Theres a hole in my yard that goes half the way to china....

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by BlackPacker, Jul 28, 2007.

  1. BlackPacker

    BlackPacker Junior Member

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    ...By the time we hit 160 feet, the second man on the drill crew told me, "If this were my hole, I'd stop. We've hit shale. It's dry..."

    I was frantic. I knew that everything with the cabin relied on a strong and clean well. I paced back and forth between work areas as we worked on continuing our fire break and I alternately walked back into the insane quantity of billowing dust the enveloped the southwest corner of the cabin lot.

    At 185 feet, the shale gave way to more compressed sandstone. We were stopping at 200 feet, and we needed water. After the drill section that took us to 200 feet was dropped, the foreman swung another rod into place.

    "I want to see something. I'll make you a deal. I'm going to keep going until I'm satisfied. If we don't hit anything, you don't pay for the extra drilling. If we do, you do."

    At 220 feet, the dust stopped. That meant water. Instead of water though we were getting nothing but a sloppy green and black sludge. The well driller dipped his fingers into it, rubbed them together then flung them clean with a digusted look on his face. My boss told me about the neighbor who hit the same stuff in layer after layer and gave up. I was close to crushed.

    At 260 feet, the foreman called me over.

    "I've got good news and bad news." he said.

    "What's the bad news"

    "You've got to pay."

    My face beamed. We had water. 5 gallons per minute, far short and nearly three times deeper than the dowser had intuited. He was going to 280 feet to give us a bit more head on the well, and as their day ended, it was decided to drop it the full 300 feet the next morning, before dropping the casing and calling it well done.

    At 290 some feet, we broke another strata. As I was behind the cabin using a 30 ton bottle jack to dislodge a felled tree that had wedged itself between it's own stump and a nieghboring tree I heard someone call, and it took a moment to see the two drillers squatting beside the cabin looking at me and holding their hands over the sluce we had built to guide the affluent. I jumped up the side of the hill and ran around the cabin.

    Water was flooding out of the hole, the mud pack I had placed beside the 2x6 beams to keep the water from running under the cabin had washed out and I spent a few minutes running along the slurry breaking out sections to keep the water from pooling. The drill crew seemed happy and were joking. Their last section was in the ground, and they seemed to be looking forward to having an early Friday off.

    "30 gallons pr minute!" the foreman shouted over the din of the drill, which at the moment was plumping air into the hole to clear all the debris from the drilling process.

    By noon, they had droppd 300 feet of casing, filled the area surrounding the casing with gravel and topped off the last 30 feet with concrete.

    Alls well that ends well, eh?

    WOO HOO! We have water!

    ...LOTS of water!

    -----------------
    I'll be blogging this this evening at GuerrillaCamping.blogspot.com with pictures of the process.
     
  2. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    GREAT STORY! Thank you for writing that! I just read it to the intern and staff, and we all laughed!

    Good for you!
     
  3. macthedog

    macthedog Junior Member

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    Great stuff Blackpacker :D 8)
     
  4. Uncle Yarra

    Uncle Yarra Junior Member

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    I so know how you feel.
    When we moved in there was a bore next to the driveway, 23m deep, water at 18m. Water level too low for the pump, it'd suck up the sludge and rocks. No driller wold send his $20k bit down an 'unknown' hole.
    So we decided to drill another bore, not more then 10m away. I was budgeting on 40m, as the neighbour's bore (with water within 5cm level of mine) was 38m.
    50m - dust....
    60m - dust....
    After much negotiation like yours we decided to go further. At 64m we had about 50 GPH.
    Re-negotiation.
    Decided to send down the remaining rods he had on the truck.
    At 84m, we now have 550-600GPH.
    Am I glad I got a 23 stage wet-end instead of the cheaper 18 stage one, I can actually pump at full rate all the way up to the top paddock.
     
  5. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    Hi blackpacker

    great that you eventually got so much water :D nearly twice what we get

    we have a 120m deep bore and get 70 litres a minute

    I was wondering how you plan to get it to the surface? deep bore pumps use a LOT of power ........ have you found any other feasible alternatives ..... we have looked at windmills and solar and neither seems an good for our depth :(

    also I am always confused when americans talk about wells .......... here a well is at least 4 foot diameter and usually we use bores of 4 to 6 inches diameter ........ so what diameter is your "well"

    frosty
     
  6. BlackPacker

    BlackPacker Junior Member

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    Must be a bore hole...

