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How to drill your own water well

drillyourownwell.com

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Re: How to drill your own water well

#161

Post by nahuel0x »

gottorf wrote: post #149
fouc wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep, we're failing to price those hidden externalities big time.

There's a philosophical question here, which is that as science and technology get better and our ability to measure things improve, the hidden externalities become less and less hidden. Nobody told Grok the caveman not to burn sticks in his cave for warmth, out of concern for releasing CO2 and particulate matter; but nowadays it's frowned upon to use a wood pellet furnace instead of electric heat, for example. Exist…

We can stop destroying the entire biosphere first and then get philosophical with the remaining details.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#162

Post by poulsbohemian »

dbrgn wrote: post #54

I wondered how getting a permit in Switzerland would work. According to some sources I found: - You need to request a permit from your city and your canton's water and sewage department - To get a permit, you need a "proof of utility", so you can't just dig a well for fun, it needs to bring some benefit. - You need a written technical planning document as well, including an analysis on the energy- and cost-efficiency…

Where I work as a Realtor, it's generally possible to drill a well for domestic use. It will typically run about $20K and as we have a high water table, they generally hit water around 60 feet and will take the well down to around 250 feet if they want to "future proof" it. Deepest well in our area that I've heard of is around 900 feet and that was considered really rare / extreme.

Where homeowners become conflicted is that well gives them the rights to domestic use and to water a basic yard, but nothing beyond that. You are quickly in to "water rights" which can become complex and limiting. More and more we are seeing water masters (a state role) take away rights from landowners who are not fully using their water rights. For example, if the land was previously farmed but has now gone fallow and the water right has not been used, the state will revoke it - and there's a 0.0% chance of ever getting it back. This sometimes leads to cases where people (farmers) overuse their water to ensure they are demonstrating usage, but then of course that can lead to fines for overuse. No question water is going to be a defining issue in the American west for the foreseeable future.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#163

Post by bochoh »

My 5 year plan includes building a shed with power, then adding a self driven well and adding the capacity to switch irrigation off city water to the shed source (tm). In the northeast so no real water concerns here

Re: How to drill your own water well

#164

Post by naikrovek »

never in my life have I read a more positive landing page about drilling your own well.

this guy has me convinced that i can drill my own well.

i don't need to drill my own well, but if i ever do, i am sure that i can do it, now.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#165

Post by naikrovek »

benoliver999 wrote: post #129
zigzaggy wrote: post #116

My grandfather was a "well witcher" (Appalachian roots here). Many believe that's woo woo or some kind of super power. The man was incredibly intelligent and resourceful and he had a reputation for finding water every single time he dropped the drill into the ground. When I was a kid I used to go to sleep listening to stories of my dad and his dad driving around on a 2 ton truck with a 3 ton drill and how the brakes…

In The Traveller's Tree by Patrick Leigh Fermor, a travelogue from the Caribbean, he gives an account of water divination. He initially sees it as some voodoo myth, and is taken aback when they repeatedly find water.

the depth of the water table is fairly well known throughout the world, and it is not like a series of underwater rivers which are easily missed; the water table is called a "table" because it is very large and very flat.

if you are within 100 miles of a natural body of water, or in a flood plain, or anywhere that it rains semi-regularly, drilling will get you to a source of water.

there's no magic or divination involved.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#166

Post by gregmac »

aaron695 wrote: post #28

> Many folks think they have to dig or drill their well into an aquifer. My concern here is ground water will have septic contamination, don't know if that's stupid or not. Hand dug wells are fun to watch on TikTok, most on the tag are old ones, but a few are people digging them - https://www.tiktok.com/tag/handdug%20well This one scared the shit out of me - https://www.tiktok.com/@smithalayamrajeev/video/72399975850…

> My concern here is ground water will have septic contamination, don't know if that's stupid or not.

