Drilling/Driving a Well

[bugnout]

Thought I'd relate my experience.

Replacing a lake cottage with a real house and garage. I was hoping to keep my 2" 30 ft well which had been producing good water for 40 years, but was told that it couldn't source enough water for the new house. I didn't really want to abandon the well, but it only put out 7 gal/min. Plus if I kept it I would have to settle for a smaller garage.

Sooo.. a 6" well would solve my problem.

Had my general contractor get bids for for a 6" 80 ft well. You never know where they are going to find water, but you kind of have to pick a depth in order to get an estimate. Choose one of the bids based on my neighbors recommendation, and a little research. Couldn't find any BBB issues with any drillers.

Sooo...

Contractor began drilling on Wed, and called me around 4:00pm to tell me they were at 140 ft and only getting about 1 gal per minute refresh rate. wanted permission to go deeper. Said they had been talking to the GC and GC didn't want to give the ok, asked them to call me for approval. Well I said Wow, only 1 gal per minute, isn't even close to what I need. A garden hose on average is 7 gal per minute. A good refresh rate would be 15-20 gal per minute. My old 2" well gave 7 gal/min and I never ran it dry. So I give them the go ahead for another 20 ft. Told them I'll be on site tomorrow morning.

I get up there the next morning and talk to the drilling crew. They are at 180ft. I witness them testing the well by draining it, waiting 15 minutes then pumping it dry again to determine the refill rate. 1.1 gal per minute.

I start asking questions. They say they hit granite at 95 ft so they are about 85 feet into the rock. They mention that they thought this well was going to be easy, since they had installed the neighbors well and thought they could go straight to the same depth, 140 ft, and be done. The neighbors well produces 4 gal/min.

soooooo.....
I asked them what the refill rate was before they got in the rock, Blank stares.... Did you guys test refill rate? ......Now the discussion turns to how much better the water is after it filters through rock rather than gravel.

soooooooo.....

Now I'm pissed. Talking to my GC and he says they didn't call him until they were at 140ft! I call the business owner and ask for an explanation. He assures me they tested the well, but can't give me the particulars at any depth but 140ft and 180ft. He starts talking about how great water from a granite well is, how I'm not going to have to treat it or filter it. He says he did talk to my contractor about the possibility that they would have to go deeper than 80 feet the week before they began drilling.

Soooooooooooooo.....

I just got the drilling report and the first 50 feet is course sand (this is where I got by water for 40 years) over a layer of clay followed by 30 feet of gravel which I bet is full of water before they hit granite.

Estimate: about 6.5k with $32 per foot for over the 80 feet estimate cost plus the cost of the extra pipe, wire etc. Total was $10200, about $4000 more than the estimate.

These guys have a nice new half million dollar drilling rig with 300 ft of gear, and they don't make any money unless they put as much of that gear in the hole as they can. I'll bet they haven't put in a well less than 100 feet in years. I just feel like I've been taken. I'm not sure its worth going to court over this, but I'm damn sure going to be complaining to the BBB.

Am I over thinking this? Anyone with similiar experience?

 

[W-Cummins]

Only 180' gezz I wish mine was that shallow. Mine is 490' and the town NE. of me is over 1200' Keep in mind that Iowa is only about 690' above sea level at its highest point!

William...

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Around here, anything down to about 60 ft is BORED, usually a 30" hole with a concrete casing sections (similar to culvert sections) and a surface mounted jet pump is installed. With the low rainfall we've experienced the past few years, these wells tend to go dry or nearly so in the summer, so many people are now drilling. Typical hole is about 200 ft down into the bedrock. If the flow is low, they sometimes do a hydraulic cracking technique, they somehow plug the hole and pump thousands of pounds of pressure into the rock to crack and open it up, usually increasing flow.

It sounds like all you need is a good sand point well, 7 gal a minute is good flow for a house, worst case you have a low flow pump that fills a tank, and another pump and pressure tank that supplies the house from the storage tank. This is common out west where a half gallon a minute is a good well.

Most well drillers around here don't charge a penny if they don't get sufficient flow.

Charles

 

[MScott]

Most drillers today use the rotary drills which are fast, but sometimes seal water bearing cracks in rock. I just had a well drilled in solid granite and, when the driller had reached 200 ft without much water flow, he took out the rotary drill and brought in an old style pounder. Using that for an hour he drilled 3 feet and opened up a good water flow. I'm not sure if using the pounder would have found the water sooner, but I now have about 150 feet of clean, great tasting water with an ample flow rate of 8 gal/min. so I'm happy.

 

[Vettman]

My well is 503'. When it was drilled In 1978 (at $10.00 ft.) I was getting approx. 9 gl. min. The well site was "witched" by the driller. I called bs as the site was 400 ft. from the house (more wire, pipe etc.) but you're at their mercy. It's been producing enough for domestic use for 34 yrs. We don't irrigate or water a lot of landscape. My neighbor hired a geologist to determine where best to drill a 2nd well as the original well was failing. They punched down 600+ ft. and came up with 1/2 gl. He decided to drill the original well deeper and went down to 750'. I think he said they were getting approx. 12 gl. These folks have a pool, so they loose a lot to evaporation and need more water. I think it's a "**** shoot". Not having a water bill has been nice, but I've gone throught three pumps and some new pipe and wire, so it's probably a wash.

