Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to drill your own water well

drillyourownwell.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 233 posts

Re: How to drill your own water well

#181

Post by ooterness »

Ariarule wrote: post #5
housemusicfan wrote: post #2

This sounds like a terrible idea, along the lines of "How to perform your own knee surgery"

What exactly is so terrible as long as you're willing to take a small to moderate risk of getting a PVC pipe stuck in the ground and keep in mind the presented cautions -- consider the water irrigation-only/non-potable until tested (possibly even if tested, although that's not what the site says)?

Badly dug, uncapped wells can also exacerbate groundwater contamination, making the problem worse for everyone else.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#182

Post by soperj »

monkmartinez wrote: post #150
digitalsushi wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, if I point at a random spot in the ground in an area that generally has water, and I said, "dig here and you will find water", and you put 1/5 a mile of pipe down into the earth and water comes up, am I some type of miracle? Would those people work in the desert? I think it's a lotto ticket that always wins.

These people do work in the desert. I have a buddy that drills wells here in Arizona and he WILL NOT put a drill into the ground without a Witcher. I have a really hard time with "witching" from a logical POV, but my buddy and his $130k truck/equipment swear by it. I call that putting your money where your mouth is.

> I call that putting your money where your mouth is.

Others would say "A fool and his money are soon parted".

Re: How to drill your own water well

#183

Post by soperj »

gallamine wrote: post #175
gregmac wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The test would be finding a spot where a witcher says there isn't water, and then drilling there. There's water almost everywhere in the ground -- the questions are is there enough of it to meet the need? is it usable (ie: not contaminated with salt or toxic chemicals)?

> There's water almost everywhere in the ground In Arizona?

Yes.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#185

Post by d00wgnir »

bobthepanda wrote: post #33
oceanplexian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea behind doing it yourself is that you don’t need a permit. In the USA, while permits are technically required for a lot of things, the law is widely ignored, and enforcement is lax to nonexistent. Hell most of the licensed contractors I hire (electric, plumbing, etc) don’t bother to pull permits, even for new work.

The permits exist for a reason. If too many people start doing it, it becomes an issue of overdrawing groundwater. This leads to an arms race of digging ever deeper wells to reach the remaining groundwater, and on top of that starts leading to ground subsidence as ground formerly full of water dries out and compacts. Off the top of my head, there is massive groundwater subsidence in the Central Valley of California,…

I was looking into this DIY approach and it is not allowed in my county. Some of the justification is that improperly cased wells can allow backflow contamination of the larger water supply, affecting other nearby water sources. I'm not sure how likely this is as I have limited knowledge of the subject.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#186

Post by OfSanguineFire »

eric-hu wrote: post #168
OfSanguineFire wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

People all over the world water plants with water that is not potable itself due to bacterial or viral contamination. This is where the old traveler’s adage “Boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it” comes from.

If the groundwater is not potable because of e.g. arsenic or pesticide contamination, I think that homeowners are usually aware of that and therefore are more likely to use the water only for washing purposes.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#187

Post by RajT88 »

technothrasher wrote: post #119
RajT88 wrote: post #90

The house I live in has a well. 400 feet deep (why? long story). The thing to be aware of is that there's a few different kinds of additives you might need for well water. The most usual is water softener. Ours isn't too hard, but what we do have is hydrogen sulphate from bacteria in the soil - it requires hydrogen peroxide to make the water smell neutral and palatable.

I had an issue with hydrogen sulfide bacteria in my well water system. If I didn't run any water for a couple days (like, say, I went away for the weekend), I'd get a terrible sulfur smell to my water. When my well pump failed, I took the opportunity while the well head was off to dump a bunch of bleach down the well. Haven't had a problem in years now.

Interesting! I had wondered if that would be viable.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#188

Post by fred_is_fred »

adrianmonk wrote: post #176
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…

Where I live, they base the sewage fees off water usage during the winter. Since few people water their yards then, it mostly takes irrigation out of the equation. Bonus: it spurs you to think about conservation. When your 3-month wastewater averaging period starts, you know that any water you save will cut costs for the whole year.

Same here and I've thought about this, but the cost savings of doing less winter laundry for example are in the end miniscule. We pay way more for water than for sewer.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#189

Post by candiddevmike »

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…

If you dig deep enough anywhere you'll probably find water eventually.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#190

Post by yencabulator »

athenot wrote: post #103
h2odragon wrote: post #9

"Mother Earth News" is a good resource: (1984) https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/d... > Some people ... got their rig stuck three different times in their first well! As they wrote, “We recognize that many of our problems are due to our inexperience …. But our inexperience is not much different from yours.” They have many other articles on the subject; but I'm fond of linking to this one in p…

Thanks for posting this; I have Georgia granite under my feet in random and unpredictable quantities. I've noticed most of the "success stories" in the submitted article happen to be in sandy areas, or with softer ground.

Over here it's sand, sandstone & clay, but I can't even dig a big enough hole to plant a bush without hitting rocks the size of my head. To anyone wishing to drill into the ground like this, good luck!
Post reply on HN