"Mother Earth News" is a good resource:<p>(1984) <a href="https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/drill-your-own-well-zmaz84sozraw/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/d...</a><p>> 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.”<p>They have many other articles on the subject; but I'm fond of linking to this one in particular.<p>I helped dig that well. And several others. The fellow in the middle of the picture there is my dad.<p>Using the gantry rig pictured in the article was much easier than just the engine unit (much like a post hole digger they sell in stores now). One of our crew was a gifted machinist who ran that up after we bent the several pipes trying to dig without bracing.
In Poland it's quite common for people to just hand dig their wells, using concrete rings for the reinforcement of walls. It's legal up to 30 meters depth and up to 5 m^3/day water yield.<p>Article (in Polish but there's pics): <a href="https://darmowyporadnik.pl/artykul/36/budownictwo/kopanie-studni-z-kregow-betonowych-metoda-gospodarcza.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://darmowyporadnik.pl/artykul/36/budownictwo/kopanie-st...</a><p>Edit: Or maybe I should say "it was" - most new wells are just a vertical steel pipe with a submerged electric pump rather than big concrete rings. These are obviously much more convenient and safer.
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.<p>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 always went out. Somehow they always lived to tell the tale.<p>Haven't thought about this in a long time. Good memories.
I wondered how getting a permit in Switzerland would work.<p>According to some sources I found:<p>- You need to request a permit from your city and your canton's water and sewage department<p>- 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.<p>- You need a written technical planning document as well, including an analysis on the energy- and cost-efficiency of your project<p>- If you want to drill down to the groundwater (for drinking water quality), you need additional analyses being done, to prove that the project conforms to standards and causes no harm.<p>It sure sounds fun to have your own well, but I think I'll stick to collecting rain water.
I don't think it would be worthwhile to make your own hydraulic drill if there are rental alternatives.<p>More specifically, around 1981 my Dad rented a drilling rig to supply the irrigation pump for our yard in Miami.<p>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 irrigation water.<p>I think he hit water at 8 feet, and put the well down to 12. This was Miami.<p>It also drilled through some limestone.
This is interesting. Part of my life was working with a water well driller running a rig for my grand-father's business a long time ago. The technique is virtually identical but with a hydraulic lift for running the drill and uses compressed air to clear the bore.<p>The first step was to find the location and park the drilling rig so it wouldn't sink once the well was dug. Then you'd raise the drill arm, attach a section of pipe and the drill head. You'd lower it down into a round flange that had an opening to one side where all of the cuttings blew out. My job was to shovel the cuttings into a trench to direct water flow once you hit the water line. It was critical to keep water from getting under the tires of the rig.<p>Each section of pipe is 20 feet long and as you drill in you detach the rig head, raise it, get another section of pipe from a rotating carousel and then start grinding again. Once done you pull all the pipe by basically doing the reverse and then perform a similar operation to push casing down into the hole. When the rig pulls away you have a round hole in the ground ready to have another truck come in to insert an electric pump with all the wiring. Then you box everything up at the top and say job done.<p>Oil field drilling is pretty similar as well but the rigs are vastly larger and move way more earth much faster. My dad worked on a rough necking crew and I've been exposed to the oil and gas industry most of my life so this is an interesting tangent.
I tried this years ago and it ended in failure. From what I learned it seems like your soil down to the level you want to drill to has to be basically 100% silt/sand/clay. In most areas there are various pebbles, some up to the the size of a dime or so, and what I found was smaller particles would wash up and out of the hole, but these pebbles would accumulate on the bottom.<p>I switched from using low-volume water sources to a 1.5HP well pump pulling from a swimming pool. The pool would empty in about 20 minutes, and I would then have to wait for it to refill from a regular hose. However, while this very high water volume was able to clear the pebbles (which is how I know the floor of the hole was covered with pebbles at all, it was maybe 12 feet down at that point), there was diminishing returns and eventually the pebbles no longer cleared the top.<p>I'm sure I was doing something completely wrong, in the end if you have sandy/silty/clay soil you can just buy a sand point (aka driven point) and sledgehammer it down as deep as you need to go. It's a lot more heavy labor but it is also almost certain to work.
It is nice to get that many details on a single drilling method. But keep in mind - there are many more techniques for making your own well. Some might be better suited depending on the conditions.<p>There are hand operated drills, 150mm diameter with extension rods up to 10-15m long. If it works for your soil, then this is less messy.<p>I went with digging and a different type of dug well "Schachtbrunnen". I laid a pre-fabricated concrete ring on the ground and started digging inside until it sank into the ground. When it was level, I put the next ring on top. No special tool needed, a shovel, a bucket, some rope, patience and certainly a permit.
