Shiloh

Well, not really. But in our case we are going to live on the property in a travel trailer while we build so we need water, power and a septic tank to be able to stay there. So we began with water. Since there is no city water in our neck of the woods it was mandatory that we have a well. While it requires more expense up front it does mean I can irrigate the garden without an worries about expensive water bills.

Russell Well and Pump Service did a great job putting in our new well. At 120′ we hit about 30 gallons a minute of water which is more than sufficient for our needs. My understanding is that if you get at least 10 gallons a minute it would be sufficient for a single family home so we are well over that.

This is the first time I have seen a well being dug. Russell brought two trucks out to the property. One truck carried a large water tank and the second truck that had a boom attached to it. When this boom was raised a metal pipe with a drill inside it was attached. The drill bit is used to dig into the soil and stone and water is injected into the hole at the same time to simultaneously bring up the loose material and keep the equipment cool. When this water comes out of the ground it is run into a a large pan that is used to allow the mud and sediment to separate out from the water and then recirculate the water back into the the hole.

At the same time the hole is being drilled a fairly large diameter piece of PVC piping is being put in to keep the walls from collapsing. Once a satisfactory volume of water is reached the drill is removed and a smaller PVC pipe is put in along with the well pump and an electrical cable to supply power for the pump. Once this cable is hooked up to power you can turn on the pump and watch the water come out of the ground. Of course this is assuming all goes well.

It was a fascinating process. In our case we didn’t have to really drill that far. How far you have to drill is going to vary depending on how arid it is in the region you are located the terrain itself. In mountainous terrain you might have to drill hundreds of feet. If this is case for you and you haven’t bought your land yet it could potentially save you thousands of dollars if there was already a well on the property.

Once done, we ended up with a 120 gallon holding tank above ground. This tank has a rubber bladder in it that takes up roughly half of the space. This is used to keep the water pressure constant. When we get electricity it will be a simple matter to hook the pump. I will also dig trenches to the house and one to the future garden area so I can run piping for the water.
Here is a picture of the completed well:

 You will find as you read this blog that I am an over-engineering fool. I figure if six inch thick lumber is good enough, ten inches is better. There are reasons for this philosophy and sometime I will take the time to try and write them down. While it should have been perfectly acceptable to leave this out in the open for six months while we built the house I wanted to go ahead and cover it somewhat from the weather. In the long run I am going to build a butt and pass 10′ x 10′ shed around it to protect the pump and be a place to store garden implements since the well is pretty close to the garden area.

Here is what Rachel and my dad came up with: