2019 Spring Home & Garden

PAGE 30 2019 SPRING HOME & GARDEN LINCOLN DAILY NEWS MAY 2, 2019 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. 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 Well casing before installation CONTINUED u