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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

#221

Post by laurencerowe »

johnloeber wrote: post #172
presidentender wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's called Dowsing and there's no evidence that it works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing

When I was about 12 my dad wanted to do some work plumbing in the house but couldn’t find the stopcock to turn off the water. Figuring it was buried somewhere in the hedge he got me to dowse for the water line with a couple of bent coat hangers.

Waking back and forth across the front lawn the bent coat hangers crossed consistently along a line so he started digging. Unfortunately the pipe he holed with the garden fork was the gas supply and the day ended with the gas company coming around to patch the line. I don’t think we ever found the water stopcock.

Though we can’t explain it dowsing does seem to work. There is however no guarantee that what you find is what you were looking for…

Re: How to drill your own water well

#222

Post by mbivert »

stickfigure wrote: post #219
mbivert wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay granted; my intent wasn't to justify astrology either, but merely to encourage prudence when dismissing "old ideas." To be clear, I'm not talking about modern astrology, but really about old beliefs that could have been built on repeated observations, but weirdly/poorly phrased. In The Republic of Plato, there's this idea of rotation between political regimes[0], and it's explained by the way each generation tre…

While I don't think this particular wikipedia page is especially concise, I do think it's a great jumping off point for links you will find interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_religion I first learned about the link between temporal lobe epilepsy and hyperreligiosity from Robert Sapolsky's Biology and Human Behavior . From your comments I think you'd find it as interesting as I did.

Indeed; not something I was aware of, my knowledge of neurology being essentially void.

Thanks!

Re: How to drill your own water well

#223

Post by JoBrad »

moooo99 wrote: post #135
jcarrano wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still makes sense to have a well because it is a waste to water the lawn with drinking water.

> 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.

Lawns reduce the air and ground temperature significantly. Even if you have a shortage of water in your area, finding a way to maintain a natural lawn has benefits. That isn’t the same as maintaining a golf course, but watering a lawn to keep it from dying for a few peak-heat weeks is well worth it, in my opinion.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#224

Post by PebblesRox »

mbivert wrote: post #217
stickfigure wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without evaluating the quality of the study, I don't have a hard time accepting the notion that the season of your birth may affect your average lifespan by a few months. It is a very modest claim. The claims of astrologers are not at all like this. They are vastly more specific.

Okay granted; my intent wasn't to justify astrology either, but merely to encourage prudence when dismissing "old ideas." To be clear, I'm not talking about modern astrology, but really about old beliefs that could have been built on repeated observations, but weirdly/poorly phrased. In The Republic of Plato, there's this idea of rotation between political regimes[0], and it's explained by the way each generation tre…

A Facebook friend was talking about how overwhelming and chaotic her life has been feeling lately and people were chiming in to say they were in the same boat and attributing it to the Mercury retro-whatever.

Must just be a coincidence that it's back-to-school season and everyone is transitioning out of their summer routines into school-mode.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#225

Post by 0x445442 »

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…

When I was younger I witnessed a well witcher find a location with a devining stick. Spooky stuff.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#226

Post by lost_tourist »

moooo99 wrote: post #135
jcarrano wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still makes sense to have a well because it is a waste to water the lawn with drinking water.

> 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 is the next environmental movement i'd love to see, the end of lawns and acceptance of native landscapes all over the world, but especially the western world.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#227

Post by lost_tourist »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #186
eric-hu wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Everyone I know with personal wells here in the US does water tests at least once a year, sometimes more often.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#228

Post by lost_tourist »

moooo99 wrote: post #139
quickthrower2 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t water the lawn (or fertilise or roundup etc.) in Australia: for some reason it stays green without it: buffalo grass is as tough as nails! Sometimes it goes yellow but it always comes back!

Lawns in the US consume as many resources as they do because the typical lawn you see isn't a species native to the US, instead it was imported from Europe. With the soil being different etc., it is not surprising lawns, especially when they're as big as in the US, require so many resources.

I went with a native grass and my watering is down to 1/4 what it was before that. the grass does go dormant and turn brown in the summer/colder winters though, so it's not as pretty but it is what it is, and HOA allows "xeroscaping"

Re: How to drill your own water well

#229

Post by lost_tourist »

0x445442 wrote: post #225
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…

When I was younger I witnessed a well witcher find a location with a devining stick. Spooky stuff.

Or as I suspect like where I grew up, if you dig down far enough you will hit water. The professional guys there would just ask "where do you want it?" and 99% of the time there was water there and not that far down.

Re: How to drill your own water well

#230

Post by hypercube33 »

laurencerowe wrote: post #221
johnloeber wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called Dowsing and there's no evidence that it works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing

When I was about 12 my dad wanted to do some work plumbing in the house but couldn’t find the stopcock to turn off the water. Figuring it was buried somewhere in the hedge he got me to dowse for the water line with a couple of bent coat hangers. Waking back and forth across the front lawn the bent coat hangers crossed consistently along a line so he started digging. Unfortunately the pipe he holed with the garden for…

I mean statistics may, if someone spent enough time, show that things are generally where they feel best being because a human like you put it there. also you have about a 50% give or take winning anything so leaving it to odds feels better than trying to push one way or another.
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