There’s something that our ancestors all had on their property, which we don’t often have today. No, I’m not referencing a barn, although that would be true. I’m referring to a water well.

City water is something relatively new, at least as we know it. Before that, people had to rely on well water for everything. If they didn’t live close enough to their neighbors to share a water well, they had to have their own.

Today, having a well is rare. Few can afford the cost of having a well commercially drilled and even fewer try doing it themselves. But there are ways of doing it yourself, without having to resort to the time-tested method of using a pick and shovel.

The problem with using a pick and shovel to dig a well, besides it being back-breaking work, is that the well has to be big enough to climb in and work. That means displacing a lot more dirt in order to get down to the level of the water. The well also has to be shored up as you go, in order to prevent it from caving in while you are working.

But there is an easier way. You can actually drill a well fairly easily, using nothing more than PVC pipe and water. No, I didn’t invent this way, someone else did; but his method is so simple, it deserves to be shared.

The Right Soil

To start with, you have to have the right soil. Not all soil is created equal and the wrong soil will make it extremely hard to drill a well. The ground beneath our feet is divided into layers, and the composition of those layers will drastically affect how easy they are to drill through. We can have layers of:

• Soil
• Sand
• Clay
• Rock
• Gravel

Soil and sand are really the only ones which are easy to drill through. Of course, if there are tree roots in the midst of the soil, you may have trouble drilling through them. Clay breaks up very slowly, and rock and gravel … well, they speak for themselves.

The layers of sand and gravel catch the water. So you eventually want to hit one of them, preferably sand. If you hit gravel with water in it, it could cause problems, as you actually have to get down into the layer to have a good water flow.

In much of the country, water can be found in a sand layer as little as 20 feet below the surface. Professional water well drillers won’t stop there, as they want to make more money and they charge by the foot. Besides, generally speaking, deeper water will be better quality water.

Making the PVC Drill

The PVC drill is extremely easy to make. All you need is some two-inch PVC pipe and some fittings. The “drill bit” itself is made out of the pipe, by cutting it. This can be done with just about any type of saw, but it is most easily done with a grinder.

In reality, all this is going to do is scrape at the dirt, breaking it up so that it can be removed from the hole. But that’s all it needs to do. You will be pumping water down that hole as well, which will be constantly flushing it out, removing the dirt and sand that the drill point is breaking up.

The same thing can be made out of galvanized plumbing pipe. That will stay harder, allowing you to drill through tree roots and even some soft rocks.

This same PVC pipe can serve as your water well casing with some minor adjustment. All wells need a “well screen” at the bottom. The purpose of this screen is to allow the water to seep through the casing, while keeping the sand out. To make your pipe function as a well screen also, cut a number of thin slits in the side of the pipe, staggering them, so that you don’t weaken the pipe. This is most easily done with a pneumatic die grinder or cut-off tool (they are essentially the same) and a small, very thin cut-off tool blade…….more here