How deep to drill a well for drinking water. How to drill a water well without equipment Poor quality casing installation

Professional well drilling is a very expensive pleasure. Depending on the method of excavation, the cost of services of specialized companies ranges from 15-50 USD. i.e. for each meter of depth. Note that the task is really not easy, and therefore most owners of dachas and estates turn to specialists for a solution. Hence the goal of this material– consider options on how you can drill a well on the site with your own hands without using expensive equipment. We will describe available methods, so that you can assess the complexity and scope of work, and then start moving along the chosen path.

How deep is drinking water?

This main question, which is set by the homeowner when organizing the water supply of the home. Only geological exploration can give an accurate answer. summer cottage, held in last years. To make sure of this, it is worth studying the layout of aquifers in the thickness of the earth.

As you can see, the water is located at different horizons, between which lie impenetrable rocks - dense loam, limestone and clay. To determine the appropriate layer, we suggest deciphering the presented diagram a little:

Closest to the surface lies the water that enters the ground due to precipitation - the so-called perched water. In some places it starts from a depth of 0.4-0.8 m and continues up to 20 m. As a rule, this is dirty and poorly filtered water containing harmful impurities.
At depths of up to 30 m there are cleaner groundwater, whose supply is also fed by precipitation. Most home wells are dug precisely to this horizon (its upper limit can be located at a distance of 5-8 m from the surface). Before consumption, this water must be filtered.
Underground water accumulations located in the sand layer have undergone good natural filtration and are suitable for drinking water supply. If you want to make a well with your own hands, you will need to reach this horizon.
Most pure water is located in limestone voids at a depth of 80-100 m, which is unattainable using artisanal drilling methods. Since artesian water is under pressure, after drilling a well, the flow independently rises to ground level, or even splashes out.

Note. The boundaries of perched water and groundwater are indicated very arbitrarily; their depth may vary depending on the terrain and other factors.

Location of the source of autonomous water supply

When we have figured out between which layers a suitable horizon is located, we need to determine the location for the future source of water supply. We will not talk about dubious options such as dowsing with a frame or a slingshot made of vines, but will give a number of simple tips:

find out everything about your neighbors' wells and boreholes: their depth, water quality and location;
retreat as far as possible from sources of pollution - septic tanks, outdoor toilets and barnyard;
Please note: wells are not drilled at higher elevations; for this it is better to choose a lowland.

In any case, you need to be patient. It is likely that you will not be able to obtain drinking water the first time and will need to make several attempts.

About drilling technologies

Before we talk about the methods of drilling, we list the types of wells:

to the water;
on the sand;
on limestone (artesian).

A shallow well for water is made in order to reach the upper horizons and organize the supply using a pump. This also includes an Abyssinian borehole well made from a small-diameter pipe. Accordingly, drilling for sand and limestone means going deep to the lower layers, as shown in the diagram above.

This is what auger drilling looks like

There are several technologies for punching narrow vertical channels in the thickness of the earth:

Using a drill made in the form of an auger. To reach the required depth, the drill is expanded with new sections as it dives.
Core drilling. In this case, the main tool is a hollow pipe with a sharp end, into which carbide teeth are welded. During the deepening process, the glass is filled with rock, which is periodically cleaned out.
Hydraulic method (direct or reverse flushing). The point is that the drill is lowered into the channel along with the casing pipe, and the soil from working area is constantly flushed out by water pressure supplied by the drainage pump.
The shock-rope method involves driving the same glass and periodically excavating soil to the surface. This uses the impact force from the free fall of a tool placed inside the casing. Typically, the operator manually lifts the glass, tied by a cable to a reel, and then releases it into free flight to the bottom of the well.

Reference. For the passage of loose layers or intermediate water carriers, when an auger or glass falls into the liquid, it is used special device- bailer or drill-spoon. This is a piece of pipe with check valve in the form of a petal or ball, filled with liquid rock with each dive. Then the bailer is raised and cleaned.

Construction of a homemade bailer

In addition to the methods listed above, water wells are drilled using Abyssinian well technology. In short, a pipe with a diameter of 32 mm with a cone at the end is immersed to the groundwater level, which is subsequently pumped out of the well surface pump.

In order to drill a well on a well site with your own hands and not use specialized equipment, you can implement only 2 technologies: shock-rope and Abyssinian well. We will talk about them further.

