When we purchased the property in 2013 it had no utilities or water on it, nor did the neighboring properties on either side. As a result, we got a very good deal on the land. A neighbor a couple of properties over told me that his well was 200' deep. Some neighbors a few hundred yards away had water at 12'.
As I evaluated our options, a drilled well was out of reach for us. The local drillers were charging $10,000 or more (sometimes much more) for drilling a 200 foot well and I didn't have the money. I prayed about it, walked the land over looking for any hint of where water might be and thought about it.
At first I thought of building a drilling rig. I looked up everything I could on drilling rigs, and even looked at different ways to manually drill a hole by hand. None looked like either a viable option or an affordable one. What was stumping me is that the whole area is one massive gravel pit. Gravel will not hold a wall when drilling through it, so I would have to drive casing as I drilled which would further complicate the process. I finally determined I would have to dig a well either by hand or by machine.
As I narrowed down what I wanted, I decided that I wanted multiple ways of getting water. I wanted to be able to drop a bucket in the shaft with a rope if I had to, a way to pump it out by hand, and a electric pump that could operate off of my 12V solar charged battery bank. It seems that I've been struck by Murphy's law one time too many in my life and I wanted a back up to my back up plan!
As I asked around, it appeared to me that on the valley floor, which the bottom of my property sits on, there is a steady water table. One person on the valley floor has a good well at 12', another at 16', and an abandoned gravel pit in the same valley ran into the water table and stays at a constant level. I knew from surveying that looks could be deceiving, but I figured my property was about level with the other properties mentioned so perhaps I had water below me also.
I have a 16 hp Mitsubishi tractor with a backhoe on it capable of going 6' down, so I first dug a 6' deep hole and came up dry.
I then rented a Bobcat skid steer for a day with an 1' auger on it. I welded up 4' extensions for it and attempted to drill down to 12' through the hole I had already made. I had problems with the auger walking back under the machine when it hit rocks and I ended up with a 12' deep hole directly under me and no water. That was the end of that for a while as I decided to find something bigger to dig with.
While trying to figure out how I was going to dig down far enough, I had to figure out what the well shaft was going to be made from. I bounced around all kinds of ideas. I have lots of rocks, why not make one of concrete and the rocks I had? What if I made a form for a ring, cast the ring on the ground, dug out the center till the ring dropped to ground level then pour another ring. I couldn't find something to make the ring out of so I scrapped that idea. The other thing was that all the old time well diggers I read about were very short and I'm the opposite of that at 6'3" and 240 pounds. I didn't know if my body could fold up in such a tight space for weeks on end as I dug.
That brought me to the conclusion I would have to machine dig it. Okay, what could I use for the shaft? I looked for culverts as I figured that would work, but no luck unless I wanted to spend a fortune. Finally I saw on craigslist a manufacturer of spun fiberglass duct work was cleaning out all their mistakes and it was free for the hauling. The only issue was I didn't have either the fuel money nor the time off from work during their business hours to drive the 90 miles to go pick it up.
One wonderful day something happened to the truck I drove and I was off work till it got fixed, AND I had the gas money. Away I went with my 16' flatbed trailer in tow to pick up my treasures. When I arrived the plant manager said that even though what he had told me had been available for many months, someone had just come the day before and hauled away a lot of it. My heart sank. My sadness turned to joy however when I saw the 4' diameter x 20' long shaft. Perfect! Exactly what I was looking for!
After getting the shaft, I saved up my money to purchase a concrete dry well. It sits at the very bottom of the shaft and has slots to allow the water to come in. This one is 4' inside diameter and weighs 2200 lbs. I think I paid $220 for it.
I figured at first that perhaps I could find an extend a hoe backhoe that would go deep enough. I was hindered by lack of money and I couldn't find one to borrow. My boss had a track hoe, but it was always tied up on a job so I wasn't able to use it. I got an estimate of 2000 to have a professional dig the hole, but again no money. A friend offered to let me use his track hoe (Thanks Aaron!), but then it broke so that option was out. The same friend's neighbor had a track hoe that he was able to get an agreement to let me use, but I had to transport it. I'm a truck driver and my boss had a low boy, so perhaps I could make this work!
On Christmas eve I secured the use of the low boy to go get the track hoe. There was a bit of confusion at first as my boss' track hoe was on the low boy and needed to be unloaded. The low boy driver talked my boss into letting me just use his machine, so it was dropped off at the house. Wahoo!
The track hoe, a John Deere 120B, weighed 26,000 pounds and had a reach of 26'. Lynn, the truck driver, offered to get me started on the hole, and boy was I glad he did! He is a master craftsman with a track hoe, and in a very short time he had cleared out trees and started digging. I took over and copied his technique for taking out trees and in no time I had a HUGE hole. I dug all day until dark, but no water.
As I continued digging, I generated a massive amount of sand and gravel! It was hard to believe that I had to excavate so much for the hole I was making. After digging for a while, I had to dig a bench and set the machine down further so I could reach deeper. Though the machine had a 26' reach straight out, when going down it could only dig 18', but not 18' AND reach out 15' in front of the machine.
The next morning I got up early and got started. I continued digging, and the deeper I went the more the gravel side walls sloughed in so the wider the hole had to go. Finally I was down to 17' and it was still dusty dry and I was feeling discouraged. No water! I decided it was a Faith Like Potatoes moment and time to keep going. A few minutes later I saw water gushing in to the hole!
When I hit the water table, the gravel and sand really started sloughing in and would not hold a vertical side wall at all. I dug and dug and dug, and....well, you get the picture. I dug down to 22', but I could not get the wall to hold. With all the water in the hole, it kept caving in. Finally I made the decision to just set in the concrete dry well anyway and try to dig out by hand underneath it.
When I put the dry well in, the bottom was still right at 17'. I got inside with my water boots and started digging. Two things I didn't count on: It was December in Idaho, and that ground water was COLD! 40 degrees to be exact. I dug until it went over the top of my boots. After a few minutes in the water I couldn't feel my feet or legs anymore and my arms were tired so I couldn't hardly climb back out either!
I poured a dump truck load of wash rock around this to keep the sand out. After this came the 4' well shaft and back filling. As you can see in the pictures, it started snowing on me as I worked.
At this point I had used my boss' machine for 3 days and it was time for it to be returned and for me to go back to work, so the project went on hold until the next weekend, or so I thought. The very next day at work on December 29, 2014 I fell and hit my head receiving a severe brain concussion. As of this writing I have been off work for almost a year due to that injury.
I did get to go back to work on the well come summer time though.
To be continued. Finishing the well
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