Alibi, this is so good it should be an article here. Have you considered making this into an article?
Making your own Water Supply
Over 3 months without a good supply of water
and now we have water again. Thought i'd share what
we did in case it will help anyone else.
We just finished installing our new Sand Point Well, it cost us under
$200.00 A little work intensive, but pretty simple to do.
Only a few materials and very little instruction and now we have a water
source no matter if the electricity is on or not, plus no water bill to pay.
We just tested it with a Pitcher pump and we have water! It was REALLY
dirty for the first few buckets we filled but got cleaner and cleaner as we
kept pumping. Goind to hook it up to our shallow well electric pump and
our whole house filter next.
The weather did slow us down a bit, we started a couple of days ago
when Minnesota decided to pound us up here in Brainerd with 13 inches
of snow in April. Should have seen that one coming, heck, it's Minnesota
The materials we used were:
1. 80 Gauze 36", Stainless Steel Well Point - cost 36.89 at Menards
2. Drive Cap - cost about 8.00
3. 2 drive Couplers - cost between 8.00 - 14.00
4. 90 degree galvanised 1 1/4" elbow -
5. 1 10 ft section 1 1/4" Galvanised well pipe - cost between 16.00 - 26.00
6. 1 5ft section well pipe 1 1/4" Galvanised 8.00 - 10.00
7. Manual Pitcher Pump - 34.00
We were price checking at all the stores that sold the items we needed so giving an
example of the prices
we were quoted to give a rough estimate. The Well point was around 70.00 at
Home Depot so we bought ours at Menards and they are almost identical.
Tools needed:
Either a Fence post Driver or Sledgehammer. We used
a sledgehammer since we couldn't find a fence post driver in our area to
fit over the drive cap.
A level
weighted string (ours was string with a bent nail on
the end) to test if you've hit water and how far up the pipe it is.
Big Pipe Wrenches
Plumbers Putty
Make sure you put your well at least 100ft from any septic tank, drainfield,
livestock and any other ground contaminants so as not to contaminate
your drinking supply.
Ok basically you start out digging the hole as far as you can before driving the pipe in,
use an auger or a post hole digger. We have neither at this time so had to do it the real old
fashioned way and used a shovel. We dug the hole about 8 feet down before we started driving the pipe in.
After digging the hole connect the drive point to drive coupling and drive coupling to section of pipe with plumbers putty (but not the drive cap since it will need to be removed to drive each section and to hook up water afterward)drop the Drive point into the hole and give it a few blows and check to make sure the pipe is level on two sides. Then drive it down another couple of feet and double check the level and give the joints and drive cap a couple of twists to make sure they are still tight.
After the pipe is in about 5 feet or so you don't have to check the level anymore since the dirt will
keep it pretty straight after that point. Still check to make sure that the joints and cap are still on
tight every 3-4 hits.
When the first 10 ft section of pipe is all the way in the ground then
check for water and continue checking every couple of feet after that.
Connect more pipe as needed until you get to where you have water.
We actually busted the section of 10 ft pipe at the joint when we had gotten it almost all the way
into the ground, drive it in slow and stead and pay attention to any change in sound
when pounding as you might be hitting a rock. The threads are really delicate. Not a total loss though, we used that one to run the water into the house. Home Depot cut off the bad section and re-threaded it for us for free. So we actually bought 2 10' sections of pipe but still came out under $200.00
Manual Pitcher pump is really handy for pumping out all the gunky water before hooking it up to
and ruining your electric pump. Also perfect for when there is no electricity or SHTF
Don't use teflon tape on any of the joints because you have to have a REALLY good seal.
Only use Plumbers Putty!
During the winter the ice drives the water down to a lower
point so if you don't have at least 8 - 10 feet minimum in your pipe to start
with then you'll lose your volume in the winter.
May need more pipe then we did we hit water pretty quickly, that would
depend on where your water table is.
This process is not possible in all locations since it would be pretty hard
to manually drive pipe a few hundred feet into the ground and then be able
to draw the water up with a hand pump.
We are going to drive another one in the next few weeks for outside water for the
animals and gardening. Using the manual pitcher pump for that one.
Will take pics of the whole process next time if anyone is interested.
Didn't this time as it was a learning experience but next time we know
what we're doing so can get some step by step pics.
Here is a couple of pics of the pipe now that it's all done.
The rusted pipe in the pic was used as leverage when
we had to pull the broken pipe and drive point out of the
ground.
and now we have water again. Thought i'd share what
we did in case it will help anyone else.
We just finished installing our new Sand Point Well, it cost us under
$200.00 A little work intensive, but pretty simple to do.
Only a few materials and very little instruction and now we have a water
source no matter if the electricity is on or not, plus no water bill to pay.
We just tested it with a Pitcher pump and we have water! It was REALLY
dirty for the first few buckets we filled but got cleaner and cleaner as we
kept pumping. Goind to hook it up to our shallow well electric pump and
our whole house filter next.
