timers and gauges and dials on it, but when they connected to city water they just hacksawed everything off. I figured I would never need it, so I pulled it all and tossed it. Three years later I decided I need to run about 500 feet of drip line down to my frontage and put in some trees so I had to go buy all the pieces and parts and replumb the whole thing. I had plumbed a couple wells before so I knew what I was doing, but it was a PITA. Now I've pulled the drip line so I don't need it anymore.