Wells, Well Pumps & Hand Pumps

From the LDS Preparedness Manual:

https://thesurvivalmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/LDS-Preparedness-Manual.pdf

Page 110

Wells
Water can only be moved by suction for an equivalent head of about 20'. After this cavitation occurs, that is the water boils off in tiny bubbles in the vacuum created by the pump rather than being lifted by the pump. At best no water is pumped, at worst the pump is destroyed. Well pumps in wells deeper than this work on one of the following principles:

1) The pump can be submerged in the well, this is usually the case for deep well pumps. Submersible pumps are available for depths up 1000 feet.

2) The pump can be located at the surface of the well, and two pipes go down the well: one carrying water down, and one returning it. A jet fixture called an ejector on the bottom of the two hoses causes well water to be lifted up the well with the returning pumped water. These pumps must have an efficient foot valve as there is no way for them to self-prime. These are commonly used in shallow wells, but can go as deep as 350 feet. Some pumps use the annular space between one pipe and the well casing as the second pipe this requires a packer (seal) at the ejector and at the top of the casing.

3) The pump cylinder can be located in the well, and the power source located above the well. This is the method used by windmills and most hand pumps. A few hand pumps pump the water from very shallow wells using an above ground pump and suction line. A variety of primitive, but ingenious, pump designs also exist. One uses a chain with buckets to lift the water up. Another design uses a continuous loop rope dropping in the well and returning up a small diameter pipe. Sealing washers are located along the rope, such that water is pulled up the pipe with the rope. An ancient Chinese design used knots, but modern designs designed for village level maintenance in Africa use rubber washers made from tires, and will work to a much greater depth. Obviously a bucket can be lowered down the well if the well is big enough, but this won't work with a modern drilled well. A better idea for a drilled well is to use a 2' length or so of galvanized pipe with end caps of a diameter that will fit in the well casing. The upper cap is drilled for a screw eye, and a small hole for ventilation. The lower end is drilled with a hole about half the diameter of the pipe, and on the inside a piece of rigid plastic or rubber is used as a flapper valve. This will allow water to enter the pipe, but not exit it. The whole assembly is lowered in the well casing, the weight of the pipe will cause it to fill with water, and it can then be lifted to the surface. The top pipe cap is there mostly to prevent the pipe from catching as it is lifted.

Cleaning a Well:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/cleaning-a-well/

Issue #105 • May/June, 2007

We have a good well with sweet water. It was already in place when we bought our property and had been in use for more than 20 years. We had looked in the well house a few times, during the winter, in particular, when a 100-watt bulb was used to keep the pipes from freezing. I understand the concept of wells, but had no practical knowledge. The well house was a small shed with a tin roof, built on a slab, with insulation in the walls and ceiling. There was one junction box with two electrical outlets. The pump was plugged into one outlet; the other was used for the lamp. Two brick rings, about two feet across, were next to each other in the slab floor, covered with wooden lids. There were gaps in the lid, between the timbers, and the flashlight reflected off water below. Two-inch PVC pipe came out of one lid, the other had a pump/tank combination sitting on it. The pump was a large electric motor about the size of a pool pump, and it was mounted on the side of a 30-gallon tank. It looked older than Moses.

The timbers used to make the lid were in pretty rough shape, old and rotting, and were going to have to be replaced someday in the near future. In particular, the lid supporting the pump was going to have to be replaced. Thirty gallons of water is a lot of weight to sit on rotting wood. I didn’t want to mess with it because it looked like a big project, so the first year we let it be. There were some mouse traps in the well house, but this is the country.

I was raised in the suburbs and spent a lot of time living in apartments and suburban neighborhoods as an adult, so what I knew about a well wouldn’t even fill a small hat. That all changed when a mouse fell into our well. It started last spring—there was a smell to the water that was noticeable when you ran the shower. Women have a keener sense of smell than men (try sneaking past mom after beer and cigarettes), so my wife noticed the water before I did. I chalked it off to algae or something. In a day it got so bad that when you lifted a glass of water to your mouth the smell could make you gag—there was no mistaking the smell of decomposition. We immediately started using bottled water for drinking and cooking. It was obvious that the well had to be fixed fast. I’m pretty comfortable with plumbing as far as sinks, toilets and other minor tasks are concerned. It is a chore that can be frustrating—always seems to require three trips to the hardware store to complete any project. But the idea of messing with the well and my fresh water supply filled me with dread, and it couldn’t be put off a moment longer. We did have the basic tools and materials handy.

Starting out, we had to: ---CONTINUED at LINK---

An Inexpensive, Do-It-Yourself, Small Diameter Water Well
http://www.fdungan.com/well.htm

If you can drive a nail into a board, you have the skills to augment your water supply. Drilling companies charge thousands of dollars to tap ground water sources that you can often reach yourself with a few common tools and about two weekends of work.