The weather did slow us down a bit, we started a couple of days ago
when Minnesota decided to pound us up here in Brainerd with 13 inches
of snow in April. Should have seen that one coming, heck, it's Minnesota
The materials we used were:
1. 80 Gauze 36", Stainless Steel Well Point - cost 36.89 at Menards
2. Drive Cap - cost about 8.00
3. 2 drive Couplers - cost between 8.00 - 14.00
4. 90 degree galvanised 1 1/4" elbow -
5. 1 10 ft section 1 1/4" Galvanised well pipe - cost between 16.00 - 26.00
6. 1 5ft section well pipe 1 1/4" Galvanised 8.00 - 10.00
7. Manual Pitcher Pump - 34.00
We were price checking at all the stores that sold the items we needed so giving an
example of the prices
we were quoted to give a rough estimate. The Well point was around 70.00 at
Home Depot so we bought ours at Menards and they are almost identical.
Tools needed:
Either a Fence post Driver or Sledgehammer. We used
a sledgehammer since we couldn't find a fence post driver in our area to
fit over the drive cap.
A level
weighted string (ours was string with a bent nail on
the end) to test if you've hit water and how far up the pipe it is.
Big Pipe Wrenches
Plumbers Putty
Make sure you put your well at least 100ft from any septic tank, drainfield,
livestock and any other ground contaminants so as not to contaminate
your drinking supply.
Ok basically you start out digging the hole as far as you can before driving the pipe in,
use an auger or a post hole digger. We have neither at this time so had to do it the real old
fashioned way and used a shovel. We dug the hole about 8 feet down before we started driving the pipe in.
After digging the hole connect the drive point to drive coupling and drive coupling to section of pipe with plumbers putty (but not the drive cap since it will need to be removed to drive each section and to hook up water afterward)drop the Drive point into the hole and give it a few blows and check to make sure the pipe is level on two sides. Then drive it down another couple of feet and double check the level and give the joints and drive cap a couple of twists to make sure they are still tight.
After the pipe is in about 5 feet or so you don't have to check the level anymore since the dirt will
keep it pretty straight after that point. Still check to make sure that the joints and cap are still on
tight every 3-4 hits.
When the first 10 ft section of pipe is all the way in the ground then
check for water and continue checking every couple of feet after that.
Connect more pipe as needed until you get to where you have water.
We actually busted the section of 10 ft pipe at the joint when we had gotten it almost all the way
into the ground, drive it in slow and stead and pay attention to any change in sound
when pounding as you might be hitting a rock. The threads are really delicate. Not a total loss though, we used that one to run the water into the house. Home Depot cut off the bad section and re-threaded it for us for free. So we actually bought 2 10' sections of pipe but still came out under $200.00
Manual Pitcher pump is really handy for pumping out all the gunky water before hooking it up to
and ruining your electric pump. Also perfect for when there is no electricity or SHTF
Don't use teflon tape on any of the joints because you have to have a REALLY good seal.
Only use Plumbers Putty!
During the winter the ice drives the water down to a lower
point so if you don't have at least 8 - 10 feet minimum in your pipe to start
with then you'll lose your volume in the winter.
May need more pipe then we did we hit water pretty quickly, that would
depend on where your water table is.
This process is not possible in all locations since it would be pretty hard
to manually drive pipe a few hundred feet into the ground and then be able
to draw the water up with a hand pump.
We are going to drive another one in the next few weeks for outside water for the
animals and gardening. Using the manual pitcher pump for that one.
Will take pics of the whole process next time if anyone is interested.
Didn't this time as it was a learning experience but next time we know
what we're doing so can get some step by step pics.
Here is a couple of pics of the pipe now that it's all done.
The rusted pipe in the pic was used as leverage when
we had to pull the broken pipe and drive point out of the
ground.
1 - 6 of 6 Posts
Thanks Mangyhyena
I actually thought I was rambling when I wrote it trying
to fit everything I could think of that we'd learned and how we did it. I kept
remembering things out of order and hoped it would all make sense at the end lol
Ya we hit water at around 18 feet plus the digging we did to get it started
below ground. We thought we'd end up needing to go down to at least 25
but got lucky and hit it pretty quick. It all depends on where your water
table is in your area.
It's hooked up to our pump right now, the pipes are almost done drying
and we're going to try and prime it in a couple of minutes.
Wish us luck, we all really want to take a long shower lol
I actually thought I was rambling when I wrote it trying
to fit everything I could think of that we'd learned and how we did it. I kept
remembering things out of order and hoped it would all make sense at the end lol
Ya we hit water at around 18 feet plus the digging we did to get it started
below ground. We thought we'd end up needing to go down to at least 25
but got lucky and hit it pretty quick. It all depends on where your water
table is in your area.
It's hooked up to our pump right now, the pipes are almost done drying
and we're going to try and prime it in a couple of minutes.
Wish us luck, we all really want to take a long shower lol
1 - 6 of 6 Posts
