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grassgod
Join Date: Apr 2004
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2004-09-19          96810

I have been looking at 3 pnt hitch post drivers & I am starting to think maybe I can install a well with one. I just bought some land that I am going to build a vacation cabin on & in the meantime will park a camping trailer there, so I will need water supply. It appears that if I buy the pipe in maybe 8' sections & just keep coupling it together, I could pound it in the ground with one of these post driver attachments? anyone ever use one of these? Is this a do-able project? It will most likely be temporary & not for drinking. Just bathing & washing dishes, mixing concrete...etc.

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TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
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2004-09-19          96814

I've heard of it being done, although I don't know if a 3pd PHD was used nor do I know anything about them. I suppose that hitting a rock would be a big problem and I'm not sure how the pipe end was unclogged--capped and pulled it back up after it was driven maybe.

I think these things usually have low capacity and I'm not sure I'd count on it for mixing concrete without testing the flow rate first. The flow really is the recovery rate since the water volume in a pipe is small. Surface water wells are highly variable even those near-by can be very different. It might be good to check with the neighbours if there are any dug wells around for recovery rates and late summer water depths. ....

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hardwood
Join Date: Dec 2002
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2004-09-19          96816

Grasgod; If we're thinking of the same thing, then around here they're called "Sand Points". I've never helped install one but I know that lots of them were put in our little hometown years ago and most are still being used. We've never had a municipal water system, but have a sewer system now. I don't think you can replace one that's gone bad anymore because of health laws, all new wells have to be drilled and have a steel or now plastic casing. If I recall correctly my inlaws well in town had a sand point that was only about 20 ft. deep, but there subsoil was pure sand and about 300 ft. from the river. Our house is about a mile further away from the same river and we had to drill almost 600 ft. for enough flow. So back to your question, I'd be sure to check county code first. If the code is ok and you have a sand subsoil it probably will work. I really don't recall what type of pump the inlaws had, but they allways seemed to have enough water. Ther are others on the board who can tell you tons more about this, so I'll let them take over from here. Best opf luck. Frank. ....

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TomG
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2004-09-19          96819

Thanks Hardwood, I remember the term 'sand point' now. It stands to reason there'd be a regular method to get the point off the end of the pipe. An implement for a one-time use may be more expensive than hiring a few young backs.

Suction pumps are good for about 25' but flow diminishes with depth. I don't know what diameter pipe is contemplated but our neighbour's jet pump was pumping from 70' - 90' in a 6" casing. A jet pump does require two lines and a Ventura unit that will fit into the pipe.

Surface water wells can be strange. At our camp two dug wells are maybe 300' apart and both are about 20' deep. A new standard raised 66' township road was put in maybe 200 yards behind us. Our well is fine but the other well goes dry during most of the summer. ....

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hardwood
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2004-09-19          96820

TomG; The more we talk about "Sand Points" the less I seem to remember, but I've saw lots of old "Sand Points" that had been pulled up and thrown in the junk pile. Working with a dim memory, here's what I remember them being. They were made of brass about 2-3 ft. long had a point on the bottom then the sidewall above the point was perforated with zillions of little holes maybe 1/16 th., then threads on the top for the pipe to screw onto. They really weren't that big in diamater, I'm guessing 1-1/4 to maybe 1-1/2 pipe. I'm trying now to remember what kind of pump would have worked. I think we need halp. Frank. ....

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grassgod
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2004-09-19          96824

This is a good start so far, thanks. I have been considering both "hand dug well" (sounds like thats what you have at your camp tom) as they commonly call it or a "sand piont" well. Sand piont well sounds like less work & sounds neater meaning less mess, less piles of fill but will use which ever ends up being most economical or easyier to install. ....

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harvey
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2004-09-19          96831

Another term is a driven well. They have lots of points designed for them. If you are not to rocky (soil) you can make one your self.

The key to using the tractor is to attach a car rim to the right hand wheel and lock the brake on the left side (right side jacked up). You need to set up a large tri-pod with a pully. A 5-6 foot piece of pipe large enough to fit over a "Drive Cap" on the driven pipe a couple of large weights attached to the driver. (we use railroad rail welded to the pipe with a thick slab welded over the top). Use the wheel as a windlass and release the tension on the rope and the weight will drive the pipe. You can add in sections as you go down.

When you find water pump it hard and you can pump out the muck and you will have a resivor.

Good luck! Harvey ....

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grassgod
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2004-09-19          96836

harvey - this sounds interesting. Couple of questions - how tall should the tripod be & were do you position it exactly? second question is how do you use the weights? you siad you use rail road rails...were do you place them? DO you think it would be possible for you make a drawing of this & post it? ....