    It is definately not 4 feet wide, rather, it is a foot wide, but once is is cased, it's 6 inches. We are looking at 1.5-1.75HP pumps. In addition to the 300 foot depth (Once we broke the strata at 295 feet, water sprung up to 160 feet) we also have a 100 foot climb over 345 feet of line to our water tanks, so we recognize the need for a good pump. Fortunately my boss has the same set up on their ranch, 300 foot well, 150 foot climb (over 1/2 a kilometer) to their tanks. They also estimate that half of their electricity usage (solar) is pumping water.

    Boy oh boy. I have to dig the 345 foot trench next week. Enjoying my weekend by doing nothing and not having a tool in sight. Believe it or not, I have almost convinced myself that it is easier to dig through sandstone than earth, as at least the edges won't fall in. (No, please don't try to explain why I'm wrong, I might actually break earth on Monday if I keep working on deluding myself...)
     
  7. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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  8. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    BP!!! Holy cow!! That is one wild ride!!! You are a brave guy! If a well driller told me to stop, what do I know about going farther? I would have chickened out.

    Are the tanks a requirement for Code? My dad's well was 30 GPM and he didn't need a tank. He could run three sprinklers and still have enough water for the house.

    What do you think about the tanks being so far away from the well? Is there an issue with the maintenance of the water lines? Does your boss have any problems with little earthquake jiggles or gophers/critters messing with the lines and causing problems? They want us to do the same arrangement, and I just don't want to have to keep an eye on such a huge length of line that is so crucial to the house.

    Congratulations!!
     
  9. BlackPacker

    BlackPacker Junior Member

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    Thanks sweatpea...

    No, not a requirement for code, just a requirement for water pressure and reliability. I can run the pump for 1 hour to fill a 1000 gallon tank, then I only only need to run it intermittantly to keep the tank topped off. As opposed to keeping the lins pressurized with the pump itself. As I live in a very mountainous area, I need to use gravity whenever I can. I also have another 1000 gallon tank beside the cabin, which will feed the garden system with VERY low pressure.

    My buddy had the idea of suspending the pipe above the ground, almost level until the drop off beside the cabin, giving me a 100 foot head for hydro. I think it would be ugly and alot of investment for what would amount to scavenged energy.

    Also, It wasn't my call to go deeper. We were going to 200 feet on that hole, and when we hit the second layer of sandstone, the foreman, offered to go deeper for free if nothing was gained. We really differed to him to make decisions, he has 8 years of experience on wells and seems to know his stuff. One funny thing was their crews obvious disdain for dowsers, I think they have probably hit a few dry holes that were "guranteed hits" ;)

    Also, right now, no batteries or solar installed yet. We'll be running the pump with my generator. Though I checked out that site you sent me, and now I want a jack pump; just so I can paint it to look like a dinosaur. ;)
     
  10. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    BP, I have PVC waterline above ground running into a tank that runs from gravity flow only, the deer kick it when they jump over it, there are raccoon paw prints on it trying to get water, they can really grip and yank, and every few years they undo the glue in the joint occasionally. I have to have uprights every 5 feet or so holding it up to keep it running either level or downhill and to hold it steady in the wind. So, yeah, it's not very glamorous, and you have to bend under it to walk or mow.

    I've also had heavy birds, owls, crows, buzzards sit on it and it bends under their weight. They also have sat on the spark cap over the woodstove pipe and they flattened it. They are heavy buggers!

    Although, if they make us put our waterline strung out for distances, I would put it at ground level marked with stakes to keep an eye on it. I have found that my waterlines that touch the ground that leak a bit get weed roots at that connection, and need to be cleaned out. I would hate to see weeds growing and realize there's a leak underground that is creating those root blockages. I mow a path next to it so it doesn't get lost in the weeds, because I don't trust anything underground here :)
     
  11. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    Re: Must be a bore hole...

    I would be vry interested to know what brand of pump of that size will pump from that depth - and you mention at the rate of 1000 gal / hr in your next post

    the smallest we could find to do the job is a 3hp and it only just pumps 1000g/hr - although of course our extra depth and smaller diam (4'') is major factor .......... we also found out the hard way that to run our pump on generator ( for emerencies like bushfires )needs a min of a 10kva

    frosty
     
  12. BlackPacker

    BlackPacker Junior Member

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    You will have to pardon me if I seem a bit uninformed. I think 100 gph is ludicrous from a small pump. However, We are looking at the same pump as my boss, who has the same depth, a higher lift from well top, and he claims it's possible. We have some guys coming out from TriValley pumps to take a look at our setup and to test the water, and I will know more then...
     