I tried to use this to drill a well some years ago on the west coast of Florida near the ocean. Worked great through the sand about 20 feet. Then we hit a shale deposit. There was no getting through it. Some pro well drillers came and couldn't make it through either. The neighbor drilled his own well a couple years prior and told us the secret. Blasting caps. We gave up.
The problem is if that leads to water contamination, all it takes some of these homemade drillers to contaminate it “by mistake” with gasoline, oil, or even chemicals, with all what it means to environment and people using the same water.
For folks interested in the standard process, I highly recommend this channel: <a href="https://youtube.com/@h2omechanic">https://youtube.com/@h2omechanic</a>. Very informative.
The house I live in has a well. 400 feet deep (why? long story).<p>The thing to be aware of is that there's a few different kinds of additives you might need for well water.<p>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.
Is this for drinking water? And what depths can be reached with this method? I wish these were stated more clearly; I’m guessing “not drinking”, based on:<p>> It is great for saving money on watering your lawn and irrigating a garden.<p>Off topic: as a non native English speaker, the title made me pause. As in, why would I want to drill my water and do it well?… oh, water well, right.
Probably want to read this first, particularly if you live in a western USA state:<p><a href="https://waterfilterguru.com/is-it-legal-to-drill-your-own-well/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://waterfilterguru.com/is-it-legal-to-drill-your-own-we...</a><p>Shrinking aquifers and neighbors drilling wells just a bit deeper than their neighbor's wells have contributed to a long-standing conflict over water access, see Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner for the historical origins of conflicts.<p>"Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting!" - Mark Twain
I live in Switzerland and my house is build on a rock, some of the foundation is actually rock and not concrete but it's old from 1750. So that drilling technique is not for my yard.<p>But, this lead me to think, is non rock ground frequent in urbanized area? Is rock ground like my place more like the exception? I'm used to it so I thought it was the norm, but I guess it is not.
Site must have received an HN hug of death, so not sure what method it reccomends.<p>There's a (university research group?) called WOT that uploads videos to Youtube with different low cost/low tech techniques, my favorite one being with a hand drill: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQRhsoSCXvg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQRhsoSCXvg</a>
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
never in my life have I read a more positive landing page about drilling your own well.<p>this guy has me convinced that i can drill my own well.<p>i don't need to drill my own well, but if i ever do, i am sure that i can do it, now.
In my days of fighting paranormal activities and beliefs (homeopathy, wells witchers, ...) we were usually told that we do not have open minds and do not accept anything outside of our limited science.<p>For one, you need to have an open mind, but be careful to not your brain fall off (<a href="https://youtu.be/RFO6ZhUW38w?si=1Snzh3lhFJ6d381g&t=12" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/RFO6ZhUW38w?si=1Snzh3lhFJ6d381g&t=12</a>)<p>Then, we were very much interested in seeing these unusual things happening. As I mentioned it in a previous comment, I declared at the radio that I would immediately switch my PhD topic (in physics) to study them. Because, you know, Nobel prize. I did not get to see anything unusual, did a uneventful PhD and, well, do not have said Nobel prize.<p>But the important thing was: I wanted to measure. To have an experiment where what was unusual would be measurable. This means that tests with well diggers were a complete failure when they were asked to find water in controlled conditions.<p>OTOH, they were good when in the wild because (probably) they could read the landscape and see signs of water (conscientiously or not).<p>Same with homeopathy: when I have a headache I get an aspirin and before it had time to reach my stomach I feel better. I also once swam away from what I thought were sharks and I probably broke a swimming record because my arms were moving like a blender.<p>This is to say that scientists do not limi themselves - they just want to see and measure something to say that this is a thing. Unfortunately as soon as they do it the whole paranormal things fall apart. But we are still hoping.
> Many folks think they have to dig or drill their well into an aquifer.<p>My concern here is ground water will have septic contamination, don't know if that's stupid or not.<p>Hand dug wells are fun to watch on TikTok, most on the tag are old ones, but a few are people digging them - <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/handdug%20well" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.tiktok.com/tag/handdug%20well</a><p>This one scared the shit out of me - <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@smithalayamrajeev/video/7239997585094675719" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.tiktok.com/@smithalayamrajeev/video/723999758509...</a><p>I was looking at this Polish Company selling augers, but I checked local bore records and they were 80m for the aquifer and they were hitting rock pretty quickly in their samples even if I went for ground water - <a href="https://www.ebay.com/str/drillpartnerofficialstore" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.ebay.com/str/drillpartnerofficialstore</a>