Does anyone know the difference between the old fashion pounding type of well drilling and the newer high speed drill equipment? It is my understanding that the older pounding type is the better of the two because it does not seal the water veins on the way down as the newer high speed can. The deeper they drill the more costly. This is what the natives of the area in Upper Michigan tell me. Any thoughts or opinions? Thanking you in advance. Lynn
I don't know about the rotary drills sealing water veins, but they can drill a well much more quickly than the old style equipment. I had a 235' well drilled using a new rig this spring and it took less than one day.
Most well drillers charge by the foot, so it can get expensive in a hurry. This is an area where an experienced driller can help you a lot. If your well driller has drilled other wells in the area, he should have well logs available which will help in estimating how deep he will need to go so you will have an idea up front how much the well will cost.
If you already have a well, you may be able to renovate it rather than drilling a new well.
<font color="blue"> Most well drillers charge by the foot, </font color>
In our area, you can get a fixed price down to a pre-determined depth, then they start charging by the foot.
My well is 509' to the bottom,hit water at at 435',went to 509' to have a good reserve/pocket for the water.It was a rotary drilled well,I do not buy that about them sealing the vains of water off,sounds like an old wives tale to me.The type of rig you are referring to the "pounding type"is known as a spudder where I live,they cannot go near as deep as a rotary type which I used that actually drills the hole in the ground,nor is it nearly as fast.
You might find that the sealing of the upper veins of water is a good thing. The upper veins sometimes tend to contain more iron, sulfur (rotten egg smell), etc. Sealing these off keeps them from contaminating a good vein of water down deep. Generally the upper veins will not have sufficient water for your needs all the time (more dependent on rain), and since you have to go down for a good vein anyway, no point in taking the possibly undesirable water down to the good stuff. This is exactly what happened to my folks. Their well was only cased to 40'. There was a reasonable vein of water at 180, but at 80-100 there was a high iron content vein. It contaminated the good vein to the point that they had to drill another.
I would never drill a well and not case it(liner) all the way to the bottom,you just sell your self short if you don't,my opinion and my experience.Just my .2 cents.
My well has a heavy plastic casing down to the 1st rock,my memory serves right me about 25' to 30' deep and then a plastic liner in side of the casing and all the way down to 509',this way no well collapsing and then loosing every thing,I think the last 10' or 20' feet the liner has holes drilled in it to allow the water to drain in to the pocket.
Absolutely agree with you. My folks old well was before their time at the house, in a well pit. When we would get a good rain, it would flood the well head, sometimes even float the pressure tank. Other than the $5k, drilling a new well was an easy choice.
When they drilled the new well, they kept having cave in problems towards the top, so they drilled oversize, cased down 40' or so with steel, drilled through that, then cased with plastic down to watever depth. Then they had to pull out the steel casing. The drilling rig winch couldn't pull it, and it was a large truck. The outriggers would though. First one side, then the other, rocking the mast about 6' [img]/forums/images/icons/ooo.gif[/img] at the top. Got it to the full extension of the outriggers, lowered the truck, winched up the slack and did it again. I was impressed.
Drilling a well is a risk that can get all types of water. Most drillers here in NE use the rotary drills which are faster, however hey don't "open" the pores of the surrounding structure like the "pounders".
This can be good and bad as pointed out by the previous posts exposing to a bad vein 40-50' down etc.. What occured in our case was at 10' they hit granite all the way to 500' and had 1.5 GPM [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] not enough or what we expected.. Soo the only solution was to hydro frack the well.
During hydro fracking they put a boot down the well to about 80' or so and pressurize the well below this to 2-3000 PSI to fracture the rock strata in the surrounding area. This was successful and we have in excess of 15GPM now, but this was costly $3500 drilling, plus $1500 for the hydrofracking..
Regarding casing it depends on the structure of the bedrock and the driller usually can tell the type based on the drilling fines. I think it is most common to case to 40' though review the other notes here it doesn't hurt to case deeper - it is just more costly.
Around where I live,my vane of water was in the sand.A 30' to 35' vane of sand about 435' down is where the sand is. 15 years of lots and lots of water,a little salty but lots of crystal clear water.We use a distiller to remove the salt,sure beats hauling water in a plastic tank on the truck.
Central Texas is somewhat infamous for being hard to drill wells. Pounders are the way to go - not the rotary ones.
Years ago a neighbor (when I was living there) needed a well. Some drillers showed up with what they claimed would be just the ticket - some kindof "high-powered" rotary cutter. They claimed they'd "been all over the state & it could do the job in half the time." [hmm]
Well, suffice to say they hadn't drilled in THAT part of the state. After 2 weeks of trying to drill and breaking 5 bits, they gave up. An "old fashioned" pounder type rig came in the next week & drilled just a few feet over from where the rotary guys had tried (starting from scratch.)
4 days later they finished the well. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]
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