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Archdean
Join Date: Jul 2004
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2004-09-19          96839

Hi Grass,
I only drove one sand point and it was a galvanized one made for 2" pipe (looked like a RPG Rocket grenade)with heavy duty couplings and designed for 4' sections of 2" pipe and a detachable heavy duty cap which you removed and reinstalled and pounded the hell out of it again and again actually got it to about 18' and about 3 gal/min not bad , but I'll never do it again it is about 50' behind and up the bank from pic #4....
Good luck.. Note you must use the heavy couplings (non cast, milled from solid stock)or it will all be for naught!!

Dean ....

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grassgod
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2004-09-19          96841

Thanks Dean. That is pretty much what I had in mind of doing. Were did you purchase the pipe & caps etc.. do you think home depot would carry it or should I go to a specialized plumbng store? secondly, what made you pick the spot you picked? A friend of mine told me to get a divining rod but my wife said thats a bunch of hogwash. ....

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Archdean
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2004-09-19          96844

Your welcome Gras,
When I owned my (True Value store) They had them in the special order section I sold about 8 or 9 after I did mine and you had to order the couplings separate along with the drive cap and the more I think about it I'm sure now it was 1&1/2" not 2" the 4' pipe I cut myself, flew to the lake and pounded myself silly ,,, Now I agree with your wife I picked a small depression,figured less rock or at least a softer crust! and swung a 16# mall till my arms fell off! Hit rock more than once but the pointy end of the sand point is pretty beefy and the couplings can't split so on and on, I used a pitcher pump which screwed on to the stand pipe and primed it with a bucket from the lake!!
hope this saga from yesteryear helps you!
Dean ....

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AV8R
Join Date: Oct 2003
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2004-09-19          96849

I've pounded several of these down.

Go to a rental shop and get a well pounder. A manual well pounder is a larger piece of pipe (4" ?) with a solid 1" bar down the middle, handles welded on the outside and capped opposite the bar with maybe 10-20# of lead poured in the end. The bar slides down the well pipe and you hammer the whole thing up and down, and drives quiet nicely. We allways put a "drive coupler" on the end of the pipe section to be pounded (as wellas all the other joints) to prevent damage to the threads.

There is also a pnumatic power version. ....

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TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
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2004-09-20          96852

I remember a friend of my father's getting around city water rationing by digging a well for watering his lawn. He was using a large diameter hand auger when we visited. One section of the casings he was going to install sounds like a sand-point.

The best well location may depend on what's going to be done for septic and gray water disposal. I'd keep in mind that temporary arrangements sometimes become permanent except in the mind. We use a composting toilet at our camp but the health unit required us to have a gray water pit. The pit had to be close to the trailer or it would be too deep for the high water table. The dug well had to be at least 100' from the pit, so the well is a bit of a walk from the trailer. We use a hand pump, which is adequate for our needs. ....

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grassgod
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2004-09-20          96856

wow great advice i'm getting, thanks guys. I think a hand pump is what I will start out with also. Luckily the land we bought is on a small mountain with hardly any rock or ledge so the water table wont be any issue. Well, this week I am going to go to the plumbing supply house & see what I can get my hands on as far as pipe & couplers & drivepionts go. So do I need to run power to it if I am going to use a hand pump? ....

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yooperpete
Join Date: Jan 2004
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2004-09-20          96863

I've pounded a few wells and it is allot of manual labor. Sometimes you will get down to 8 or 10' and hit a rock. You have to then start over again in a different spot. Most of the time you can buy points at your local hardware store and rent the pounder. Using a post hole digger first is a good way to get started since you then don't have to pound the first 3 to 4'. Make sure you start the point straight vertical. We usually start pounding when standing on a short sawhorse to get a good comfortable height when the section is at its highest point. We then remove it as it gets closer to the ground. When adding a new section we slide it back into position. You will usually hit water between 12 and 20'. I've never driven a well deeper than 20'. Handpumps are usually what people attach to them. ....

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AV8R
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2004-09-20          96864

Not if you don't need a powered pump. It does make an excellent ground, however. ....

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grassgod
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2004-09-20          96921

I was thinking a post driver, not post hole digger, could do the pounding. I have been studying these 3 pt implements & it seems they would do the job. The are designed to hammer in metal chain link fence posts. Looks like my tractor would just barely have enough power to run one. They have them on the worksaver web site. Have any of you ever used one? I need to install fencing there anyway for our horses so I would have many uses for it. I just dont want to buy one till someone has told me they are user friendly. ....

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Archdean
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2004-09-20          96927

I don't know a damn thing about them but it better be able to as well as I can with a 16# mall or forget it! And I barely was able to do it!!
Somehow it just doesn't equate but I could and often am wrong LOL...
Dean ....

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harvey
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2004-09-21          96985

Sorry it took so lok to get back. You have most of the hardware mentioned.

The tripod has to be taller than the longest section of pipe to be driven. A pulley at the peak, an anchored pulley below and the tractor out and away. The capisian on the tractor does the work. You need to have the rim well polished so when you release tension on the rope the weight will free fall easily. MAKE sure you loop it correctly so that it wil slip off with out a tangle when you want.

