Driving a shallow well with a sandpoint. FAIL! LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES!

these are the things that can go wrong that people don't tell you about learn from my mistakes that's going to be the focus of this video Have You Ever Wanted access to water on your off-grid property not necessarily even to drink but just to water the dogs take a shower or water the vegetable gardens washing up any Myriad of uses that you can think of having access to water is a huge step for self-sufficiency well today on the channel we're going to be hand driving our own shallow well so stay tuned and I'm going to show you how I did it here on the table are all of the components that we will need to get water from our off-grid property what we're doing today is a process often called a Sandpoint well or a shallow well and shallow Wells generally refer to a well that's under 25 feet in depth the most important thing you need is the Drive Point now this Drive Point well actually has this cast Spike on the bottom and it's meant for driving through the ground you're not going to get through rocks and you're not going to get through big roots with this but in a sandy soil condition this is exactly what it's made for all it is is simply a a pipe with screen and holes that allow the water to come in and hopefully keep out the sediment and we're just going to attach our first pipe right to the top drive it in next pipe drive it in next pipe drive it in until hopefully we hit water in between each section of pipe we're going to use a drive coupler it actually says that right on the box Drive coupling today we're using an inch and a quarter pipe and an inch and a quarter couplings according to the directions on the Sand Point so for a well that's 25 feet or less you can use inch and a quarter or two inch pipe today we're using inch and a quarter because I found that the parts were easier to get for an inch and a quarter than they were for two inch and they were less expensive so the drive couplings are actually heavy duty and they're made to pound on and today we're going to be pounding with a pipe Pounder with a fence post pounder or with a mall depending on which works best so you can't use your typical cast iron pipe fittings cast iron is just going to fracture so these are exactly what you need hopefully today we're going to use a fence post pounder and we're just going to hit the top of this drive coupling and I plan that it's probably going to get smashed so one of them is going to be the sacrificial lamb but we're just going to move that from one section to the next if the pipe if the fence post pounder isn't doing it if it's not heavy enough I also have something called a drive cap and the drive cap merely screws onto the next section of pipe and it allows you to strike this surface with a mall or Sledgehammer or something to drive your pipe so this is made to be hit repeatedly to drive the pipe towards the top of the pipe we're going to put a ball valve in and the purpose for the ball valve is that we don't lose our Prime every time you operate the pitcher pump the water comes up the water column and then eventually it falls back down while using this ball valve will allow us to stop that water from falling down the water column and it'll stay up above the ball valve into the pitcher pump body therefore we shouldn't have to Prime every time we go to use the pump in between our sections of pipe we're going to use a pipe thread compound now I don't know if this is the best brand to use or not but one of the reasons that I chose this one was it specifically said it was for this type of pipe and it was for drinking water so I know that it's non-toxic and safe I mean not granted I don't want to be getting this inside the pipe but if I do get a little bit in there I at least know it's not going to be harmful to my health now when we're talking driving a pipe we need a specific type of pipe and we're specifically talking about well drive pipe now you can't use your typical cast iron or gas pipes well number one they're not made for drinking water and number two they just don't have the strength to repeatedly hold up to the pounding and the pounding and the pressure that you're going to put this pipe through in order to drop water from the depths of the Earth and the last item a good old-fashioned pitcher pump well this one here I got at the same place that I got all of my supplies Menards Menards carries all of the pieces that you need to drive your own shallow Sand Point well let's take a look at this bad boy if any of you remember the Old Farm hoses that used to have a hand pump in the kitchen well generally this hand pump went down to a cistern underneath the house and it drew up water for kitchen purposes well they still make these pumps hand pumps and they're still used for shallow Wells so today hopefully by the end of the day we're going to be pumping out nice cold free clean water from our own land foreign this is going to be a big move for the tiny cabin I'm pretty excited for this project it's been a long time coming and it's going to be a huge Improvement to meet my goals of having this tiny cabin property be more self-sufficient well right off the bat you probably have a couple of questions the first one is probably well how do you know where to dig your well well we'll get to that later but the second question is how much is this going to cost me well I'm fairly confident that I can get down to water in 15 feet well 20 feet if you count the drive point but we always want the drive point to be at least a foot below the surface level of the water so hopefully within 15 feet we can hit water well it just so happens I still have my receipt from the last time I bought most of this stuff now this project has been a long time coming and it was actually July of 2022 that I bought the majority of the equipment for this project so keep in mind the initial prices are for July of 2022. prices have probably gone up since then but let's talk about the pipe for three sections of pipe it cost me a hundred and fourteen dollars the pipe was 38 a section for each section of pipe and I just looked at Menards yesterday when I got the final pieces and I can tell you the the pipe is still 38 dollars for a 60 inch section now my particular Menards 60 inches was the only size they had so that's what I'm stuck with the pitcher pump was 44. the well drive cap was ten dollars and I also got an extra repair kit which is just the Leathers that go inside the pump just because it'd be good to have on hand for any future problems so for the pitcher pump the drive cap the three pieces of pipe and the Sand Point well my toilet was 235 dollars oh plus ten dollars for the repair kit so 225 dollars for the pump the drive cap the well pieces and the Sandpoint well yesterday I went into Menards to pick up the final pieces and I got this four inch nipple which was just a couple three four bucks I got my brass ball valve which was 29.99 so 30 dollars for this piece right here and these Drive couplers were 850 each so 850 times four is around 32 dollars plus tax for your drive couplers so 32 36 66 and plus the the pipe dope was about four or five bucks so for the couplings and the Brass Ball and the pipe thread we're talking about another 75 dollars so total so far I have around 300 give or take into this project now if I can get water on my own land for three hundred dollars that's definitely worth the shot although I'm optimistic there's no guarantees that I'm going to hit water today and that could be a problem I might not be able to get the pipe back out of the ground so I might have just thrown away three hundred dollars hopefully not but we're gonna find out so let's get cracking so the so the number one question that you're probably asking yourself is how do I know if this is going to work for me well I don't know if it's going to work for you it really depends on where you live your type of ground your water table in a lot of different factors so how do you determine if it is going to work for you well in my particular situation I'm fairly confident that I'm going to hit water and the reason for that is if I look around my property to this direction over here I have a wet Meadow and there's never standing water in it except for in the spring when there's runoff and after that it's just a low area with some with some with some moisture loving vegetation when you watch my videos at night and you hear the frogs chirping they're out there in that wet Meadow so that's One Direction and if I look the opposite direction in the springtime where I maple syrup that area holds a lot of spring runoff as well and there's actually some low area over there that's quite that's full of sphagnum moss and and I can also tell by looking at the trees that by looking at the types of trees that that is a lower area with a higher groundwater and of course we have moisture this way moisture this way and to this direction of the camera this is where I always have that ponding water in the spring when there's no with the snow runoff there's never any standing water there after runoff but that is a low area that always seems like it's three wet years away from potentially turning into a pond area so when I look at my property I'm basically on a high point surrounded by low ground all around me so I'm fairly confident that if I get down 15 feet I should be able to hit water in my area now I know when I was building the Outhouse that once I got through the first few feet of dirt most of the Rocks were gone well the Outhouse was only four feet deep so I don't know if I'm going to have trouble past four feet but from what it appeared it appeared to be fairly Sandy ground so that is something that's very important for this process now this heavy duty Drive Point it can go through some stuff it'll maybe move some small rocks around maybe it'll even punch through some rocks like Sandstone or Limestone I don't know but one thing I do know is it's not made for going through heavy tree roots and it's not made for penetrating Rock so if you live in an area that's extremely Rocky has high bedrock or extremely Ruddy this system might not work for you likewise if your area is full of clay and it doesn't drain very well this is made for a Sandy environment this might not work for you what I would suggest is to talk to your neighbors go to your County extension and say Hey where's the water table at in this area where my property lies go talk to your neighbors see if they have wells most of your neighbors are probably going to have deep Wells but if there's any farming or cattle they may have some hand punched Wells somewhere on their property to at least give you an idea if a it's possible and B how much work is it going to be the third thing you can do is call up your local well driller and just say hey I'm looking at punching my own Sandpoint I was wondering if you're familiar with my area and have any advice for me and they may tell you oh yeah no problem or they may tell you forget it the water table is 200 feet deep in your area you're never going to hit it with a with a 25 foot Sandpoint so those are just some thoughts for you to consider on whether a this is even going to work for you and B look at the vegetation is it vegetation that loves moisture or or vegetation that is more apt to a arid or dry environment all right enough Yip yapping let's start digging before I even start digging I'm going to inspect my pipe and I just took the cap off of this one and you can see all of those metal Burrs see those chunks of metal in there well you do not want that in your drinking water and there's kind of some crud on the pipe threads probably some oil from The Cutting process and clearly there's some some metal Burrs so what I'm going to do is I'm going to clean my pipe so when I take off the plastic caps you can see there's a little bit of plastic residue from the Caps so I'm going to take a brush and I'm going to brush all that out then I'm going to take some soapy water with some Dawn dish soap that cuts oil and grease yeah I'm going to wipe the threads and I'm actually going to wash out the inside of the pipe there's any oil or grit inside as you can see on my glove I do not want that in my drinking water I also don't want those threads full of any grit or anything that's going to interfere with a tight seal all right this is too hard to do one-handed so I'll be right back [Music] last year I cut down a big tree here and I dug the stump out unfortunately this is where I want the weld to be so I'm a little bit concerned that I'm gonna end up that I'm going to end up hitting some Roots that's why I'm going to hand dig this and I figure if I can get down a couple feet between the shovel and the post hole digger then I should be all right hopefully you know as I I had to stick my hand down in here because there's a big rock because I'm pulling out this sand well number one it's beautiful sand for this well but it's cold and moist and it made me think you know one of the problems I run into up here is in the winter time if I leave the cabin and there's no heat in it I have to be careful with canned food especially home canned food that it would freeze and pop the seal so one of the things I've been thinking about is some sort of winter food preservation like a root cellar or something like that and I have an idea in mind for a root cellar that could double as a storm shelter but that will be a very massive project and I'm not sure how I would do that but as I'm digging this hole I thought you know why couldn't I just dig like an outhouse pit sized hole line it with wood planks like I did with the old house or the garden boxes and then I could uh put coolers down in there and the Earth would be naturally colder ah you know and then I wouldn't have to have a great big walk-in Root Cellar like you put some sort of lid on it I know if that would be good enough in the winter because you'd have to keep unbearing it and burying it and but in the summer it may help keep things cool probably not refrigerator safe cool but even uh if you could throw like your pop or something down there just to keep it cooler than the warm air temperature I don't know might be worth doing some research on foreign this is why I wanted a hand dig first instead of trying to punch that well because if I got that wall pounded in five feet and hit a layer of rock couldn't go any deeper might not be able to get that standpoint out the mouth of money right off the bat let's see if I can get that out of there [Applause] Sandpoint would not have gone through that oh and I just laid down on something oh kind of crushed it ouch you guys know what I'm talking about foreign foreign [Music] foreign got as deep as we can get with the post hole driver so we put our sacrificial coupling on here and I'm just to the edge of a rock but I can't get it out so I'm hoping this will be all right went to chain I went to add another pipe and in order to do that I have to take my drive coupler off and I found out I can't get it off so I think I was supposed to put pipe dope around this one as well so it would release the seal but I didn't so now my dilemma is I have to figure out a way to pull this pipe and get this off or switch this pipe out or I hope that it's got an airtight pressure Tight Seal without any pipe dope and just keep going the problem is if I keep going and punch in 10 more feet of pipe and I have air the seal gives the yellow the well is useless and I not only have a lot of work into it but I've got all my supplies into it I'm pulling a 20-foot well is going to be a lot harder than pulling 100 inches as well and unfortunately I don't have my my good lift Jack otherwise I could stick a chain on this and pull it out like a fence puller so I'm gonna have to do some thinking on this it's probably close to three o'clock I figured I should probably eat some lunch I'm just frustrated nothing ever goes as planned you know I really didn't think I needed pipe dope on the drive coupler attachment but clearly you do so I just wasted a drive into town luckily I was able to get a new coupler a new standpoint and a section of pipe they only had a 36 inch um which did not say well drive pipe on it and I questioned the guy at the store and he said we have sold this exact same pipe for drilling hand for hand driving Wells for 30 years he said I don't know if it's just a manufacturer thing that it doesn't say well drive I don't know we're going to give it a shot though I'll use it as my last piece so if something goes wrong at least maybe I can I don't know maybe I'll hit water before I need it so now we have to start all over have to dig a new hole so this is now my third hold the first hole I hit some big rocks down below and I couldn't get around them so I moved over a couple feet that's the one where I lost my Sand Point so now we're going for hole number three I think now we're 375 dollars into this and we are starting from scratch it's gonna be worth it when it's done though if we can do it if I'm not pumping water by the time I go to bed tonight then there's no hope but we're gonna make this happen we're going to make it happen I feel like I'm a little bit deeper this time but I add some rocks towards the end that I had to get out so I've been sitting on my butt trying to get the last a little bit of rock out of here and I'm in kind of a I feel like there's a little bit of clay in here now shoot I almost feel like I hit another rock oh please don't be a rock please don't be a rock get them out they're getting too deep okay oh there's a rock right in the center dog on it seriously ah stand by we are about four just over four and a half feet deep that's about as deep as I can get with the uh postal digger okay hopefully I learned my lesson new standpoint this time I'm going to use the drive cap instead of the coupler and see if I can get that off [Music] all right so in typical Terry building fashion things are not going swell this is my third hole the Sand Point is still stuck in the bottom of hole number two after I could not get the coupler off of the pipe so I got a new weld so I got a new Sand Point and another section of pipe so I decided I would put the pipe dope around the threads and I would try the drive cap as you saw with the Sledge however what that did is it ended up twisting the threads on the pipe and now that I put this other pipe on there's some movement in the the connection of the two pipes and I'm concerned about that because if you have air or loss of pressure your well will fail so there's that so as I'm trying to tighten this up as much as I can I dropped the wrench down the hole can you see the wrench down there yeah yeah so how are we gonna get that out the post hole Digger can't get spread wide enough to grab hold of it so luckily on that wrench there's a loop on the end of the handle I'm going to try to get a piece of wire and hook the loop and see if that works we all know this isn't going to work you know it and I know it but we have to at least try it right oh come on come on come on come on come on it actually worked all right well we're not out of the woods yet because I'm still pretty concerned about this connection but actually I just tightened it up and you know what I don't feel what I felt before so maybe we're gonna be okay but you know what there comes a point in a project when you reach your frustration level and it's probably better to just walk away for a little bit and clear your head so you're not working angry and out of emotion so I think what I'm going to do is I'm already disgusting I think I'm gonna go for a little run work off some of this aggression so I will catch you guys in a little bit I think the tripod would have worked if I would have had a heavier if I would have had a well driver instead of a fence post driver but for every by hand for every 25 slams I do I go about an inch on the tripod every 25 was maybe a quarter inch so clearly this isn't gonna work with what I'm using but I'm almost close enough to get to use the sledgehammer maybe I'll try that for a while just to mix things up [Applause] back at it and here is the Dilemma of the day this drive coupler supposed to be able to withstand repeated strikes to drive the pipe is now on here so tight that I can't get it off so I don't know if it stripped the screws or jumped to thread or what the problem is because I've been banging on this the top half is wrecked and I can't put another pipe in normally I would take this coupler off put a fresh coupler on put a fresh pipe on the problem is I can't get this off nor can I fit a new pipe into the top I can't even I can't even use it as it is because the top is so deformed that I can't get a pipe in it so I don't know what to do we are five feet away from being maxed out on this well and so I need to go to town unfortunately there's no five foot pipes in town and I'm not even sure there's going to be a three or a four foot left yesterday I had to do some some Scavenging to find one and but there's no sense going all the way to town and even trying to find one if I can't get this off because there's no way we can attach it [Applause] so back to the drawing board [Music] yeah see you whenever I try to move that I move the entire well pipe in the connection underneath it so I've even tried using pipes for leverage that hasn't worked beautifully but what if what if I used the driver as a breeze for my feet oh boy that could have been bad again foreign the whole freaking pipe that is not coming out that is not coming out I don't know what to do guys I don't know what to do maybe I can force this nipple that I was going to use between the cutout between the ball valve and the main well pipe maybe I can force that on enough to make a secure fit which I highly doubt but I don't really know what else to do at this point to be honest that's not gonna work well maybe it will oh [Music] we got about a quarter inch that we need to go the question will be will that provide an airtight seal I mean I don't know what else to do at this point I've I tried getting this off for an hour yes I tried getting this off for quite a while yesterday and there's just no way it's coming off the problem is I have nothing to lose at this point like I'm within five feet of maxing out I haven't hit water so at this point I'm starting to feel like the well is going to be a failure I've got the I've got that pipe about halfway in and as tight as it is I bet it doesn't back out either I mean it's it's pretty solid in there this might work it's not ideal but again we're at the stage where where we're 98 to failure already so at this point anything is worth trying I guess we go to town get another coupler one more section of pipe another coupler another nippler nippler another nipple and we drive it and it either works or it doesn't and if it doesn't we're out a few hundred bucks and two and a half days of work I'm not in a good mood right now I'm not in a good place right now I'm pretty frustrated well if we're gonna go to town I might as well stop at the fitness center shower up clean up you know what just for fun though this thing's been sitting all night let's just see if there's any water that's accumulated all right so right now we are 21 inch well the well we're 17 inches from above ground so we'll take off a foot and a half and we are we have 17 feet of pipe plus 36 inches of Sandpoint so we're at 20 feet of pipe minus 17. so 18 and a half feet that gives us seven feet to max out and that that's from the ground I mean if you want your pump up here you're going to lose three feet so basically I got four feet to play with [Music] I checked this last night and there wasn't any water so I know there's not going to be sounds pretty dry 245 and a half inches to the top that is just over 20 seats it's crazy how cold this tape measure gets how cold it is down there that's what we have in the bottom of the hole [Applause] just a hint of moisture on the edges of the tape it looks like it's Clay still silt I mean that's just a just a touch not even so will we hit it in four or five more feet that's the question but we gotta try we're this far right bye golly we may have got this after all using the what what condition are the what condition are the threads going to be in the well pipe is going to be the issue wow I can't believe that came off I tried that thing so much for so long last night I may have wished I left that on I'm afraid okay well the threads on the well pipe look okay as far as I can tell see how this goes okay so I just got back from town and I got two more couplers and a five foot section of well pipe so this was going to be a quick one day afternoon project on how to install a Sandpoint shallow well by hand driving this video over the course of three days has now turned into on day one I was a hundred percent certain that I would hit water within 10 maybe 15 feet day two I was 75 percent certain I'd hit it between 15 and 20. well on day three I'm down 20 feet this is my last section of pipe it's make or break at this point if I don't hit water with this last pipe I'm going to be more than 25 feet and I will not be able to physically the pump will not be able to physically draw water up if indeed I even hit water so far we are about 18 feet in and we don't have a sign of water other than just a teeny teeny Speck in the clay so one thing that I've learned is and and this is a this this coupling was a drive coupling that I was using that it's it's trash the threads are trashed so one thing I've learned is it's really hard to get the pipe threaded all the way down to the end of the threads most of mine have been you know a couple threads left the problem with that is when you're banging on the coupling over and over and over and over if it's not all the way down it's gonna it's gonna deform the threads of your well pipe so what you need to do is you need this coupling to be all the way down to the bottom of the threads so that this so that the top well pipe rests on top of the bottom well pipe so that they come together so when you're driving you're actually driving one the top of the well pipe into into the bottom of the well pipe if that makes sense if you have a space between your two Drive pipes where it's just threads there's movement there to deform and distort the threads and that's I think why I'm having trouble getting these couplers on and off like I said the problem is it's darnier impossible to get these couplers threaded all the way to the to the end but I think that's one of the major reasons that that I've had two failures with the couple here with the couplers and my well pipe all right let's get after it it's making or break at time do or die this is the last time if this pipe doesn't hit water the next video will be how to remove a shallow well from the ground I have no idea how that's going to go I hear you can do it with a high lift Jack which I have I don't have a chain though I have to get a chain oh this this all right last chance last chance get this new pipe pipe doped and get her screwed on [Applause] oh well that's all she's gonna go another thing to note too is after about every 100 slams go back and make sure your pipe is tight because it loosens up during the process for some reason so you have to keep going back and just touching up on that tension make sure it's tight all right well we probably only got another two feet before this thing is going to be about done they're useful I don't want my hand pump to be down here it'd be nice to be up here somewhere maybe uh two and a half feet but let's just do a water check our first attempt at a shallow well is a big fail we are down 25 feet including the Sand Point so I was hoping to hit water with the Sand Point and then I would still be good but uh yeah I got about a foot and a half left above ground and we haven't hit water yet and with the Sand Point you'd want it like a foot below the water line so um we're gonna have to try to pull this but I don't have the equipment today to do it so that's going to have to wait big fail a lot of work for nothing a lot of money for nothing hopefully I can salvage some of those pipes but I'm not convinced the threads are still going to have the Integrity anyway the old Rd has been hanging out patiently for the last three days while I've been working on this and so I am going to take him for a little hike in the woods to give him some exercise he should like that and that way maybe I can work off some of my frustration is what it is you gotta try what do they say 100 of the shots not taken or Miss so you got to take a shot in order to hit a goal once in a while this time was a miss I think we're going to try a little water that was in when we get back I've done it I've done it before and I got some hits but they were within 100 feet of the Outhouse so I discounted them as a possibility but maybe when I get back we'll have to take another look at that well everyone I think I'm going to end the video here it's been an interesting uh week the well project and I'm not really sure where I'm going to go from here as far as uh do I try a different spot or do I just pull it and be done or or what but uh I guess my plan at this point is to try to pull the well out of the ground and see if I'm successful in that and if I am then I would be apt to try somewhere else anyway frustration but I did learn a lot along the way and I hopefully you learned something as well so good night all we'll see you in the morning oh my gosh there's water in the pipe there's water in the hole now how does that work how does that work just groundwater it rained all night last night foreign the uh pipe cap in there but oh well let me get another one I can just put a drive cap on there just for fun I might stick a rope down the pipe just to see if any of it filled like I said I checked it yesterday and it was dry as a bone so I'm not expecting it the problem is I've got sand and then below that I've got clay and I think what happens is when it rains the water seeps through the sand and it sits on that clay level and it can't get below the clay level because it doesn't drain very well well the pipe is below the clay level but not into the water bearing sand so you have sand clay and water bearing sand well obviously it's further down the line than my pipe can reach in 25 feet but just for fun we're going to sink another rope down just to see now I really hope I don't hit water because that's going to make me uh really wonder if I should try if I should try to keep this [Applause] dries the bone just a little smidge of mud on the very bottom but I've had that for the last five feet and it doesn't fill up with water so so what happened is I'm pretty sure that rain water from last night is just setting on the clay surface and it just takes a long time to soak through that clay

Channel: TRE RUNS-WILD

Views: 48,529

Keywords: sandpoint well, homesteading, weekend homesteading, homestead, off grid living, off grid cabin, off the grid, self sufficiency skills, little house off grid, weekend homestead, simple living alaska, prepping, simple living, minimalism, back to the land, wild minnesota, good simple living, pitcher pump, minimalist living, the weekend homestead, northern seclusion, joe and zach survival, bug out location, self reliance, free life, frugal living, shallow well pump installation

Id: Hsa72IAI08U

Length: 46min 51sec (2811 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 13 2023