Life Goes on - Summer 2024

Marat_Lysenko · May 12, 2024, 1:16pm

Our well collapsed yesterday.

It was lined with natural wild stone to a depth of 8 m. But 11 years ago, there was no water in it at such a depth. We had to deepen it by another 3 meters, pulling out the clay with an inner diameter of 1 meter. For several years, all this worked properly, although it was clear that something needed to be strengthened at the bottom. But it was not possible to put concrete rings, much less lay out a stone under such a huge masonry.

At the beginning of spring, our most powerful pump failed, and as it turned out, it was enveloped in clay for all 3 meters. They planned to dig it out later, when the water level would have dropped at the end of August. For a while, we put a less powerful pump (there was no other) in the well, and another pump in our cellar to raise the pressure to 4 bar so that the reverse osmosis filter could work.

Now we have neither water nor a backup pump. Therefore, we cannot pump water from a well on our other house 500m away from us. But it’s not as scary as imagining that this photo could represent my grave. Or even worse, the grave of my youngest son. He sometimes helped me with connecting the pipes for the pump in the well itself.

Therefore, the sadness is due to the uncertainty of what to do with water when summer is very close. And at the same time, it is a great happiness that God has saved us from grief!

Marty · May 12, 2024, 4:18pm

Would not a drilled well be feasible? If not done professionally with a large truck, perhaps a small DIY drill rig? The DIY method would of course depend upon your soil geology.

Marat_Lysenko · May 12, 2024, 5:06pm

Yes, manual hydraulic drilling is possible in our area. And we even have a powerful pump capable of pumping clay with chunks. It has good performance so that the well can be flushed in time.

But materials are needed to create drilling rods for 30 meters (steel pipes, threads, couplings and electrodes) - $ 100. A casing pipe is immediately needed so that a fresh well does not collapse. Another $100 for 30 meters. It is impossible to do less, because later it will not be possible to deepen the well. And a submersible pump costs $150. And unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of money…

Combat aviation and missile defense periodically, but very persistently, reminds us that the war is still going on here.

Woodrunner · May 12, 2024, 5:13pm

Sad to hear that Marat, my thoughts are with you.
But as you say: no one was down there when it collapsed, a horrible way to die.

Tone · May 12, 2024, 5:36pm

Marat, if you have clay soil, it is quite easy to drill with the process of washing the drilled soil. This video clip nicely shows the process of drilling and then blowing out - cleaning the bore, …

KristijanL · May 13, 2024, 4:54am

This gave mi chills. Glad everyone was ok.

Whats the price of concreete pipes? Do you even get them? If buying them is a option for you its the easyest and safest solution. You put a pipe in FIRST. then you can safely go in and remove the stones also from under the pipe and it will slowly sink down as the stones are removed. Once sunk enaugh, add a nother pipe on top. So on untill its all done. Thats the trick a friend of myne taught me

giorgio · May 13, 2024, 6:27am

good that everyone is ok…god shows us that life is to risky without his protection…
there is also a method to make the well in brickwork or masonry with natural stones…the work begins on “top”, so the worker is always protected in a masonry stonewall ring…
if you are interested i can describe more…
have you access to sand and cement?
the ring methode like kristijan says is quicker…

KristijanL · May 13, 2024, 11:14am

Giorgio, plese do tell more. I am interested

Marat_Lysenko · May 13, 2024, 12:31pm

Yes, we also thought that a wide well made of concrete rings is the best and most correct source of water. A large supply of water that has time to settle. The opportunity to go down and clean the bottom. Left without electricity, you can simply collect water with a bucket. The narrow well seemed to us to be something unreliable and temporary.

A concrete ring 1m high and 1m in diameter cost $65 2 years ago. And it was relatively close to us - 25km. Now the territory of this store has been occupied by the military, and now the nearest concrete rings are 100 km away from us. One ring weighs 600kg. The water level in our well was at 11 meters and continued to decrease from year to year. Therefore, we planned to dig a well at least 20 meters deep. ($65*20=$1300 the cost of concrete rings only. Delivery for 100 km and unloading in the yard of our house by a car crane - about $ 500 more). This means that we either had to install 20 rings from the surface of the earth, digging a well in a new place (dig with a shovel and lift up 15 cubic meters of earth!). Or lower 10-11 rings into an existing well. We even thought about making a formwork so that we could make steel-reinforced concrete rings ourselves at home. I was so sure that these titanic efforts and the huge cost would be justified in the future that for a long time I did not consider other ways to extract water from the ground.

But it was the constant lack of money, the rapidly rising prices of all goods (even cement, although it is sold here of such poor quality that it already looks more like crumbling sand) that made me look for other options. And then I came across this video where young people (he is a programmer, she is a designer) left the city of Novosibirsk, bought 50 hectares of land, got cows, built a house, installed electricity in this field, and, among other things, learned how to extract water in a simpler way.

It turned out that it was not so much the water itself that needed to be searched underground, as the water-bearing layer. And this is sand. Clay, on the contrary, is a waterproof layer. This means that if you dig a well with a shovel underground to sand and water, it becomes very, very dangerous! The concrete rings will fall into this quicksand along with the well diggerman. Going through the water-bearing layer to put concrete rings on the next layer of clay is a very difficult task. Moreover, only by the forces of one family.

Having thought it all over many times and comprehensively with my mind, and having passed all these fears and experiences through my soul, I came to hydro drilling from the surface of the earth. I just didn’t have enough time and money to do it next to our well while it was still operational. But if it had been possible to save one pump and put it in a new well, then I would not have been able to resist and sooner or later would have climbed into our wide well to dig out a more powerful pump that was sucked in by clay.

