The Well

When we first moved in to the house, the realtor poured Clorox down the well. I didn’t know how he did it, because the well was sealed off on the top, in a snug little well house, loaded with straw and fiberglass insulation. Later I found there was a well in the barn, between ten and fifteen feet deep, with an open hole, covered only by a empty plastic milk jug. In the thirteen years we’d lived there, naturally, the jug had gotten jostled off, and since we’d used the barn for hay and firewood, the shallow well was liberally sprinkled with hay, wood chips and whatever was on our feet. Considering that we kept dogs, cows, horses, cats and goats at one time or another, what might have fallen down the hole can only be imagined, but it is not surprising that within six months after moving in to our home, our water smelled like rotten eggs.

When the pump finally gave out, it had been giving us trouble off and on for about six weeks. Thankfully, it limped along, working about half of the time until we had successfully hosted the wedding reception of our daughter. It had been the hottest day of the year, and even at seven o’clock, when the reception started, it was still 103 degrees. We sweltered through three hours of smiling and posing and inventing conversation, the whole while having a working bathroom for the visitors. At ten o’clock, when the final lingering guests were driving away, as if on cue, the pump shut off for good.

For two or three days, we fetched water from the irrigation ditch to flush the toilets, and found alternate places to take showers. We had been drinking bottled water for years, so that wasn’t a problem. We had about thirty gallons on hand that we’d filled up at Walmart for 33 cents a gallon. Just for fun, we brought a delightful little fellow who had a very good reputation as a douser (water witcher, but I don’t like the term) to our home to tell us where we could dig to find sweet, potable water. He designated a place where we could dig 45 feet to find thirty gallons a minute, which is quite spectacular. At the time, we were just planning on pulling out the old pump and either fixing it or putting in a new one, but when I tried to pull the pump, I found it was far deeper in the ground (175 feet) than I thought. (15 feet)

At that point we decided to spend five to six thousand dollars to dig a new well, as opposed to 1500 to have the pump pulled and replaced. I called everyone I could think of, and they were all booked for weeks. Finally I told one of them I was going to try to get it done myself. He laughed and said, "good luck."

His laugh was infuriating. He had all the power, and I had none, and meanwhile, I was drinking bottled water, showering at work, and flushing the toilet with ditch water. My wife and children, who didn’t have access to my workplace shower, had it a little rougher, and when friends started offering their bathrooms and hot water, we didn’t know whether they were hinting that there was a problem or just being kind.

I didn’t decide to dig a well immediately. I brought it up to one of my friends the next day.

"What do you know about digging a well?" I asked.

"I’m around the rigs (oil field, rife in our area) all the time. I know quite a bit," he answered, an eager (and dangerous, though I didn’t recognize it) light in his eye. "When do you want to start?"

"Today," I said, feeling the same excitement that showed in his face.

"Okay," he answered. "See if you can find some three and a half inch drilling pipe."

And so we began. I got the pipe from a friend who delivers stuff like that and had a few pieces of it lying around. We attached the three 30 foot pieces together with a chain, and with great effort, and the combined strengths of me, my friend and my three sons, we were able to lift the pipes up (each section weighs about 250 lbs) and make a tripod, designed to hold our drill or hammer or whatever we were able to rig up. It also made a large eyesore for cars passing by and neighbors to see.

But that was not all bad. My neighbor, once he learned what we were doing said, "Why didn’t you tell me?" An hour later, he and his son came with a section of ABS pipe which they had run up from his place. They connected it into our pump system, and voila! we had water again.
That was an exceedingly kind thing for him to do. I took very quick showers while it was in place, and the habit has stuck since then. (If you ever meet me, and you notice an unpleasant odor hanging faintly about me, you’ll know why)

My friend found a power drill used for drilling post holes. We placed a carbide tipped bit on the end, suspended it from our tripod, hung about 150 lbs of weight from it to give us a little extra advantage, put some guide poles up (all these things were fastened together by means of an arc welder which my friend had brought over. I didn’t know how to weld, but I’ve learned a lot since then. If you ever want something welded, and call me, I’ll get it done, but I won’t guarantee anything to be pretty)

The post hole drill worked great– down to five and a half feet, when two things happened. First of all, we hit ground water, and we hit cobble rock. The water we expected, and the cobble rock– well, we actually knew about that too, but I applied some of my magical thinking, and wished it away. (It didn’t go very far. In fact, I don’t think my wishing moved it more than an inch or so deeper)

For three days, we ran the drill. I tried climbing up and standing on the assembly, hoping my added weight would help it bite through the cobble. No luck. At that point, my friend said, "well, we’ll have to rig a hammer and pound that rock to bits."