How to make impact punching

This is the most inexpensive technology, but quite labor-intensive. To work you will need the following devices:

tripod made of rolled metal with a hook and a block on top;
winch with a cable equipped with a handle;
driving tool - glass and bailer;
welding machine;
hand drill

Glass for punching soil

Advice. In the presence of welding inverter and the skills to work with it, you can weld these simple devices in your garage. But making homemade devices justified when you need to drill not just one well, but 10 or 20. It’s easier to rent a tripod with a reel.

Before drilling the soil to the required depth, prepare casing. Their diameter should be such that the working tool fits freely inside, but with minimal clearance, and the length should correspond to the height of the tripod. One condition: impact technology is not applicable on rocks or in soils with stone inclusions. To penetrate such horizons, you will need a drill with carbide tips.

Self-drilling a water well is carried out in the following order:

Make a filter from the first section of the casing by drilling staggered holes Ø8-10 mm in increments of 7-8 cm on a section of pipe 1 meter long. Cover the top of the hole with a stainless mesh secured with rivets.
Make a leader hole with a hand drill to a depth of 0.5-1 m. Here it is important to correctly position the tool at an angle of 90° to the surface so that the channel is strictly vertical.
Insert the first section of casing into the hole, adjust the vertical and place the impact tool inside.
Leaving an assistant to support the casing, lift and release the glass using the reel. When full, remove it and clean out the rock. As the soil is removed, the pipe will begin to take its place and gradually sink into the ground. To speed up the process, attach a couple of heavy weights to it.
When the edge of the first section drops to the surface of the ground, weld the second section to it, strictly controlling the vertical level. Continue working in the same way until you reach the water layer.

Welding the next section in level

Important point. While going through the high water, you will probably come across slurry that falls out of the iron glass. A mixture of clay and water must be selected from the well using the bailer method, installing it instead of a conventional tool.

When the end of the pipe drops 40-50 cm below the groundwater level, stop punching the channel and proceed to “swinging” the source. To do this, lower the pipe connected to the surface pump to the bottom of the HDPE and pour 2-3 buckets of water into the shaft. Then turn on the unit and let it run for 2 hours, monitoring the cleanliness and water pressure. Last step- arrangement of a well and connecting it to the water supply of the house, as described in. For more details on the drilling process, watch the video:

Abyssinian borehole

Unlike traditional underground canals, the Abyssinian well has a small diameter (no more than 50 mm) and water is pumped out of it by a surface pump, not a submersible one. There is an opinion that, due to the vacuum created, such a well does not silt up, and over time its flow rate only increases due to the forced erosion of soil capillaries. In reality, such statements have no serious basis.

Before making an Abyssinian well, prepare required quantity casing pipes 2-2.5 m long. Since a depth below 15 m is not expected, it is enough to have on hand 6-7 ready-made sections of Ø50 mm plus the first section with a steel cone at the end - a needle. It will play the role of a drilling tool.

Finished needle with mesh

The technology looks like this:

Make the first section of the casing - the so-called needle. Weld a metal cone to its end, and make holes on the sides and place a mesh, as described in the previous section.
Dig a small leader hole, insert a needle into it and start driving, keeping it vertical. To do this, you can use the same tripod with a suspended weight or another device.
As you dive, weld new sections and continue hammering the casing. As you approach the calculated depth, check the appearance of water using a weight on a string.
After passing through the aquifer, lower a polymer pipeline connected to a hand column into the well. Fill it with water and pump the source for 30-60 minutes until clean water comes out. Then proceed with the installation of an autonomous water supply system.

Construction of an Abyssinian well

Advice. When you order the production of a steel cone, keep in mind that its “skirt” should be 3-5 mm wider than the casing pipe, so that when driving it does not tear off the mesh against the walls of the shaft. To make work easier, make the end of the needle as sharp as possible.

U Abyssinian well there is one significant drawback: before drilling it, you need to know for sure that there is groundwater in a given place. Otherwise, you risk burying all the pipes in the ground, since it is not always possible to remove them back. The advantages of the source are ease of execution and minimum consumption materials. If you wish, you can drill a similar well right in your house, as a team of workers demonstrates in the video:

Conclusion

Method impact drilling really suitable in a situation where you need to make a well in your country house on your own. And the Abyssinian well is built using the same technology. To use other methods - auger, core and hydraulic - you need special equipment - a drilling rig, drainage pump and so on. But these options cannot be completely abandoned, despite the high prices, because the composition of the soil and the depth of the water carriers vary. You can’t break through rock by hand and you can’t go to a horizon of more than 50 m.

