WELL DRILLING 101 | Every Step Explained

A fulll breakdown of the entire well drilling process from start to finish.

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[jimkurth]

This video is why the Internet is soo awesome! I learned so much about this and I couldn’t learn this from books. You’re a great teacher and you taught in such a way to make this fascinating to anyone.

[richardmourdock]

That "blue thing" is a "centralizer" and your presumption is correct in its role. That "tri" thing at 4:00, is a tri cone bit. Those little knobs on the three cones are super hard steel and are often coated with industrial grade diamonds (incredibly hard). As each of the cones rolls on the rock, it grinds up the rock into small bits and the water cooling the bit is mixed with bentonite, a thixotropic mud which means it changes the specific gravity of the drilling fluid causing the rock chips to float to the surface. FYI, the tri cone bit was invented by Howard Hughes and the source of all the funds that made him the world's richest man of his day. He virtually gave away the drill bits to those looking for oil with a contract that said if they found and produced oil, he would receive 1/16th or 1/32nd of the value of the oil. That reads as a small percentage, but some of those wells are still producing today and even at today's price of $60 per barrel, his estate is making $3.75 per barrel....

[ish]

After you hit water. The amount of "open hole" as we call it, just increases the amount of volume you have. Great video. Ive been a water well driller for 22 years and im 5th generation water well driller. My dad has drilled more wells in central florida then any other driller. I was the youngest water well driller in florida when i started. Down here we go off gallons per minute. Up north they go off gallons per day. So to get back to it, the bigger the pump you use, the more open hole/ volume you need. It can be a big cavern that you hit that you dont need as much open hole. Or you may need to just go deep enough until you see enough volume. Like you said the drill may just drop a few feet. If that happens during open hole and you are below the casing there may be all the water in the world at that point. Just a cave full of water. Great video. And if you have any questions please dont hesitate to ask.

[garsonprice]

Your well drilling information is bang on the money, Dan, and thank you for this educational video. I'm from a family of well drillers and am still amazed at the few number of people who understand this process. I'd like to add some information on the difference between a Cable Tool Drill (also called a Hammer Drill) and a Rotary Water Well Drill. It's important to understand the differences from a functional and financial standpoint.

A Hammer Drill drops a thousand pound 20' long solid steel drill bar from the height of two feet via a cable under a walking beam, then lifts it up again and repeats this process. The detachable drill bit on the bottom of the drill bar has tungsten carbide "buttons" on the bottom and sides that maintain the size of the typical six inch diameter drill bit so the hole size doesn't change to a cone shape. The half ton drill bar impacts the ground with enough force to grind up the rock in the presence of water to create a sludge called "cuttings". A hammer driller will typically drill 3-6 feet per hour and the operator regularly needs to stop drilling and pump the sludge out of the well (with a twenty foot hollow tube with a dart valve at its bottom) before adding more water (5-10 gallons) typically by using a pail. When water is struck the pump will come out of the hole with more water than the 10 gallons added manually.

Conversely, a Rotary Driller turns a pressurized drill tube and the rotating bit at the bottom of the drill tube grinds up rock much more efficiently than a hammer drill. The cuttings are constantly being blown up the outside of the drill tube by pressurized air that is forced down the center of the drill tube (typically 2000 PSI). A Rotary Driller only needs to stop drilling to add another 20' drill tube to extend the well depth. Therefore, a Rotary Drill can drill several wells in one day in decent drilling because of the efficiencies mentioned.

So what does this mean to the customer. There are significant differences in the two drilling methods:
1- Impact:
The biggest difference is the amount of impact the ground receives. A Hammer Drill pounds violently and this force can easily be felt a mile away if the rock being drilled outcrops near the surface. This impact will agitate any small seam in the rock to allow water to enter the well. But a Rotary Drill grinds away at the rock with only a slight vibration on the rotating drill bit.

2- Time:
Drilling in softer rock such as red shale, a Hammer Drill can drill a 100 foot well in two to three days, a week or more in hard rock. A Rotary Drill can drill 2 or 3 wells in one day in soft or even medium hard rock. Many times my Hammer Drill ended the day with a dry 60' hole and returned the next morning to find 5 gallons per minute of water flow. The "Impact" mentioned in #1 above had loosened a slow trickle water seam and the overnight hours allowed it to open up and supply ample water.

3- Pressure:
Hammer Drilling requires one to bail out the cuttings so an empty hole 60' deep can have a 60' water head forcing water in any surrounding seam into the well hole. This pressure can cause a slow leak to allow this small seam to be flushed open. Conversely, a Rotary Drill forces 2000 PSI down the drill tube to force cuttings to the surface. Imagine a small water seam in these two cutting removal processes. A Hammer Drill operates with an empty hole with water table pressure trying to access the hole. A Rotary Drill forces cuttings into a water seam with 2000 PSI of pressure to block water access into the hole.

4- Operation Costs:
A Hammer Drill business can be started with a $20K drilling machine and a functional halfton. A Rotary Drill would need a ballpark million dollars for the drill, drill tube service truck and accessories. Instinctively one would prefer a more efficient Rotary Water Drill, but the efficiencies of a newer higher tech Rotary Drill do not translate into a better water well or a cost savings to the customer, only a faster hole.

Note, my family has all retired from well drilling, like most Hammer Drillers. I only post this information to educate. I built a house in a subdivision where every house had Rotary wells and they mostly had such a low supply (less than one gallon per minute) from a 200' well that one shower a day was their limit. I paid a Hammer Driller a footage premium to drill my 120' well and got 10 gallons per minute, enough water to run two water sprinklers all day in a dry spell.