It's not just that, dug and shallow wells are also getting surface water run-off -- basically anything on the ground in the immediate area or uphill. There's actually an acronym for this: GWUDI (Groundwater under the direct influence [of surface water]). They're highly susceptible to seasonal changes and rain. The worst ones are people that in a lower-lying area than nearby farms -- nitrates (from animal feces and fertilizers) and pesticides are all extremely expensive to remove from water.

When you do a drilled well, the annular space (the hole around the casing) actually has to be sealed (with bentonite) to prevent surface water from getting directly into the well and aquifer. I see no mention of this in the article.

Where I live (Ontario Canada) there are environmental laws protecting ground water. Badly done wells can actually contaminate a huge area and affect other people's wells and drinking water.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#167

Post by the_fury »

stickfigure wrote: post #151
finnh wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a more functional and charitable read of this: not all of our senses are plumbed all the way through to our conscious mind at all times. small little hints (like minor changes in smell, relative humidity, maybe just pattern-matching on the lay of the land) are down in the noise, and pulling out your trusty sticks gives your subconscious a way to send a signal to your awareness. Kinda like acupuncture…

This is far too charitable. The first question we should ask is "does it actually work?" and the answer is NO. The wikipedia page lists quite a few scientific studies that establish this. The net summary is: The scientific evidence shows that dowsing is no more effective than random chance. It is therefore regarded as a pseudoscience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing

You have to be careful of what you mean by "does it actually work".

Does the dowsing find water hidden in a random spot or is the dowser tapping into subconscious knowledge about the land to find it. The parent is talking about the latter.

Look up "Ideomotor phenomenon" in your source. It's right above the pseudoscience bit.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#168

Post by eric-hu »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #142
moooo99 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It still makes sense to have a well because it is a waste to water the lawn with drinking water. Watering the lawn is just a waste of water, period. Ground water is commonly used as the primary source of drinking water, so even if the water is being extracted from a well, it is pretty much drinking water.

This very much depends on the place. There are plenty of areas of Europe where groundwater at ordinary well depth is no longer potable and the community relies on a reservoir with a different source. So, if your property has an old well, all it is good for is watering a lawn or orchard, washing your car or bicycle, etc.

I’m curious: if the water isn’t considered potable, would you want to be watering plants with it? Is the contamination more often bacterial than chemical?

Re: How to drill your own water well

#169

Post by bluGill »

presidentender wrote: post #136
zigzaggy wrote: post #116

My grandfather was a "well witcher" (Appalachian roots here). Many believe that's woo woo or some kind of super power. The man was incredibly intelligent and resourceful and he had a reputation for finding water every single time he dropped the drill into the ground. When I was a kid I used to go to sleep listening to stories of my dad and his dad driving around on a 2 ton truck with a 3 ton drill and how the brakes…

My dad drilled water wells in the US after spending many years working on oil wells overseas. His clients would often hire witchers (water witches, water witchers, well witches - I think the distance from Appalachia to Montana clouded the specific vocabulary). You'd have this very old man dodder around the property with a pair of sticks, and when the sticks magically chose to pull together and cross, that's where you…

In most cases you can drill just about anywhere and find water. So any approach from random to looking at geological features (which you can gather from seismograph data, if needed set off an explosion in controlled locations...) will find water. The latter approach may find a specific place where a less deep well can work, but in most locations there isn't that much a difference (at least not among the reasonable places to drill your well - if you are willing to pay for miles of pipe you can maybe have a useful choice of location).

Re: How to drill your own water well

#170

Post by jcampbell1 »

dalke wrote: post #12

I don't think it would be worthwhile to make your own hydraulic drill if there are rental alternatives. More specifically, around 1981 my Dad rented a drilling rig to supply the irrigation pump for our yard in Miami. See, the city was phasing out septic systems, and had installed sewers to our neighborhood. They charged for sewer based on water consumed. By drilling a well he could avoid paying sewage fees for irriga…

Many places allow for dual meters: one water meter that is used for irrigation and another for water that ultimately goes for waste treatment. In places with abundant water, e.g. places where this drilling technique would work, the water is typically practically free and the “water bill” is mostly a sewer bill.
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