  13. IntensiveGardener

    IntensiveGardener Junior Member

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    Congarats blackpacker on your water success!
    My bore drilling didn't go so well.
    I'm in an area with lots of surface water. The hill over the road has about 5 springs on it, all of them go all year.
    I even hit some water when digging a fence post hole at the bottom of my garden!
    We employed the local "expert" drillers to drill under the agreement of "no water no payment". Sounded good! These blokes came very highly recomended.
    After doing some initial dowsing they told me that there is a large resovoir under my entire valley and that since it could be drilled anywhere with pretty much the same results it would be best to do it near the power outlet.
    After almost a day of drilling through layers of sandstone and finally olivine bassault they hit water at 304 feet!! Obviously we had to pay because they hit water. The flow however is only about 15 litres per minute and i can only run it for about 2 hours before having to wait for it to replenish!
    Naturally i was not very happy, particularly considering the pricetag of about $7500. I questioned the "experts" on why the groundwater was so good in the district and they told me that ground water and the water which is tapped by bores is completely different and that there is no relation between the two.
    Anyone know anything about this??
    I also got another dowser to come out and he told me that actually it DOES matter where the bore is drilled. He claimed that if id done it 50m westward i'd have hit lots of water at a much shallower deapth.

    Anyone know anything about these things bc i am finding it very hard to get good info. Should i risk drilling another one?
    Help!!
    IG
     
  14. BlackPacker

    BlackPacker Junior Member

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    Boy am I learning post facto.

    Turns out the placement of the well on my property has been the act that seperated the men from the boys. Every neighbor would come out to congratulate me, and welcome me to the neighborhood, For seven or eight years, one owner after another would come in, do a project, then sell the property, giving up. Most of them lived 150 miles away in San Francisco, and really had a dream and no way to make it reality.

    So, ground water has NOTHING to do with subterranean water, except in the case of springs. Your ground water travels along the surface, your bore water travels underground. When the sub-terra water comes up, it is a spring.

    The dowser was right, but him saying, oh, fifty feet over is dumb. My dowser guessed 70 feet. Turns out one of my neighbors dug a ten foot deep hole int he place there our cabin is now, for what? To develop a spring. Fifteen feet from where the well had to go 240 feet to get 5 gpm, and 295 to get 30. Twenty feet from the well, we could have hit water at fifteen feet. And congrats at $7500 for 304 feet. Our 300 feet cost us $13500.

    Now, imagine drilling a second hole, odds are you will hit the same aquifier, with the same refresh rate. You best bet is to start investing in some big water tanks, depending on your garden, family size, etc, I's say start with two or three thousand gallons. How long does it take to refresh? My 30 Gallons per minute (75 LPM? I'm no good at metric conversions outside of feet, miloes, meters, KMs) is my refresh rate, in other words, It would take ALOT of pump to suck it dry. So I'm a bit confused. But I would recommend against drilling again, spend the money to figure out how to store the water you can draw. Imagine if you drilled another 300 foot hole, hit the same aquifier, and you had two wells just working on drawing your same limited water. $7500 will buy ALOT of water storage.

    My well is strong enough that I'll be working with a 1000 gallon tank 100 feet above the cabin, which will fill a 1000 gallon tank below the cabin that will also be fed by my rain gutters for my gardens. It's not alot of storage, but enough that I will (barring accidents) be able to maintain water year round. (crossing fingers)

    My faith in drillers is high, my faith in dowsers is low... ;)

    -BP
     
  15. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    BP, so if you had drilled in the second place, you would have developed a spring, which would have come from your 300 foot subterranean fracture? Someone else already tried to drill near your cabin and it didn't work? Not sure what you mean.

    I have a 2400 gallon tank, which is not very big, but it's a great size, I can water 1/2 acre of trees and fruit for 6 hours through drippers before it gets to within a couple feet of the bottom of the tank. You might want to get a slightly bigger tank just so you won't have to eventually get another one? Code says we need 7500 gallons for fire protection.

    Mine is plastic and I have covered the top with 2 layers of green shade cloth so the sun won't rot it through. One smaller tank I have I didn't cover, and it was starting to show signs of sun damage after 10 years. I am thinking of investing in a wooden tank for the drinking water, I'm not real partial to plastic in the sun and the off gassing it can do.
     
  16. BlackPacker

    BlackPacker Junior Member

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    No, the story on the spring is such:

    The hill used to lok like this...
    \
    \
    \ ---- the spring was here.
    \

    Then the hill got turned into this:

    \
    \
    \___
     

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