Hey Jim

[Bwana]

Was at my folk's place the past couple of days helping get ready for his upcoming I'm-retiring-so-i-don't-need-this-farm equipment-auction when we stumbled on these items used for hand-drilling water wells, are they worth listing on The 'bay?



5751

[Thumper]

Dang Bwana, I have no clue. They don't look very exciting, but that doesn't mean squat. I don't know the first thing about those things. Is there a technical name for those pieces. A simple search for "water well hand drill bit" doesn't bring anything up. I'm not sure what the screen/filter thingy is. Do you shoot pressurized water into it as you "drill"? As I said, I'm pretty clueless here. Put it this way, if I saw those laying out at a sale, I probably wouldn't give them a second look. NOT that that means anything!

[No-till Boss]

You drilled the hole with the auger, then you'd take a sledgehammer and drive the screens and pipe into the ground. The pump would then pull the water thru the screens, you didn't do anything from the top. Pretty sure that would cause contamination and is probably not legal either.

[Thumper]

What would it contaminate? The aquifer? Ground water? I'm cornfuzzled.

[No-till Boss]

Probably couldn't reach the aquifer with a sledgehammer. But, where would you find pressurize water when you're using hand piston pumps ?? You're talking years ago now. I'm cornfuzzled over your question(s) .

[Thumper]

Heck, I don't know ... I thought you just stuck a pipe in the ground 'til you hit water and sucked water up the dang thing with a pump. I wasn't talking about no artesian well. What do I know? I'm a city-slicker. ;)

[No-till Boss]

I actually have poured water into a hand pump to wet the pump seal to make it prime .

[Thumper]

Yeah, I thought that was pretty much standard practice. I've never sunk my own well, but I've used a bazillion of those hand pumps. I don't think I ever remember not having to prime them first if they hadn't been used for a while.

I assume you're talking about these thingys:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5BcCJm_CzQ8/Tco82ShME9I/AAAAAAAABBs/V_BY9hl2qlc/s1600/hand-water-pump-3.jpg

[No-till Boss]

Yeah, never seen one sitting on concrete tho.

[jb]

I remember finding one of those that needed priming, but having no water with us, we just peed on it to make it work. :toothy

[BarryBobPosthole]

I remember when my grandpa witched the well that is still working at my parent's house. He told them where to drill and was within 20 ft or so of what depth they need to drill to, to find water.

He didn't predict the sulphur water in it though!

We have an old dug well on the farm that nobody in the family can remember being dug. And that family has owned the property sonce the Dawes Act. That was in 1887. That well has sweet water in it that I've drank from almost my entire life, just from a bucket. I've killed a shitload of copperheads around that well for some reason.
I always intended to clean that well out, but was always afraid I'd ruin it. Its pretty silted in now. But now I don't have the cojones to do it.

BKB

[HideHunter]

the "screen thingy" is a sand-point. We still use them all the time.. Never seen the "auger thingy"..