Design engineer with more than 8 years of experience in construction.
Graduated from Eastern Ukrainian National University them. Vladimir Dal with a degree in Electronics Industry Equipment in 2011.

Not in your house central water supply, why are you thinking about drilling? water well? But due to the lack of experience in this area, you don’t know where to install a water intake on the site, and when is the best time to drill? Agree that all these questions are very important: the performance characteristics of the future water source depend on the answer to them.

We will help you find the right answers. After all, determining the optimal location on your own is not so difficult if you have the necessary knowledge and take into account the features of the site. Our article provides general rules and standards that should be followed when choosing a location for a well. And also considered the most different ways search for groundwater.

So that you can choose optimal time to carry out drilling, we provide advice and recommendations from experts in the industry, providing information with photographs and videos that allow you to visualize the entire process.

When choosing a place for drilling, many factors are taken into account: the geological features of the site, its topography, the influence of hydrological factors, the location of other economic activities.

Besides important has a convenient location for the future, which will allow it to be used in the future without problems.

The selected location for the well must meet the following requirements:

presence of an aquifer;
convenient location for water intake;
possibility of installing a water supply system;
ensuring access for a drilling machine and other equipment to service the well;
compliance with sanitary standards;
lack of power lines and underground communications.

Also, at the stage of choosing a location for a well, it is worth thinking about how it will be connected pump equipment, i.e. take into account the presence of power lines. If in the future you plan to lay a surface water supply from a well, then it is advisable that the slope of the site does not exceed 35º.

When choosing a location for a well, not only the characteristics of your own site are taken into account, but also the surrounding areas to ensure compliance with the specified requirements.

Sanitary standards and regulations

The sanitary standards required for the location of water-bearing wells are described in the documents SanPiN No. 2.1.4.110-02. Of course, first of all, this document concerns large water intakes that provide water settlements or individual enterprises and areas.

However, even with the device private well on your own plot It is recommended to adhere to sanitary standards.

In accordance with SanPiN standards minimum distance from the water intake source to residential buildings is from 30 m for protected groundwater, and 50 m for unprotected groundwater. It is clear that in the conditions of private construction it is impossible to comply with these standards.

Therefore, you should pay attention to the following rules:

Directly near the well, on an area of at least 4x4 m in size, there should be no residential or commercial buildings.
There should not be located within a radius of at least 300 m industrial enterprises, large highways, landfills, cattle burial grounds, cemeteries.
There should not be any persons within a radius of at least 20 m garden crops, watered with the use of chemical fertilizers.
The well should be as far as possible from cesspools, sewer septic tanks, compost heaps and similar objects. This applies not only to sources of possible pollution located on your site, but also to neighbors.

It is almost impossible to ensure full compliance with even these standards, therefore, if water from a well will be used not only for irrigation, but also for drinking needs, care must be taken to purify it. Drilling a deeper artesian-type well may also be a solution in this situation.

Any estate, be it country house or a private house must be provided with water. Without life-giving moisture, they cannot grow, delighting the eye with lush flowering, or fully bear fruit. cultivated plants. Do-it-yourself water well, despite the seeming enormity of the process, is a very real possibility of extracting water, which can be done independently without the use of heavy drilling equipment. There are several drilling methods that are quite simple to implement and do not require the use of expensive equipment or significant effort.

Water can be produced by using different technologies. The main types of water wells used to extract life-giving moisture:

Construction of a well, which, in the presence of a good spring, fills quickly and, being an excellent water storage device, can hold up to 2 cubic meters of water;
A sand filter well, which is a pipe d=100 mm, immersed using an auger to a depth of 20-30 meters. A stainless mesh is attached to the recessed end of the pipe, which acts as a filter, being immersed in coarse sand. Well depth is 10-50 meters, service life is 5-15 years.
A filterless artesian well used to extract water from porous limestone rock layers. The depth of the well is 20-100 meters, the service life is about 50 years.