Methods ranging from digging to blasting are used to reach the underground layer of fresh water that lies beneath dry land. Most of these are too technical, expensive, or dangerous for the average person. However, at the turn of the century the U.S. Army developed a fast, effective method to provide bivouacking troops with water that did not involve a lot of expensive, cumbersome equipment. Soldiers simply drove a pipe into the ground with a sledgehammer until they reached the aquifer. Subsequently, it has proven to be ideal for supplying water to homesteads, second homes, and remote villages in developing nations.

If driving a pipe 75 feet or so into the earth sounds like a job for Superman, I've given you the wrong impression. Too hard of a blow can damage pipe threads. It's better to soften the ground as much as possible before you begin. I recommend digging a hole at the site you've selected and allowing water to settle in it for a week. The softer the ground, the easier the work. A shallow hole (5 to 10 feet) is best because deep ones too often need reinforcement to prevent them from collapsing.

Choose a location as ---CONTINUED at LINK---

DIY Water Well in a Day
https://theprepperjournal.com/2015/07/13/diy-water-well-in-a-day/

  For anyone lucky enough to have a shallow water table without bedrock, a do-it-yourself driven well saves thousands of dollars compared to having a bored well drilled. Under ideal conditions, a well can be driven in a few hours and fitted with a pitcher pump, creating an uncomplicated, inexpensive backup or everyday water supply. ---CONTINUED---

Well Water
https://grandpappy.org/hwater.htm

f you live in the country, or if you have a water well on your property, then you already know there is water in the bottom of that well. Drilled wells can be anywhere from about 25 feet deep up to a thousand feet deep or more. For approximately $1,000 it is possible to purchase a heavy-duty manually-operated complete hand water pump for wells that are 200 feet deep or less. It is not possible to hand-pump water from wells much deeper than about 200 feet. However, there is a very CHEAP way to get water out of almost any well, regardless of its depth.

If you know your electricity is going to be off for an extended period of time, and you are out of drinking water, and you have no other way to get drinking water, then you can manually remove the water from your well.
Well Head

There are many different well configurations but a typical one is illustrated in the picture on the right. ---CONTINUED at LINK---

How to Find and Dig a Shallow Well From Start to Finish

Digging a shallow well from dowsing to digging to capping. This shallow well will provide water for our bees and supporting plants. This dig uses a modified hand auger and took about 4 hours to complete (17 feet with nearly 4 feet of water).

Note: Make sure you click on the additonal links at the bottom of the opening page to get all the instructions.

How To Build Your Own Hand Pump
http://www.i4at.org/surv/handpump.htm

Keith states he built this hand pump in 20 minutes for about US $20. It can be used in water wells that have no existing feed lines, wiring or submersible pumps in place, or in water wells with them in place by the addition of a 1-1/2" interior diameter PVC pipe as a pump guide sleeve.   ---CONTINUED---

How To Pump Water Without Using Electricity
https://www.offgridquest.com/energy/hydro-power/how-to-pump-water-without-using-electric

  A water wheel uses the energy of flowing water to move the water through coiled pipe and as it spins it continues adding water through the coils. Depending upon where you set the output pipes you can move water from a creek to your field without electricity. ---CONTINUED---

Thinking about having another well drilled and putting a hand pump on it...My wife even suggested having 1 or 2 panels removed from the barn roof and having it drilled inside the barn... (out of sight is out of mind) I don't know if that's a doable thing or not....

Dave58 wrote:Thinking about having another well drilled and putting a hand pump on it...My wife even suggested having 1 or 2 panels removed from the barn roof and having it drilled inside the barn... (out of sight is out of mind) I don't know if that's a doable thing or not....

It's doable, I had a shallow well (22 feet) drilled with a hand pump and then I built a 12' X 16' shed over it. Like you say, out of sight, out of mind.

Dave, here's one thing to think about, in our state (PA), the well driller has to get a permit from the county in order to record the well on the county maps, this is PA law. You may want to check on that with your well driller.

We have a second hand pump well. It's in the yard in plain sight by the garden. People think it's a yard ornament. I enhance that by putting potted plants around it. We are considering building a gazebo over it eventually.

Here's a youtube video on how to dig a well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rYPRMm8Arw

This video seems a little easier to do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm422bfrjws

Bored Wells
https://dph.illinois.gov/topics-services/environmental-health-protection/private-water/fact-sheets/bored-wells.html

(SNIP) ... As opposed to smaller diameter drilled wells, bored wells are generally constructed at locations where aquifers (water bearing geologic formations) are both shallow and low-yielding.  ---CONTINUED---

How To Make A Water Pump In Your Backyard
https://www.askaprepper.com/how-to-make-a-water-pump-in-your-backyard/

  (SNIP) ... Whether you need to get water from a source to your home or have a basement full of water that needs relocating when the power is out you may be forced to use human power to move liquid.   ---CONTINUED---