It wasn’t a bad idea, and eventually we might have been successful in breaking through the first, or second or third or maybe even the fourth rock, as we wended our way downward, but at that point, his work got really busy, and he became unavailable. I was about ready to throw in the towel and have the professional come out, but I brought the subject up to another friend the next day. His eyes lit up the same as the first friend. "I know just the thing," he said. "We’ll attach the drill to the PTO of my tractor, (the PTO is a shaft that protrudes out the back end of the tractor. It spins when the engine is running, and turns the brush hog, haybaler or whatever attachment the farmer wants to use) and then lift the back wheels of the tractor. That’ll put 1300 lbs of pressure on the drill."

I got excited again. "Can you come over today?" I asked.

We had to do some more welding, but after a week or so, (it took a little while to line up our schedules) we were ready. I had caved in some of the hole, because I had tried to make it big enough for me to hand dig, so it was about four feet deep. The new device dug down like crazy– about one and a half feet. Then it stopped and spun just like the other drill.

This friend also had a few ideas to solve the problem, but I had had enough. I sensed that my neighbor was tired of shipping half his water to us, and it was late summer. We could have our first frost any time, and the ABS pipe, above ground as it was, would freeze.
Just to make certain, we called the douser again. He came over, basically said there was water in the same spot, but this time it was 65 feet down. That didn’t worry me too much, because he said he was weakest about determining depth.

A week later, the drill truck was there. It was a giant, jutting up like a skyscraper in our rural area, making our tripod setup look like tinker toys in comparison. They were willing to drill right where where the douser told us. I watched them start, and then I went in to the house to get a drink of water, confident I would come out and find them stuck at five and a half. To my surprise, however, when I came out, no more than ten minutes later, there was water spurting out of the drilling rig.

"Is that the ground water?" I shouted. (The rig makes a lot of noise)

The driller shook his head. "We hit ten gallon a minute at fifteen feet," he said. "Is this good enough?"

I pondered a moment. While I was thinking it over, I noticed water coming out the top of the old well head. I pointed to it. "What’s that?" I said.

"This is the same water you were pulling from your first well," the driller said.

I held out my hand in front of the stream. Then I smelled it. Sulphur.

"We gotta go deeper," I said.

"This might be all you get," the driller countered.

"No, we’ll find water further down," I said. "I’m sure of it."

Well, I was right, but not for another 260 feet. It only took them two days to do it, after the days and days of us sweating at five and a half. After Rick installed the well casing, the pump, the wiring and the pipe which brought the water from the bottom of the hole to the surface, I attached the pipe from the well to the house myself, and got it going inside.

What came out was cold, sweet, lovely water, and worth every penny of the $12,000 we ended up paying for it. I learned a lot, and now consider myself a semi expert on well drilling. You can just ask me.

I had two questions that came up while we were doing (or rather having done) the project. First of all, why was the original well 175 feet deep, when the aquifer it was using was only 15 feet down? The answer, I believe is that the original drillers found the first water, but wanted to go deeper because deeper water is more stable in drought years and less subject to contamination. When they got to 175 feet, (it costs 18 dollars a foot to dig) they ran out of money, so they put the pump down in the hole, pumping out water that was draining down from 15 feet. The barn well was in the same aquifer, so all the stuff we kicked in as we walked in and out of there, contaminated what went to our house. (I shudder now as I think about drinking that stuff when it smelled bad. For all I know, I was drinking the neighbor dog’s business in our barn)

My second question is, was the douser, or any douser for that matter, right? Certainly he was wrong about the depth, but we did find wonderful water right where he told us to dig. So I don’t know the answer to that. You’ll have to make that decision yourself, if you ever decide to dig a well.