The exact depth of the water well cannot be determined in advance. Approximately, this will be the same depth as a similar well drilled in neighboring areas, or a nearby well. Since deviations are possible due to uneven occurrence of soil layers, casing pipes should be purchased based on the parameters of the water supply sources already installed on the site, but taking into account minor adjustments.

The design of the water well is a kind of narrow well

The service life of wells directly depends on the intensity of use: the more often you use the structure, the longer it will last

Drilling a well manually

To perform the work, you need the drill itself, a drilling rig, a winch, rods and casing pipes. A drilling tower is necessary when digging a deep well; with the help of this design, the drill with rods is immersed and lifted.

The easiest way to drill a water well is rotary, which is done by rotating the drill

When drilling shallow wells, the drill string can be removed manually, without using a tower at all. Drill rods can be made of pipes; the products are connected using keys or threads. The lowest rod is additionally equipped with a drill.

The cutting attachments are made of 3 mm sheet steel. When sharpening the edges of the attachments, it should be taken into account that when the drill mechanism rotates, they should cut into the soil clockwise.

Drilling technology, familiar to most owners of personal plots, is also applicable for constructing a water well

The tower is installed above the drilling site; its height should exceed the height of the drill rod in order to facilitate the removal of the rod when lifting. Then a guide recess for the drill is dug onto two bayonets of the shovel. The first turns of rotation of the drill can be performed by one person, but as the pipe sinks, it will be necessary additional help. If the drill does not come out the first time, you should turn it counterclockwise and try again.

As the drill goes deeper, it becomes more difficult to rotate the pipe. Softening the soil with water will help make the work easier. As the drill moves downwards, every half a meter the drilling structure should be brought to the surface and freed from the soil. The drilling cycle is repeated again. At the stage when the tool handle is level with the ground, the structure is extended with an additional elbow.

Since lifting and cleaning the drill takes a significant part of the time, you should make maximum use of the design's capabilities, capturing and extracting to the surface the maximum possible portion of the soil layer.

When working on loose soils, additional casing pipes should be installed in the well to prevent soil from falling off the walls of the hole and blocking the well.

Drilling continues until it enters the aquifer, which is easily determined by the condition of the soil being removed. Passing the aquifer, the drill dives even deeper until it reaches the next aquifer - the aquifer. Immersion to the level of the waterproof layer will ensure maximum water flow into the well. It is important to note that manual drilling is only applicable for diving to the first aquifer, the depth of which does not exceed 10-20 meters.

Can be used to pump out dirty water hand pump or a submersible pump. After two or three buckets of dirty water, the aquifer is washed out and clean water usually appears. If this does not happen, the well should be deepened another 1-2 meters.

Can also be used manual method drilling based on use conventional drill and hydraulic pumps:

Rope Impact Drilling Technology

The essence of this method of making a water well with your own hands is that the rock is broken using a driving glass - a heavy tool falling from the height of an equipped tower.

To carry out the work, you need a homemade drilling rig, as well as tools for using the shock-rope method and extracting soil from the well.

A well tower, which looks like an ordinary tripod, can be made of either steel pipes or ordinary wooden logs. The dimensions of the structure must be proportional to the dimensions of the downhole tool.

The optimal ratio is the height of the tower, which exceeds the length of the downhole glass by one and a half meters

The process consists of alternately lowering the driving nozzle, which breaks and captures the rock, and raising it to the surface with the captured blade of the drilling tool.

To equip the drilling rig, you can use a steel pipe, the end of which is equipped with a cutting device. Cutting edge, reminiscent of appearance half of the auger turn will be in direct contact with the bottom. Half a meter from the edge, a hole must be made in the steel pipe through which the extracted soil can be removed by emptying the drill bit. A cable is attached to the top of the glass, which will be used to lower the glass and remove its contents to the surface. The glass should be freed from the ground as the structure deepens every half meter.

Here is a video example of conducting exploration drilling in this way:

The nuances of installing casing pipes

A do-it-yourself water well dug requires additional casing, which can be made from either a solid asbestos-cement pipe or individual sections asbestos pipes. When working with cuts Special attention is given equal to the diameter of the pipes in order to ensure subsequent unhindered immersion of the entire structure. Each pipe link is kept from slipping and secured with brackets, which are then hidden under stainless steel strips.