 

[93sr20det]

I was talking to a couple of guys that drill and they said they are going down 2500 feet or so and the water coming out is 110 degrees. a few miles down the road they might go down 400 and hit water. They said it's a crapsshoot where you hit water because it goes up and down as well as to the sides.

 

[Falcon67]

>They said it's a crapsshoot where you hit water because it goes up and down as well as to the sides.

This. My well and the wells to the east run probably 10~20 g/min no problem. They run about 100~140'. I never had it tested for potability, we just use it for the yard. The new house next door punched a new well not 120' from ours, right in line with ours and the one just to the east, and they get maybe 3 g/min, but not for very long. Maybe 20 minutes before they have to shut it down. I can run 6 big sprinkler heads all night. Water tables are damn finicky.

 

[Richard Cranium]

I believe some well driller drill for money instead of water, When I had my well drilled I contacted a well known driller in the area, all the wells around me for about a mile all came in at 350 to 400 feet, I made the mistake of telling the driller that my drop dead point in my budget was 500 feet, guess what, he calls me at 500 feet and tells me he is at 5 gal per min. but the water was increasing the last few feet, asked if he could go another 20 feet, I oked it and I now have of 40 gals per min. So did he just drill until my budget was used up or did it change that much in that little dept. I was told by another driller that a driller can blow the water away by pumping too much air into the hole. The air is used to blow the drilling material and water out of the hole...

 

[bugnout]

Thanks for all the replies. it seems contracting for a well is a **** shoot.

In hindsight,
I should have gotten well reports for wells near by, I should have talked to the contractor about the reports and made sure we had the same expectations for the depth of the well and I should have been there when they drilled the well.

 

[hllon4whls]

My well too is old and it has never run dry in the two years that I have been here.

Search google for a water well registry in your state/area. The Louisiana one used lat/lon and I was able to quickly find out how deep the wells were in my area. I wasn't sure if I had a shallow or deep well pump.

 

[30-30remchester]

I was a well contractor for 36 years, so rather than have an opinion I pretty much have facts. I drilled between 75 and 100 wells a year. I drilled about 2 "dry holes" a year, which really werent dry but made so little water that the owners chose not to complete the well. One of the true dry hole I drilled that didnt have any kind of water in it even after a year of standing vacant was on an island in the middle of a major river. Go figure. First you must remember that well drilling is one of the very few professions that must be done "blind". Once the bit is 1 foot deep you dont actually see the well. Just imagine you doing your particular job blindfolded. This is where experenced driller are an asset. Yes I met many crooked drillers, yes I met many unskilled drillers, but in the long run most were competent. Your old shallow well could very well have been septic tank water from ajoining property owners. Our state has a reguirement that 40' of solid steel casing be installed in a hole 4" larger than the casing and then cemented between the hole and the casing to keep this surface water from entering the watertable. It is hard to say what actually took place. If the surface water was cemented off to meet your state regulations, then your next water zone could very well have been 140'. When you are drilling in any solid rock you are simply looking for fractures in that rock that are water bearing. These fracture zone vary in every hole. I wish I had an answer that would make you feel all warm and fuzzy, but without actually being there I choose not to second guess the situation.

 

[wssix99]

Did they install a casing? (I assume so.) You might ask them if they can pull the casing and modify it so it will let in water from the gravel layer so they can check. (They should have done that before they drilled lower.)

Typically clay is a barrier to water movement, so you may not have anything below that layer. (The drillers should know that and they should also know the area if they did your neighbors.)

Are you close to Lake Michigan? The closer you are to glacial deposits, the more of a **** shoot your situation will be because the underground situation can change very quickly from one piece of property to another.

 

[kbs2244]

Your idea of checking the neighborhood is right.

My well is right before Illinois started requiring a state record.
(I am about 2 miles south of the IL/WI line)
It is not listed, but those of my neighbors are.
That gives you an idea of what to expect.

The idea that “deeper is better” has some merit.
BUT (and that is a big BUT)
In my area the geology is such that rain failing in the far north of Wisconsin will show up at about 150 to 200 feet.
It takes about 200 years to get here.

But if you go deeper it is a **** shoot
Nobody will try and tell you where the water came from.

My grandfather in Dekalb County Illinois told the well driller to “go to second water.”
It ended up about 1200 feet.
But it has never gone dry.

 

[bugnout]

My previous 30+ ft well was fully cased as well. Tested every other year and never needed any treatment. I didn't really care about the small amount of iron in the well so I didn't put in a filter. Very good water.

New well is fully cased down 95 ft to the granite, they drove the casing about 6" into the rock so no water from the gravel layer can enter the well directly. This was by design because, as they kept telling me "you'll really like the water from a rock well" Unfortunately its not producing enough. Still waiting on the water quality report for the new well.