But God solved this problem in a different way. My youngest son’s life and my life turned out to be much more valuable to Him than our pumps, and those short-lived difficulties that we have to go through while digging a well. How true Giorgio said it: “god shows us that life is to risky without his protection”. But to hear God, you need to have free time of your own soul and mind. And most people on Earth are too busy every day. After all, God does not write words in heaven. First of all, there are too many different languages. Secondly, people are busy with various tasks and therefore there are no such universal tips to convey them in this way. Thirdly, the Father does not violate the freedom of choice given to his children.

madflower69 · May 13, 2024, 2:44pm

They use PVC pipe for the well casing and pvc for the pipe that goes in the well around here.
Here is the old fashioned way:

this is low budget.

You might be able to sink that thing in and clean out the clay to get your big pump out of the hole.

This is the same but he is using a better drill bit, and an actual like 1/2 or larger drill.

ccweb1 · May 13, 2024, 3:39pm

I drilled a remote well for our animals sort of like this years ago. I only needed to go down 25 feet. So i was able to get away with a shallow well jet pump. I used 2inch pvc pipe to drill the well, (we are mostly sand at this location). I injected air from a small portable air compressor along with the water. I put a valve on the air line and would open it up and let it discharge the air tank, when it was emptly i would shut the valve and let the air compressor build the pressure back up to 120psi.
Injecting the air along with the water greatly improved(speed up) the drilling process.
When i hit water all the water in my hole disappeared.
Once I hit water i dropped a 1.25" pvc pipe with screen down the 2 inch pipe. Then pulled the 2" out.

MikeR · May 13, 2024, 4:11pm

Marat,
Lots of low-tech water system ideas on this EMAS YouTube channel, a German good Samaritan who works in Bolivia, with low budget village-level water systems. He has been around YT a long time. I have watched almost all the videos on their channel.

giorgio · May 13, 2024, 5:35pm

kristijan, here the system, i read in a book

first dig a hole down, nor more as 1,50 meters (important for safety, because when more than man´s hight one can get buried with earth when unfortunately the earth from the side collapses in the digged hole)
the side of the hole is good when it is rough, eventually a bit bended out, like a whiskey barel from wood- in this way every every brickwork ring got a good contact or friction to the earth outside…also filling the void behind the stones with cement…
the first ring begins at the even bottom with standing bricks ( i think they have more friction on the surface each to the other) than flat bricks up to the top level .
important all voids between the bricks are filled careful with cement and pieces that act as wedges, in way the brick rings make a compakt round circle what can resist to the pressure of the earth outside.
step two: dig again 1,50 m down, but only down the inner lining of the upper bricks ring, so all is safe.make a even bottom
than go under the bricks, but only a quarter of the circle, leave the earth under the upper wall also in way rough and a bit barrel sized for friction.
than make a quarter of the wall, begin at the bottom with standing bricks again, and than up til the upper ring with laying bricks…always fill all the voids exactly with cement and pieces of bricks or little stones ( the same method as the upper ring.
than go on the opposite part of the quarter wall and make the same work…
on the sides of the quarter walls the bricks must be in way one looks half forward, one is back like a zipper connection, like one does also with normal bricklayer work for a good connection.
when the ring is complete and , of course, the cement has become harder, you make the next 1,50m in the same system…
important is you have always enough fresh air, especially when going deeper…also different gas can come out of the ground, let first a burning candle down for to see if the flame goes off, than there is bad air, and you must bring fresh air down, for example with a strong forge blower…
this work can be done till the water level comes, than in old times they have given in a kind of straight barel from resistant wood like larch inside, 2 m long, and digged inside this barrel with different kinds of hand excavators, so the barrel goes always deeper, but not under the under ring of bricks of course…i now would use a cement ring instead of this wooden barrel

giorgio · May 15, 2024, 1:52pm

not everywhere in the underground is water…some people think of underground lakes, but mostly there are only small stripes where the water is located…in our place mostly only where are rocks with splits , there the water can run, outside of the rocks is kind of clay where the water cannot penetrate.
so in rainy periods all the splits guide water, but in summer not…most of them are empty.
my son finds water with this kind of tool, for beginner is best the under woodfork, because has less tension…than think on water and go and look if the fork moves from alone…
try it , some persons are sensible to this, shure also someone in the forum…
please report

tcholton717 · May 15, 2024, 3:18pm

That’s called dowsing or water witching here Giorgio. Not not everyone can do it. I have tried with willow and could not do it even though there is a large aquifer my well is in that even feeds an artisan stream. Your son has a valuable talent.

andris_lv · May 15, 2024, 3:49pm

i have not tried finding underground water for a long time, but many years ago i did use one or two pieces of 4…5mm copper or aluminum wire, bent in 90 deg. angle.

JohanM · May 15, 2024, 3:53pm

I do not believe in that it works, yet I still use a version of it and it does work but my brain does still not believe in it even though I see that it does. I have not tried wooden twigs/sticks.
Mine is two 10” single strand copper cables 4mm2 bent 90 degrees in the last 3” and put in a 1/4” pipe to have in my hands. It works for buried waterlines (even plastic), sewage, power cables and such.
But I still don’t believe it completly

Norman89 · May 15, 2024, 4:51pm

We used brass rods to find hidden galvanised waterlines quite frequently when i did construction/ dirt work. Still cant understand how it works but watched it work many times over

MikeR · May 15, 2024, 5:33pm

I don’t know for sure, but… The earth has a strong magnetic field. (think Compass) Water, especially well water with an Iron content, would be magnetically “conductive”. Magnetic fields organize themselves in lines, water closer to the surface would influence where the lines are, the human body is mostly water, salty and conductive. The “device” may detect a strong difference in the magnetic force.
Or I could be full of Horse Dung.

andris_lv · May 15, 2024, 5:50pm

i became curious whether i still have it. ))

it is not hard to bend a piece of wire after all.