A do-it-yourself water well can also be “lined” with steel or plastic pipes

Pipe casing is required:

to prevent walls from collapsing during drilling;
to prevent clogging of the well during operation;
to cover the upper aquifers with poor water.

A pipe with a filter made of a fine mesh that does not allow grains of sand to pass through is lowered to the bottom of the well and provides water filtration. The pipe, lowered to the required depth, is secured with a clamp. This will prevent spontaneous subsidence.

With proper installation of a water well aboveground part The structure is covered with a caisson - a cap that protects the source from contamination.

The head is a tank with a closing hatch with a hole diameter that allows easy access to the water intake well

Over time, the effect of a slight “squeezing” of the pipe from the soil may be observed. The natural process of spontaneous lifting of the pipe to the ground surface does not require additional measures for deepening.

The depth of the well is not an idle question and depends on many factors. First of all, you need to decide what life-giving moisture is needed for. It’s one thing if the water is intended to be used only for household needs, such as watering a garden personal plot, for construction needs, for seasonal needs and so on. For this purpose, water is taken from high-water layers with a shallow depth. For such situations, a well permit is not required; you can drill yourself.

At the same time, before starting work, you need to make sure that there is water on the site, and the depth of its occurrence allows you to drill a well under reliable conditions. Even the presence of a deep well at a neighboring dacha does not guarantee the presence of life-giving moisture in the chosen location.

This indicator may even be the main one when determining tactics for searching for water. With a small volume of water consumption and mainly economic consumption, it is enough to go to the upper water layer with a flow rate of 0.5 m 3 / hour to a depth of 2 to 5 meters. Such a well will cost a minimal amount, especially if you drill it yourself. It does not require registration, since the law does not include the upper layer in the composition of minerals. But there is a risk of being left without water during a drought, since during the hot rainless season the well or well may dry up.

To obtain permission to drill wells, you need to spend an amount from 70 to 300 thousand rubles only on paperwork, then to drill and equip a water intake. A small station for deferrization, biological and chemical water purification will definitely cost less, but with guaranteed quality.

Quality of the material: (What is your assessment of the article?)

With increasing competition in the field of drilling water wells, each company is trying to give as much as possible low price, but everything has its limits, and in order to remain at least a small advantage, you need to commit a gross violation of technology. What these violations are and how to identify them, we will consider further.

It is not difficult to find the main ways in which drilling companies deceive clients; there are many sites with similar information, but the vast majority of what is written there is not true. Having spent two decades in the industry, we have encountered a variety of situations and have compiled our list of popular methods for moving away from technology.
What is written below concerns artesian wells.

Methods of deception when drilling wells under water

Here are the 4 main intentional mistakes when drilling water wells from companies that do not value their name at all:

