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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Allen" data-source="post: 225932" data-attributes="member: 389">First and foremost, that hole drilling story is not only funny, but it's incomplete as all hell.  There's a lot more to getting a successful water well than just digging a hole in the ground.  Things like screen size and depth selection, installing a packer, and grouting (or using bentonite) to seal the well.  If you put in a well with a bad design you can seriously screw up your water quality, have repetitive pump issues, and encourage bacterial growth in your well which makes you lose production as it plugs the screen and sand/gravel used as a packer.  There are pitfalls not mentioned in that wonderfully detailed account of a first time driller. I'd be pretty curious as to what rig he was using as it sounds awfully small.  Probably something akin to the smaller rigs I've been around.  While I haven't checked on pricing around here, that $60 a cased foot sounds really, REALLY high.  It's about double what I was seeing 10 years ago in SD for the drilling of 8 inch wells as we targeted 250-500 gpm production.  Perhaps that is because a lot of drillers "guarantee" a successful well, even if they have to drill it 3-4 times.  Where you are going, this should be a one and done deal on the hole in the ground.  The water is there, the quality could be crap, I know it is at my place in my two wells, but there is definitely enough sand and gravel to where you should be able to get a well.  The problem with this area is that geologically, it's just too young.  The salts that were/are trapped in the shale particles of sand are still dissolving.  So the longer the water is in and moves through the ground, the saltier it gets.  Young water is not a great idea either though, it has a greater potential for being above recommended limits for nitrate, arsenic, and other not so good things even though it's a better water source for trees.   P.S.  Just because water tastes good, or makes better coffee, doesn't mean you want to drink it.  Years ago I ran across a fella who hated the NDDH because they told him he had contaminated water.  His well was in his basement and was only about 15 ft deep.  It had no sealing or anything on it to prevent the septic tank that was 20 feet away from his basement from entering his capture zone.  I spent a good deal of time talking to him about "recycling".  Yuck!   Then there was a gravel and concrete operation over in Minnetucky that hired me one time to help figure out why their concrete needed so much air entrainment chemicals in the morning from water they pumped into a tank overnight, but by afternoon when they were using water straight out of the well for the concrete they had to cut back on air entrainment chems. As a side note, the guy said..."oh yeah, and between the two wells...this one is preferred for making coffee".  Yep, another example of recycling water from the local outhouses. Bottom line, it is so, sooo easy to screw up a well that I would (even for me) hire a pro.  I'd just be there every single minute overseeing the work and design.</blockquote>

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