The first thing we had to do was fill in around the well shaft to ground level then cut off the well shaft even with the ground. I took some string and wrapped it around the shaft and leveled it with a level. I then marked a thick line with a sharpie all the way around. After this, I used a diamond grit saw blade in the sawzall and cut on the line.
Here is what it looked like after it was sawed off:
After it was at this point, I finished filling in around it to get it level with the top. This was no easy task as I had to skid out a lot of trees that were sitting on top of the dirt I needed to put in the hole! Here I'm using a large tractor borrowed from a friend to skid the trees out and also dump the dirt in the hole. My little tractor would have done it but much, much slower.
After this was done, I had to weld a ladder out of 5/8" rebar that would be permanently installed in the well. I left it extra long and put it down the shaft. I would trim it later. My initial plan was to dig down 5 more feet by hand, so to facilitate that I welded together an A frame to bolt wooden 4x4's to. I planned to attach a pulley to it and drop a bucket down the shaft. You can see the A frame laying on the ground to the right. I built it WAY too big and couldn't stand it up even with the tractor. Back to the drawing board.
Next idea out of the chute was to weld up a pole that was temporarily attached to the front bucket of the tractor. That idea worked except that my loader cylinders need to be rebuilt so the loader was dropping. After propping it up with a couple of hay bales it worked great!
After my last experience of trying to stand in freezing cold water, I rented an electric pump. I pumped for several hours but never could outrun the water coming into the well. The next day I took it back and rented a gasoline pump that pumped 11,000 gallons and hour. It took over an hour to pump it dry, but it did out run the water finally. After pumping all day I determined the well was putting out 17 gallons per minute. Not bad!
A young man much more limber than I offered to go down in the hole and dig. I pulled the buckets out and dumped them, he filled the buckets with sand and gravel. After digging for a while, we ran into a problem: the hole kept caving in. Away I went for cinder blocks and we ended up only deepening the hole 16" more to give us about 3' of water in the hole if I remember correctly.
Here is a picture of the cinderblocks stacked two high to keep the gravel from caving in on us. You can see the water line on the drywall above the blocks. You can also see the pipe for the sand point, but I get ahead of myself.
Since my idea of digging down deeper wasn't working too well, the next idea was to drive a sand point on down past the bottom of the well. This was a good thing to do anyway as it would allow the sand in the bottom of the well to filter any contaminants that get into the pool of water. Here is a picture of what a sand point looks like. It is a screen that is driven into the ground. The screen filters out the sand but allows the water in.
Now the hardest work of putting in the well had to be done. Driving in the sand point. I connected a 2" pipe to the top of this to get it to the surface, then I installed a drive cap on top that is made to take the pounding necessary to drive it in. I also welded together a 100 pound weighted driver to pound it in with. The driver was suspended on a pulley. At first I got down in the well and steadied it as my daughters pulled together on the rope and dropped the weight. I tied it off to a tree as a safety so just in case it came off the pipe it wouldn't kill me. It did come off the pipe once and bounced above my head, so I was glad I had done this.
After getting it started good, I came topside and helped. The three of us together pulled and dropped, pulled and dropped until we gave out. I measured our progress and we had made it 1"!! We repeated this countless times, and each time we only gained an 1". Finally we got the entire screen about a foot below the bottom of the well, putting the tip of it about 4' below the bottom and 7' or so from the surface of the water. We stopped and I took off the drive cap and put on a pvc adapter and a section of 2" pvc pipe to bring it above ground level.
Next was building a framework to set around the top to bolt a plate to. This plate would have a 6" pipe welded to it with a cap on top that the pump would mount to.
We mixed up concrete using the sand we had dug from the well and poured it around the angle iron frame. I welded bolts sticking up to bolt the metal plate to so it could be removed in the future if necessary. Now we had a pvc pipe stubbed up out of the hole ready to mount our pump to.
Many people donated money to us after Joseph Herrin mentioned on his blog, www.parablesblog.blogspot.com, that I could use some help and we were able to purchase a simple pump. The simple pump is a hand pump that can be converted over to a 12 V powered pump in about 10 minutes, but the motor is an expensive option. One of the readers generously donated the very pump motor I needed that he had decided not to use in his system.
I purchased the pump through a preparedness store, Bug N Out, in Deer Park, WA. The owner Eric highly recommended it and had installed one on his own well. The process of putting it in was very simple, but I pulled it out 3 times before I got it right. From the factory there was once section of pipe that was not fully threaded. Finally I took it to the hardware store and they re threaded it in a couple of minutes and didn't even charge me. Here is a picture of the pump installed:
Water at last! It was a bit muddy looking but it was water! After installing the pump, I switched it over to 12V. It only required changing out 4 screws and popping out the pins in the handle. Very quick and easy to do. I did have to do some wiring but it wasn't hard.
To take out the sand, I installed an inline water filter. We ran this for a few weeks until the sand settled out. I also plumbed in a 3/4" valve that I could open to drain the system to keep it from freezing.
We still don't have water running to the house yet, but I use this to fill a 275 gallon IBC food grade tank. We bring the water inside in pitchers to use for drinking, cooking, washing dishes, and taking "splash baths". We also run a water hose to the animals water buckets.
I really enjoyed going to the spring where we used to get our water, but it cost a lot of time and I went through several tires on the boat trailer from overloading it with water. Now I just turn on the pump and do other chores around the place while the tank is feeling. Oh what a feeling!
Here is my wife at the spring as we are filling up with water. We had to do this every 2-3 weeks as the trailer would only haul 175 gallons weight wise.
Living without running water has taught us the preciousness of water. At one time in our lives we used 6000 gallons per month of water. Now we use 250 gallons and we have a herd of animals we are giving water to every day as well. When we fill a bottle from the tank, we put a bucket underneath to catch the spills. The spilled water goes in the goat pen or on the garden so nothing is wasted. Americans have long lived with an abundance of water on tap, but we don't have to go back very far to find a time where people lived similar to the way that our family does today regarding water. When one has to tote water in a bucket it automatically causes the person to be conservative in the use of the water. I must say that I do look forward to the luxurious 5 minute showers we take in the summer at the local state park though!
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