Dig Your Own Water Well

Drilling a well by hand is a lot of work, but it can be done with the right equipment. Whether you’re looking to drill a shallow or deep well, this skill is perfect for those seeking self-reliance.

 

Dig Your Own Water Well

Wells are normally drilled on private land where city or rural water isn’t available. It’s possible to hire a licensed professional to provide this service but you can expect to spend several thousand dollars. If you want to save money, you can do it yourself, but prior to getting started, you need to research local regulations.

 

Each state or county will have its own list of requirements and regulations. These can be found online or at your county courthouse. When asking about these regulations, make sure you explain that you will be drilling the well yourself and on your own land.

 

Once you receive a green light to move forward, it’s time to learn more about your land. Go to the county agriculture extension office to find out what soil type you have. This could include sand, clay, rock, or a combination.

 

The local courthouse may also have well drilling logs from professional well drillers. These will include things like when they hit  first water, what type of soil condition they encountered, and how deep they drilled the well. This could be helpful information but do remember that every property is different. The very  first step might be determining how deep you need to drill.

 

Where to drill

On most North American homesteads, water is typically present about anywhere you would dig, though in some areas that depth will be deeper than others.

 

Things to consider when choosing a well location are: convenience, a power source, and location. It’s very important the well be uphill from any septic system or barn runoff.

 

The final thing to do before drilling is to contact utility companies to make sure you don’t hit any underground pipes or lines. Sometimes this information can be found on your original land plot, but it’s always good to double-check.

Shallow drilling

Drilling a shallow well is a pretty simple task, going down about 25 feet or so when you hit first water (at least in my location). This type of well could be drilled in a weekend by hand using a general purpose, extendable post-hole auger.

 

This type of well can be cased off with a manual pump and used for irrigation. This would be more of an emergency setup that could also provide water needs at a weekend cabin in the countryside.

hallow wells have a difficult time keeping up with average water usage. It’s estimated each person uses between 80 and 100 gallons of water a day. Imagine storing 20, 5-gallon jugs a day per person.

 

The majority of our water usage comes from flushing toilets and bathing. If you multiply that by a family of four, it’s easy to understand you would need a deeper well to keep up with demand.

 

Professional well diggers will often recommend a depth of 200 feet or more, but remember, for hundreds of years every well in this country was hand-dug and that’s how people survived.

 

Also remember, licensed well diggers get paid by the foot, so sometimes they drill further than they have to. So, if you decide to hire this out, do your research and make sure to write down where first water is normally hit in your area. And keep in mind that first water may not be the best, can dry up in some years, or may not be able to keep up with demand; all of these things need to be considered.

A pneumatic drill is like a giant eggbeater driven by compressed air. This tool can drill a 200-foot well in a matter of days or weeks, depending on the soil type, and can be purchased online.

 

In addition to the drill, you’ll also need a very powerful air compressor to run the equipment. These can easily cost two or three times as much as the drill. A couple of ways to keep costs down include purchasing a used compressor, well drilling rig ,or purchasing a new one and then after the project is completed, selling the almost-new equipment for a few hundred dollars less than what you paid.

 

You can choose between, gas, diesel or electric-powered compressors. An electric compressor will cost you less to run and be more dependable. We chose a compressor powered by gas because our well project was several miles away from the homesite.

 

Wait to schedule time off work for drilling until all the equipment has arrived and everything is set up and working correctly.