Insufficient casing of the well. With the endless decline in drilling prices, it became unprofitable to drill using the technology and many (really many) companies stopped settling on limestone.
Normal companies do this: they drill up to the limestone, drill into it a little and completely line the well with a metal pipe. Over time, the place where the pipe enters the limestone will be covered, and nothing will be pulled from the sides. Having lined the well with a steel pipe, they begin to drill into limestone with a smaller diameter and install a HDPE pipe.
Fraudulent companies decided to simplify the procedure: in order not to spend expensive metal pipe, the drillers drill 10-15-20 meters... and simply place the pipe in the clay. Then they drill with a smaller diameter and line the limestone with plastic. No one does anything at the point where the pipe enters the limestone; plastic pipe or not is unknown. It turns out that a plastic pipe is protected by a steel pipe for 10-20 meters on top, and then it stands in clay without any protection.
This is usually done in places where the sections are well known; the drillers know the depth of the limestone and can pull off this trick. In the Moscow region, every centimeter has already been drilled and almost all sections are known.
The bad news is that you will never know whether your well is fully cased or not, even if you stand next to the workers. You don’t know when it’s time to settle down; they can easily do a hack job right under your nose. The water will flow, everything will work, you will be happy, but up to a certain point... Then everything depends on the geology, clays can compress a plastic pipe quickly, but more often this happens after a while. Often people find out about under-casing when they try to lift the pump from the well, but the HDPE pipe is flattened and the pump does not work.
The main thing for drillers is that this will happen later, and then your warranty will expire...
If this happened during the warranty period, then they will find fault with anything, your incorrect installation of the pump, for example. In the end, everything will come down to the need to order an examination. Such cases are known and happen regularly.
Sometimes similar design wells can work without problems.
How to protect yourself from such fraud? Order well drilling from companies that have been on the market for a long time (decades), who value their name and position and are not ready to give up their reputation. Naturally, such companies will never have the lowest price. If you are promised to drill with a plastic casing pipe and a metal one at a record low price, then this is clearly a deception.
The lower the price, the higher the chance of fraud.
You can read more about choosing a drilling organization.
Use of thin-walled pipes. Most drillers state that they use 133 mm pipe with a wall thickness of 4.5 mm. In fact, almost everyone has switched to 133mm with a 4mm wall and is gradually mastering the 3.5mm wall pipe. You won't know the real thickness.
Sometimes reinforced pipes are used, where seamless ends with a thickness of 5 mm are welded to a 133 mm pipe with a wall thickness of 4 mm. It’s even easier here: check the thickness of the main pipe to an ordinary person impossible, so they can easily use a 3.5 mm wall there.
A mixture of thin-walled pipes and under-casing of the well. The cheapest wells will most likely be drilled this way. There can be no talk of any 50 years of service, as everyone claims. The resource of such wells is estimated at several years.
Lowering real prices. This is not a violation of technology, it is simply a deliberate misleading of the customer. The most popular way to lure a client is to name an unrealistic price.
For example, they tell you that they can drill with a 133 mm pipe for 1800 rubles/meter in the Stupinsky district of the Moscow region. Later it turns out that the geology of the area is such that it is impossible to install pipes without a second HDPE and you need to pay extra. Of course, they knew in advance about the need for HDPE pipes. Self-respecting organizations warn in advance about difficult terrain.

Beware of low prices!

How you won't be deceived

There are several things that people usually keep a close eye on, but these are the ones you won’t be cheated on when drilling:

Well depth. It is generally accepted that drillers will definitely drill extra meters or simply announce too many. It is not true. Surprisingly, drilling deep wells is not profitable for the drilling organization itself due to the time-consuming tripping and lifting operations. How deeper well, the longer it takes to lower and raise the drill rods, lower and lift the pump for test pumping, etc. All this reduces the time spent on actual drilling, for which the office receives money. Plus, drillers are overwhelmed by such intense work. If the geology of the area is complex, as in many areas of the south of the Moscow region, then this adds additional work and further increases drilling time.
It is much (!) easier and more profitable for a company to drill 50 meters, take the money and move to a new site than to drill 100-150 meters. In areas with simple and clear geology, it may be profitable to drill up to 70-100 meters, but no more.
Workers won’t be able to throw on extra meters just like that either, because they rent to you finished design, and you personally monitor the number of drill rods lifted from the well, and then multiply their number by the length.
In this article we have described all issues related to well depth, including depth deception.
Old pipes. It is usually not customary to use old casing pipes and most drillers buy new ones at a metal depot before traveling to the site. Keep track of what they brought you. New steel pipe It has dark gray color, but she should lie down for 2 weeks open air how it is covered thin layer rust and looks like a used one, in such cases there is nothing to worry about, it is still a new pipe.
Prepayment. This is normal in construction. A well is an individual thing and the drilling crew cannot take it for themselves, everything is done for you and materials are purchased specifically for your well, and also, time is wasted and gasoline is burned on travel and drilling...
In addition, sooner or later you will have to pay for the well and part with your money.
Drilling water wells without prepayment is carried out mainly by beginners; check such companies in detail.
If the geology is difficult or if the well depth begins to exceed expected values, drillers may ask for additional money. This is also normal. With unexpectedly high well costs, many customers begin to look for ways not to pay, and drillers must protect themselves from non-payment. Unfortunately, deception on the part of a summer resident is not uncommon.
Experience has shown that when working without any advance payment, half of the clients begin to find fault with anything, even if there is nothing. Nobody wants to part with money.
Exploration drilling. There is a myth that drillers can come to your site, drill a well in 1 day, say that they haven’t found water, and charge half the price for exploratory drilling and leave. But what's the point? The well is ready, you can charge the full cost... In any case, drilling for 50% of the cost will quickly ruin the drilling company.