|
 A well is a hole in the ground that goes down deep
enough to access the purest water available in your area in amounts
that will adequately service your household. The location of the
well is crucial. It needs to be at least seventy five feet away from
your septic system, and within one hundred feet of your house to
provide the power needed to the pump. And most of all, the well
needs to be located where there is water available.
Water witching
video
Reasons to need a new well vary. If you have built a new home where
there is no existing well, then before you can inhabit the house a
source of potable water must be found and tapped. Old wells can go
dry, or become contaminated, making a new well necessary. And the
equipment, casing, and infrastructure of an old well can go bad with
age and corrosion, requiring a new well. Today's modern well
construction should last through fifty to sixty years of use.
The process begins with the selection of a well drilling company
(well drilling is not a DIY project). It is recommended that you
research all the companies within a one hundred mile radius of your
home. Interview them by phone, asking questions about their company
history (how long they have been in business), whether they have
drilled wells in your area (and their experience with the depth of
drilled wells in your area), and ask about their guarantee. What you
want is a company with many years of experience that will guarantee
they will bring in quality water for your home.
Once you have made your driller selection, you should get an
estimate. Don't confuse an estimate with a quote. All well drilling
operations operate on time and material. They can only estimate how
much your project might cost. Expect that they will be in the ball
park, and that there will likely be extra costs that are unseen at
the time of the estimate. In the case of drilling a replacement
well, there will be added costs to demolish, sanitize, and seal your
old well.
The drilling company should contact the local county health
department and obtain the permit for drilling and determine the
proper location for the well. The permit fees will be added to your
bill.
Most modern domestic wells are drilled (bored wells usually provide
greater amounts of water for commercial buildings) through all the
upper layers of soil and subsoil, passing through various layers of
clay, sand, gravel and perhaps even rock. The well must go deep
enough to avoid drawing contaminated surface water and instead tap a
source of deep ground water.
Video of well
drilling machine
The drilling machine itself weighs about twenty three tons, and you
may need to get special permission to bring it in to your property
on paved country roads. This powerful machine is mounted on a truck
bed, with a fold up derrick that has hoists, a canister to hold the
drilling rods, and a very powerful drilling machine that turns,
blows air, and pumps water. The crew may lay down protective mats on
your lawn to help protect your turf from damage, but even with the
mats you will still need grading and landscaping afterward to smooth
out ruts and fill holes.
With the truck in place, raised on outriggers, the derrick is
hoisted, the accessories installed for containing the wastes that
come out of the well, and the mud-machine turned on to filter out
the material that comes out of the well, as well as inject a gel in
the water-based slurry that is pumped into the hole as the drill
descends. The gel coats the drilled-well sides and helps solidify
them to prevent collapse. A narrow drill bit is fitted onto the
first hollow rod, and the initial drill is made to the length of the
twenty foot rod. It is not the drill bit itself that does the
cutting, but is instead the abrasive slurry that is pumped to the
bit as it turns and is pushed down into the earth. Rod after rod is
added until the driller finds the most productive depth.
Typically drilled wells can be anywhere from thirty feet to three
hundred feet deep, based on what the experienced well driller finds
as they push the bit deeper and deeper into the ground. The driller
is looking for a pocket of gravel or porous rock that has sufficient
ground water, and knows from experience when the prospects of being
in the right place occurs. When the magic depth is obtained, the
entire drill assembly, rod-by-rod is retrieved from the hole, and
the initial narrow bit is removed and replaced with an expander bit
to make the drilled hole large enough to accept the casing; and the
entirety of the hole is reamed out to the final depth. Depending on
the material they have to drill through, the time to drill a one
hundred foot well takes about a full eight hour day.
[to top of second column] |
There are numerous dangers in drilling a well. The
drilling machine itself is an intricate device utilizing high
pressure hydraulics, high pressure pneumatics (air) and a powerful
pump for the slurry. The machine is controlled by levers and an
impressive control panel, and a wrong move on the controls can cause
a hose to be severed which "will cut the operator's head off." Other
dangers such as drilling into an artesian spring can occur, in which
the water comes out of the drilled hole under great pressure, and
can cause damage to equipment, injury to operators, and will cause
the sides of the drilled well to collapse, and the whole project to
be shut down and moved to a new spot. Well drilling is not for the
inexperienced or faint of heart.
video of
inserting well casing
Once the drilled hole has reached the final depth and been reamed to
a size larger than the casing of the well, the rods and bits are
removed and the operation shifts to the insertion and sealing of the
casing. The casing is a large pipe (they use heavy plastic pipe
these days instead of cast iron or steel to prevent corrosion). The
casing is usually five or six inches wide to accommodate the
appropriate in-well pump. The casing has fine mesh of stainless
steel on the bottom, closing off the bottom of well. The mesh allows
the water to rise up in the casing, but does not allow the larger
particulates to enter the well. Section after section of this
plastic casing is cemented together, lowered by machine down into
the drilled well, until it is fitted into the bottom of the hole.
After the casing is seated, the operators seal the hole around the
casing with fine powdered bentonite clay which mixes with water and
expands at a rate of 12:1. The clay seals the hole around the pipe
to keep surface water from entering the well space. Once the casing
is sealed, the drilling process is complete. The crew will use the
drilling machine to pump the water from the casing at a high rate
until the water runs clean, and then they will chlorinate the well
and temporarily seal the top. The big machines then drive off into
the sunset and it is time for the finishing crew to come.
In a drilled well of a hundred foot depth, it is common to have the
pressure of the ground cause the water to rise up in the well casing
to eight to 10 feet from the top of the casing (about a ninety foot
column of water). Your well should provide a high level of
replenishment of water to meet the needs of your household The
finishing crew will install an in-well pump at a depth which gets
the best quality and quantity of water. The pump is connected to
electricity, and to piping lowered to the depth and connected to a
device called the pitless adapter located down in the casing below
the frost line. The casing is capped, and the well is complete.
video of
putting the pump down into the well
Your local health department will require testing the output from
the new well for dangerous bacteria called coliform. If coliform is
present, they may require additional chlorination of the well to
determine if the bacteria can be killed, and if it persists, a
device to inject chlorine into your water supply may be required, or
an ultra-violet filter added to your system to kill the bacteria and
make your water drinkable.
Residential systems come in two different technologies today.
Systems with a single-speed pump and a pressure tank in the basement
or crawl space is the traditional and less expensive route.
A newer system called "continuous flow" uses a DC pump that runs at
variable speeds and does not have a pressure tank. It will provide
water at all taps comparable to city-water pressures. This system is
more expensive to install, but electrically is less expensive to run
and may pay for itself over the years of service.
Having a well drilled is an expensive process. Getting the right
well-driller and having adequate communications with that company
and having the right expectations is important. Allow for
flexibility in the budget. Good water is a very valuable commodity.
|
