Developing the well

I caught up with Boyd on the phone this evening. There was a slight delay earlier in the week when the topmost well casing weld broke - that required digging down to and around the break so it could be re-welded. They're past that problem now and are developing the well. Here's a picture Boyd sent me today:

The drill stem is all the way at the bottom of the well, and is being used to pump compressed air down to the bottom of the well, which obviously forces the water up to the top. Then, according to Boyd, they just let it run like this for hours and hours, which helps get the fine sands and other materials cleared out ensuring a nice clean, non-sandy water supply.

Finally, for fun I used some of my l33t Paintbrush skilz to create a cross-section of the well:

The screens are held tight against the bottom of the hole (by the drill stem - not shown in above drawing - extending down inside the screens to the very bottom), while the casing is moved up and down to expose more or less of the screens to the aquifer. This is what I mentioned in my last post, but the above drawing makes it more clear, I think, how things really look. :)

Almost ready to take a shower...

My friend from work and I drove out to the property this morning to see how things were going. I really wanted to get a good look at the "well screens" which go at the bottom of the well to filter out rocks and sand from getting into the pump. Here's a side-shot of a well screen; they are made of stainless steel:

These are "ten slot" screens, which means that the slots are 0.010" wide. Apparently this is a pretty fine screen, but it's necessary because the material at the bottom of my well has a lot of very, very fine sand that will get past larger slots. These particular screens were made by Alloy Machine Works, down in Texas.

Here's a look down the inside length of a screen:

In the picture above, you can see two other screens underneath the one propped on the tailgate. Each screen is 5' long, so I'll have 15' of screens total, after they are welded together. Three screens is what Boyd said I had room for in this aquifer. I could have gone with just one and saved some money, but the more screen surface area you have, the less time it should take for the aquifer to re-fill the well after you've pumped some water out. In theory anyway. I tend to over-build things regardless, and this seemed like cheap insurance so I went with all three screens.

The screen slots are narrowest on the outside, and open up towards the inside; this ensures that sand and other materials that get past the outside opening, won't get stuck. If any particles do make it inside, they'll just keep going and eventually fall to the bottom of the screen. You might be able to see what I'm saying, by comparing the first picture above with this one:

This doodad is what is known as a "K packer"...

The K-packer is used (if I remember this correctly) to attach\seal the well screen to the bottom of the well casing. I think we've got it upside down in the picture above, but presumably the well screen is welded to one end of the K-packer, and then it's just slid down the entire well casing until it gets close to the bottom. The very bottom of the well screen has a flat cap that gets welded on to seal that end. So the only way for water to get into the well itself, is through the well screen.

We were there this morning when Boyd fired up his rig and started pumping compressed air down the hole. This is what came out when he did that:

Sure, the water appears a bit rusty and dirty...but check out that volume - wow! As time passed though, the well seemed to settle down and this is what a more average flow tended to look like:

If I can judge correctly (based on my extensive, two-hour-long well-flow-estimation lesson), the flow in the above picture is not 11gpm as I reported in my last post. I found this quite interesting, but the flow rate (yield) actually can change at different depths within the aquifer. Near the top of the aquifer (I think) it was near 11gpm, but the material there was very, very fine sand, which Boyd was trying to avoid. So he was hunting around (up and down, I mean) for good yields at other depths in the aquifer, but with coarser material. Based on his comments I guess gravel is the best because you get good water flow through the gravel, and gravel won't plug up your screens. However, he was quite confident that in the end he'd get that 11gpm out of our well. Sound good to me!

Finally, the crew keeps a can of cake frosting on hand in case they need a quick sugar pick-me-up:

Ha! Nah, that's actually the magic anti-seize goop that they put on the drill bit extension threads; I guess to prevent binding and stripping.

Looks like we have water!

Boyd emailed me this evening to let me know that they hit a good supply of water at around 312 feet. "Good supply" being 11 gallons per minute...wow! I am very pleased and excited, that much water is more than I had dared hope for. More details as I get them, but I couldn't resist sharing this much info immediately.... :-)

Still drilling...