The weight of the driver with rails and cap is about 100#. Have drove several wells like that and never broke a sweat.

It does take a couple of people to do it. ....

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beagle
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2004-09-21          96987

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but make sure you seal the joints at the couplings. They need to be extremely tight and well sealed. I drove a 2" well a couple years ago, and didn't have the joints tight enough. The pounding from driving the pipe tends to loosen the joints, leeving you with a disaster. With a shallow point well, any air leaks at the joints will leave you with no water at the pump.

It's best to prime the well with a picture pump, whether you will go powered or not. You will need to pump for a while to get the well to run clear. Test the well and treat as necessary. ....

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AV8R
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2004-09-21          96992

As you drive down the well, turn it with a large pipe wrench to keep the point clear, and keep the joints tight.

The well driver I was talking about has a weight any where from 30 to 50+ pounds. Puts a sand point through sand like butter, with out any dangerous capstands. ....

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grassgod
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2004-09-21          96994

Ok - this is getting clear...Couple of questions for now, I'm sure I'll have more later. Beagle - what should I use to seal the couplers with? teflon tape maybe? Ok, av8r - can you explain how this manual driver mounts on the pipe a little more? Harvey - You way sounds interesting & doable but I would need a diagram to better understand, That & how will I find a car rim that is the same lug pattern as my Kubota? What would I need the men you described for? DO I have to weld the wieght (in your case rr rails) on the rim? I am wieghing my options as to whether I'll do this manually or use the tractor. ....

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AV8R
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2004-09-21          96999

I drew a simple picture of a manual welll driver on my website. Here is the link. Let me know if I can clarify further. ....


Link:   Well Driver

 
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Archdean
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2004-09-21          97001

Gras,
By the time your done weighing your options I could drive the damn thing at least 20 feet into the ground with my 16# mall including travel time from Grove, Oklahoma to Killingly, CT and back again rest awhile and do it all over again in case we hit a dry hole the first time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dean ....

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beagle
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2004-09-21          97002

After getting an education the hard way, we used a good pipe joint compound. It worked really well, no leaks. I'm not sure teflon tape would be a good choice for this type of joint. Ask at the hardware for a good joint compound. Remember you can't lift water with a pump more than 32 feet without it cavitating. If you need to go more than 25 feet, I would consider a jet pump or submersed system.

I wouldn't recommend driving a well point with a hammer. A pipe driver like the picture, or the system Harvey describes would both work. You want to hit the pipe as true as possible to get a good drive. The sand point will do some of the work for you.

Good Luck ....

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AV8R
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2004-09-21          97004

I made the mistake of trying a mall once to drive a well. My skills must be no where as good as yours, Dean. LOL I hit the handle and broke it. Game over. Went to the rental shop and got a well driver and had it done in an hour. (14' sand point for a sprinkler system) ....

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Archdean
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2004-09-21          97008

AV8R,
I was just trying to get Gras off his butt and get with it (Actualy I didn't have your thingy just loaded the stuff into my 170B and flew 80NM to Shulin Lake and started swinging, (incidently did you use a hardened drive cap with your thingy?) I did and it was beat to a pulp but then again it was supposed to look like that IF YOU HIT THE THING!!! LOL
Dean ....

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AV8R
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2004-09-21          97010

I used cast couplers between the sections, and a drive coupler on the top to hit. I would take it off and replace it with a cast coupler, put on the next section and put the drive coupler on the top. At the end the coupler was beat to "heck."

BTW: I used regular teflon tape without problem. Trick I found was to keep twisting the entire well while diving every few (10-15) hits. Here's where that 24" pipe wrench comes in handy. ....

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shortmagnum
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2004-09-22          97030

I just helped a friend drive a well at his cabin. If you get to water and have air leaks you can still put a 1" plastic pipe down the well casing until the end is submerged.

I've also used a system such as Harvey described. I used my '76 Chev Monza to power the rig. I welded one rim to another so that the second rim stuck out from the car body, then jacked one rear quarter up so the rim(s) would turn. I think one loop of rope around the rim was just enough to pull when I tightened the loop.

I'm really not recommending you do this. In retrospect it was probably pretty dangerous. It's more an "I actually lived through this story." :-) ....

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grassgod
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2004-09-22          97056

Dean - Your cracking me up....Hey I'll pay for your plane fuel if you want to fly in & help me. There is a good size lake a mile up the road from this property. I'm not ready to do this quite yet. I have to clear more tree's out first etc. I will do it either in November or March depending on how much I get done before the ground freezes this year. Av8r thank you for taking the time to draw that for me. ....

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jimbrown
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2004-09-29          97397

Look here
http://www.fdungan.com/well.htm ....

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harvey
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2004-09-30          97438

EXCELLENT LINK! YOU DID GOOD! ....

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