In summary, find a Hammer Driller, pay him a footage premium to save money and get a great water supply.

[SBVCP]

I guess you could say it was... *well* explained?

(Sorry, but im not a native speaker, so i feel kind of proud on this things)

[NorthernChev]

The reason they went the extra 25 feet when you hit water at 300 is because the 300 foot mark it the top of the aquifer or cave (or whatever you are in) that contains the water. Water levels go up and down throughout the year and you want the inlet pipe to stay submerged under water even in low water level conditions. Otherwise you'd suck air when the water level was low if you left the inlet pipe up at the top of the cave/aquifer at 300 feet. Think of a 32oz cup from McDonalds and you only put the straw in half way. Once the water is below your straw you'll suck air.

[rickescamilla]

A teacher at heart! Even the “corny” parts! Haha. Well done!

[TBennettcc]

Bro! Such an awesome job! Video was *very* well done (no pun intended)! You kept it interesting and informative! And I absolutely *love* that you were curious enough to video it, that the drillers took the time to let you video and explain things to you, and that you took the time to edit and upload your video, so that others could benefit from your experience! Super-duper!

[killax]

The "blue thing" is a torque arrestor. It sits against the sides of the well and prevents torque (caused by the pump when it turns on) from spinning the polymer pipe and kinking or breaking it.

[novislavdajic]

I used to drill wells myself and that's how we did it in Europe. We drilled mostly in central and northern Poland where bedrock is covered with a lot of overburden that was pushed there by glacier and didn't manage to erode like it used to in southern parts of the country. The main water source here is not water pockets above bedrock itself, but rather deep gravels. We did use water-safe PVC pipes to cover the shaft, but we put them after drilling, and removing drill from the soil. Last pipe was caped, and second to last (or more), was drilled and covered with water-safe PVC net, with eye size according to size of a gravel grain, to filter solid particles from the water and protect the pump. Next difference is, we used a bentonite only as a seal for gravel to prevent water to soak into it (as gravel cn really "drink" lot of water you use to wash out the drilling output material). For a clay, we used polymers, to prevent it from swelling, and closing the shaft (so we could safely put our pipes later), and to help water to wash it out, instead of letting clay to disolve and thicken the water. After we finished submerging pipes, we used to fill the remaining shaft space with clean, washed gravel to 10-20 meters above filters, and finished it of with some of leftover from drilling, to seal the shaft from the top. Such ells are very potent, as they use renewable water source, that is rainwater being filtered by tens of meters of soil, and water gravel itself.

Funny thing is that specificaly in Poland (but also in Germany), the glacier ranges are 100% correct when it comes to anticipting water conditions. Method I described is viable only south of the moraine of the first and north of moraine of the second ice age. South we have a shallow bedrock, and north we have even thicker and more various and mixed overburden and water conditions are even more unpredictable.

[hannah]

This was so helpful. I'm going to be getting a well and I just couldn't get my head around how it all works! Great to watch, can't wait to get drilling now!

[thesteveprichard]

Good job! From the oilfields of West Texas, I love to see water wells being drilled. We don't have much water.
Can you imagine drilling 13, 000 feet with a 4 inch drill bit? And then turning it to keep drilling horizontally another 8, 000 feet? These drillers of water and oil are something else. I'm amazed at how they do it.

[billgebhart]

You did a good job explaining. Thank you for taking the time to document and explain the process. I'm sure many viewers got their first explanation and questions that they've had for years answered.

[kevingriffith]

I was once a licensed water well driller in the state of Idaho. Every state/area is different in how they do things. From my experience in areas like yours, I did similar process, except we would drill a 10 in hole all the way down and even into the bedrock a few feet. Then run the 6 in casing all the way down but not to the bottom. We would have it 1foot above the bottom. We then would pump grout into the casing and up the annular space, ( between the casing and ground ) to the surface. That blue cone above the pump is to keep it centered so water flowing past pump motor keeps it cool. And they never set pump to the bottom so if water levels drop and exposed the pump, they have room to lower it to give you water/time to deepen the well or drill new one

[benjigray]

Thanks for producing a great video.
A lot of folks might never see another water well drilled in their life time.
I worked for years, in the water well and exploration drilling, (that's for coal, or minerals).
I worked with Kelly drive and top head drive rigs,
there's untolds of different types of rigs and methods of doing the same job.
Here's and interesting thing to bear in mind; for every metre that you drill down,
there's in increase on water pressure of ten Kpa, (Kilopascals),
for a comparison for Folks that aren't fluent with the metric system,
30 psi. is about 200 Kpa. Lots of cars have about 30 psi in their tires.
So ...if your well is just 20 metres deep, there's a force of 200Kpa, or 30 psi pressing out on the walls of your bore hole.
To drill deep wells you need powerful pumps, or compressors to send your cuttings back up to the surface.
It's an interesting, or mayhaps I should say "challenging" trade to get into.

[wranglerstar]

PVC is not drainage pipe, the pump line is indeed under great pressure 60-80 PSI

[GJM_US]

Excellent and highly educational video. Built our new home seven years ago in NJ where the builder installed well on all properties. Was always curious as to how the well was dug. Builder of course are not going to take time explaining anything, but your video answered a lot of questions. Thanks for posting. Mystery solved :-)

[kingaj]

Great job breaking down the steps of a well digging down to bedrock.
Loved it!

[maestrovso]

Thanks for sharing these. I moved into a property with an existing well and this video helps me understand the anatomy of a modern well and underground water shed.

[metalgunforhire]

The blue thing above the pump looks like a torque arrestor. Keeps the pump from spinning and the wire from wrapping around the drop pipe. Thanks for the video. Well done!