A co-worker and I drove out to the property and managed to catch the crew in action. Boyd (our well driller) is down to 220', but still no water (well, there was maybe a hint of a trickle at ~195', Boyd said maybe it was a quart a minute....far from being a viable supply :)). Actually a quart a minute is close to be legally viable. He said that the minimum is 400 gallons a day, so after doing the math that works out to .28 gallons per minute. There doesn't seem to be a hard-and-fast rule though for what is considered a "good enough" flow rate though....I am hoping for at least five gallons per minute, but we'll see.

Here's a closeup of of a drill bit:

Boyd standing at the control panel:

The truck to the left has a huge water tank on the back...they pump water down to the bottom to help lube the bit and also help bring the cuttings back up (along with the help of compressed air).

They also mix the water with some heavy-duty soap stuff, in order to form a thick foam; apparently this helps to drive the cuttings back up the well casing:

Here's some of the foam flying out of the exhaust pipe (there's probably a better term than "exhaust pipe" for this thing....):

Job site is looking busy:

Sometimes the top of the well casing gets bent inwards from the pressure of the hydraulic hammer; then it has to be cut off so that the fresh casing can be welded on straight. Boyd hit a huge rock boulder almost 25' thick from about 160-185 or so, which involved a ton of pounding to get through; you can just see the slight bent portion in this picture:

Here's the freshly cut-off casing:

Here Boyd and his helper Robert are making the new casing section plumb with the old one (see the little magnetic level? I've got one of these at home, never realized it could be used for drilling a well.... :):

If the new casing is not vertical (checked in both dimensions), they fix it by nudging the hydraulic lift controls which support the drilling rig truck (the rear drive wheels are not even touching the ground). Kinda cool, to see an entire truck shaking this way and that just to bring that 20' high casing section into true...

This clamp mechanism is used to hold the old and new casing sections in-line with each other until they can be tack-welded together:

Let the welding commence:

Finished weld:

When preparing the bid, Boyd had told me I could save some money by specifying cheaper well casings that are made in China. He doesn't recommend this though, since the quality is inconsistent and the steel is usually quite soft. This results in occasional broken welds while pounding the case into the ground. One time on another job he mentioned that he actually broke the weld w/o realizing it and pounded the upper section about twelve feet into the lower section - ouch! I am paying the extra money for high quality components...don't want to take risks with your water supply!

It's probably pretty obvious by now, but I find this well drilling stuff pretty darn fascinating. The whole idea of getting a usable supply of water from deep in the ground is cool just to start with; then watching the process of pounding 20', 300+ lb steel casings into the earth is even better. Now let's just hope we hit water before I run out of money.... :-)

Finally, if you're interested I found a lot of good information on wells and groundwater at the American Groundwater Trust site...

More drilling rig pictures

The well is down about 60' so far. I drove out there this morning with my neighbor Bill to take another look at the drilling rig. This time I made sure the camera battery was charged. Here's the rig setup:

A side view of the rig:

Some of the "cuttings" from the bottom of the hole:

Pile of extra well casings; some have drill bit extensions (the ones with threads) pre-staged within them:

If I have time this next week at work, I'll try to get out there while actual drilling is happening, so I can record the process on camera.

Another important criteria for the project was met this week: we recieved the septic plan approval from the county...only took three months (almost to the day). Once we find water with this well, then we should be able to get our permits and get the house construction started.

Well drilling begins

Boyd Himebaugh is our well driller; he is onsite this week and has started drilling. We went out this afternoon to see how things were looking. Turns out he had just started today and when we showed up, he had just finished welding the second section of pipe onto the first section:

Regrettably, after taking the above picture the battery in our camera chose that moment to die. The way the machine works is pretty fascinating though! We stayed long enough to watch the drilling rig drill and pound the second section into the ground, then watched how they swung another section of pipe+drill bit (the drill bit extensions are on a second truck, pre-staged within the pipe) onto the drilling rig and hooked it all up. I will be back out there next week to take more pictures.