Digging a Well

It's a lousy idea. You should have a very good idea of the soil conditions you're working with. Anything short of a solid will eventually collapse. REALLY dangerous idea.

GA Lyn,

I have contributed to a well in India. The total cost was about $600 US.

Thay are good people and they make sure every penny is spent on the project not administration...

Yep,

My family has contributed to wells in Africa.

"The only external cost is the RCP."

Shipping tons and tons of concrete pipe isn't exactly cheap. But who knows maybe a concrete pipe forming company is right next door.

Do it with local brick. The top guys keep building up layers of brick casing as it sinks down the well hole.

Same principal but only done with local materials.

It doesn't work. As brick binds in places and goes out-of-round causing stresses that break it up. It would need some reinforcing.

The traditional way of doing it is to put a cast-iron ring on the ground, and build the brick on top of it. Undermine the ring, and it cuts a circular hole into the ground, into which the brick above it may pass without hindrance.

Yeah, also seen this done. It works very well.

Must be an Aussie thing.

This is also the solution I would put forward, although as others have commented "provided there is suffucient knopwledge of the water tables to establish that water was down there, and the concrete pipe was available"

Cheers

Anthony

Quite a few years back, I helped dig a water well in Korea using the culvert undermining method with 5 gallon buckets for moving loosened earth to the surface. Everything went well until we were past about 100 feet, at which point we discovered it was getting really difficult to breathe. So, we set up a ventilation system to provide fresh air to the bottom of the hole. To keep this short, I'll cut to the chase: It's much more efficient to pump the heavy co2 laden air out of the hole and let the fresh air flow in to replace it. Otherwise, you're just diluting the co2 and getting rid of it much more slowly. It took a lot of arguing (and beer) to come to this conclusion, but after getting it right, we sailed easily past 300 feet and water. The water filled the shaft (eventually) to just a little more than 25 feet below the surface. We dropped in a pump and sealed the wellhead against vermin and errant children (this was at an orphanage).

Otherwise, I agree 100% with your post.

Maybe this should be the focus of a charitable project - to establish a well drilling business to provide the service at reasonable cost, and solve water problems not only for one school but for other communities there.

Maybe this would suit http://www.deeprock.com/

Looks like the right gear for the right price. The compact size of it means shipping would be less as well.

BAD IDEA. The bricks will impose additional weight that may cause the sides of your hole to collapse on your digger.

Hi phph001,

The supply of water to villages in Africa has always been a problem and wells have been used for ages in order to solve the problem. However there are always a number of problems associated with wells from a hygiene aspect and even if the well is properly covered etc. a small animal falling into the water can pollute the water and render the well unusable.

I would suggest that you have a look at the Pumpaid site http://www.pumpaid.org/ and view some of the videos showing the 'Elephant Pump' which is a cost effective solution to the problem. The pump can be 'manufactured' and installed using local labour and materials and has been implemented widely in Zimbabwe (where the idea originated). It is operated by hand and maintenance costs are very low. I believe they are also being installed in other countries in Africa (including Tanzania) but if you contact them directly I feel sure they will be able to assist you with more information.

I hope this information is of assistance to you.

Regards, Keith

although i am not water well engineer , i have seen these equipments in operation , best way to go for is to get well drilling equipment may be for example buy/ rent drlling well product from http://www.getechindia.com/exports.html ( may be one can ask financial quoters ) , buying this will be useful for similar other drilling needs in Tanzania or Near by Countries . You can get drilling done in 3/4 days for each location . added advantage is , This will get new technology experience of drilliing , which can be utilized for similar other drilling projects . or one can have makrshift drilling equipments with gasoline engine operated drilling units used for Construction works used for 4/6 INCH dia used in various foundation engineering projects

Do you need to get a bucket down the well, or just a pipe then use some sort of pump? I grew up close to the beach, the ground was very sandy. I'm not sure if this technique would work better or worse in non-sandy ground, but it worked a treat for us:

Dig a small hole, then use that to stand some 4" PVC pipe up vertically. Get a high-capacity air compressor (I'm assuming that if they can get machinery to move a 1m diameter concrete pipe, they can get a good compressor also), attach a 1" steel pipe to the end of it. Hammer the pipe down as far as you can, then drop the compressed air lance into the pipe and let the air rip. You end up with a fountain of mud, but also an empty pipe and quiet possibly a cavity below the end of the pipe to make hammering it in the next section easier.

I think we got 2 or 3 10' sections into our well, the ground water level was quiet high so that was plenty. The bottom pipe section was slotted to allow seepage into the well.

Good answer. We use a similar method to sink de-watering "spears" into sandy soil, but we inject water through the pipe (with the leading end slotted for later water collection). With water flowing, it only requires down pressure to push the pipe into the sand for considerable depths and the displaced debris comes up outside the pipe.

They could then fit a small dore pump down the bore for pumping.

Again, the terminology used internationally might be causing confusion here.

My general understanding is that you "dig a well" (ID 1200mm or greater) and while you "sink a bore" (ID usually less than 150mm).

When my Dad was 16 and his little brother was 12 (1927), their father Pop we called him, hired a water dowser who wandered around their 15 acre vegetable farm for a day and finally found a spot that he guaranteed was directly above a huge supply of underground water.

Since they were getting ready to build an acre of glass greenhouses they needed a big enough well to put a 3" pump into to water the whole 15 acres.

Pop bought some 5 foot diameter concrete culvert sections with the lips on them to interlock and they took the tractor and turned on on it's flat side over the place the water dowser had located.

Then Dad got in and started shoveling out the dirt, also digging just under the bottom of the lip and the heavy concrete culvert started slipping into the ground in the hole he dug from the inside of it.

When the top of the culvert was level with the ground they rolled another one over to it, flipped in onto the one in the ground, interlocking the lips, and Dad got in with his shovel and two buckets, each tied to the opposite end of a rope.

As he filled each bucket, his little brother would pull up the full one and drop it back down empty.

They proceeded this way until they went down to 35 feet deep where they encountered an undergound stream with a gravel base sitting on the bedrock.

My cousin Gus still farms the greenhouses and still uses that well to this day! He said the water level in it needed for the submersible pump has never dried out ever.

Funny side to the story was that Dad was claustrophobic and only did it because he was afraid to tell his Pop!

I am most grateful for all the positive responses, particularly for those which have pointed me in the direction of further expertise. Thank you.

A few years back, some folks in Greensburg, Kansas managed to get a well dug, but it was definitely not cheap, even with labor at 50 cents a day.

Recently read an article on the actor Matt Damon and his involvement with this type of project. go here www.water.org - maybe there is help in funding something.

Have you looked into Water for People?

http://www.waterforpeople.org/

An option to have portable drilling rigs like http://liufei257.en.ec21.com/Most_Economic_and_Practical_HF80--4503625_4503749.html

These can be low cost

drilling depth is 60-80m, the drilling diameter is 70-300mm

The technical parameter: