Hand dug well?

[Deleted]

I see these being done on Youtube, and was wondering how the sides were supported, as the well was being dug. I also occasionally see whitish powder being tamped the edges, and was wondering what this was.

[steev]

If you mean tamped around a casing, at the surface, it sounds like kaolin clay to seal the well from surface contamination. Kaolin swells upon wetting.

[Deleted]

Thanks. I've heard of these clays being used to seal the bottom of ponds.

But, how are the wells kept from collapsing, while they're being dug?

[DiggingDogFarm]

Aug 20, 2011 22:59:56 GMT -5 @degzing said:

But, how are the wells kept from collapsing, while they're being dug?

Around here (southern-tier of NY/northern tier of PA), below the shallow topsoil, it's all heavy clay and rock until you reach bedrock.
It doesn't collapse. They dug until they hit water, and the started laying up the outside with stone.

[oxbowfarm]

Which was freaky dangerous in the days before hard hats. imagine being deep in a narrow hole while someone is shifting around 20 to 50 pound loose stones to send down to you in a bucket. Somebody gets butterfingers and you get to experience the harsh mistress of gravity.

[Deleted]

I wouldn't want the lighter of the two rocks to hit me, even if I was wearing the hard hat.

There is also the issue of oxygen deprivation.

I've dug up a clogged sewer line in heavy clay. I excavated, more and more to the sides, in search of the pipe. As the wall took on more of a slant, a heavy chunk of dirt fell, and caused an open fracture in one of my toes.

Following a season of rains, we can see the walls of deeper washes, getting wetter, the further down you go. There are occasional piles of dirt, in the stream bed, where they've collapsed.

Higher in elevation, water is somewhat forced out some walls in weak jets, as if by a garden hose, turned on high.

I wouldn't romanticize this aspect of homesteading -- especially considering the depth of our local water table. But, this would have been priority #1 for pioneers settling in my semi arid region.

I believe I should be prepared to do this, if necessary.

Published images of our aquifer show heavy clay, traversed by a band of sand and gravel, saturated with water.

Only very old houses are tapped into this water, with very narrow pipes, which require expensive, moving parts to keep them in operation.

Planners apparently believed this water would someday be insufficient to satisfy local farms and growing towns. So, the tap water is imported from several hundred miles away, by people who don't come across as being particularly pragmatic.

[spud]

Large concrete stood on end is the way I think they do them around here. As you dig underneth the concrete pipe the weigh of it pushes it down and you keep adding pipe on top of it till you think you have enough. Don't know how much they weigh but it must be a bit. Don't what to think of how many buckets it would take to dig one. Lile hoeing a large field, don't look up, too damm depressing.

www.coolthaihouse.com/construction/seeding-a-hand-dug-well/