Drilling for water
17Tuesday 09 June, 2015 by Uncle Spike
Twenty-four hours a day, for seven days… that’s how long it took to drill our artesian well. Before that, we had to select a site for the well, and to do that we did a spot of water-divining, using bent old coat hangers and the outer tubing of two ballpoint pens! All laughing aside, it worked. Whilst some farms hit no water source, ours works a treat 🙂
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Our bore went down some 121 metres (395′) below the farm. The bore was 13cm (5″), with a 5cm (2″) galvanised steel bore pipe that had an 18x in-line pump at the end of it some 70 metres (228′) underground to deliver cold, fresh mountain water sourced from an underground river.
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To operate the pump requires electricity of course, and with the pump rated at 7.5kw, 3-phase light industrial cable and connection was brought in via a few poles added to the hedgerow between our neighbouring farms, and then we dug a trench across what would become our driveway to bury the cable.
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This was one of many projects going on all at the same time that summer, with hand-mixing concrete to set the electrical cabinet, burying the spare 25 metres of pump cable (for emergency usage should any decrease in the river necessitate lowering of the pump later on), and then setting up the pump station for the drip watering system.
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This all took place in July, as I recall, and I remember how much work it took to bury that cable by hand (and spade). Needless to say, I didn’t have any weight problem that summer!
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I’m endlessly impressed Spike. Holy Aching Back!!
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One does what one can (and have to) 🙂
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Amazing work for the well. Wondering if you can use solar panels or wind turbines to power the pump?
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Possibly, but at 7.5kw, that would be a hefty panel set up, and very costly!
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Gee Unca Spike, Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines artesian well thusly: a place in the ground where water flows up to the surface because of natural pressure. So, why all the hard work?
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(She said jokingly.)
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In our case, we drilled to 121 metres, and the water naturally flows up to 50m, and we then placed the pumps at 70m to do the rest.
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How was 121 meters calculated?
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Just drill till it works. Some neighbours went down 95m, and one was 135.
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How did you use the casing of the ball point pens then? I have never seen that done, but it sounds impressive.
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Make the usual gun shapes with two coat hangers, and instead of holding the short vertical end, place it in the pens and hold them, thereby giving the horizontals maximum freedom to move.
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Interesting. Thanks.
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I’ll say it again…you are amazing. Oh, by the way Terry can diving for water and hidden electricity. Me? I don’t seem to have the touch!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
https://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/sherlock-boomer
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Never tried it for electricity – interesting new challenge 🙂
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I’ve tried my hand divining as well. And I can confirm that it works! And it’s fun, too!!
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Cannot for the life of me get my head around it, but done it since I was a kid, and yes, it works for sure!
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Magic!
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