Sand buckets for well digging?

Posted by Charles Olsen on June 17, 2002 at 13:42:44:
Mr. Love- I have a few rental houses in Texas and often refer to your website for what has always been sound advice. Here is a brain teaser. My Dad and I "drilled" more than 20 shallow irrigation wells on the homestead in the early 1950's using a tripod, 6" hand auger and a sand bucket or bailer. The property sits on a huge bedrock that is about 22' down. It is topped by 6-10' of water saturated sand and gravel; the upper 10-12 feet is black clay. A 4" well casing would slide down the hole and sit on the wet sand and gravel. We could undermined the casing by removing the sand and gravel with the sand bucket and the casing would sink to the bed rock. I still have and use Dad's sand bucket but, the neighbors want to buy one for their own use and are asking me where to find one. I can't locate a source. Surely a lot of wells are still being dug in rural areas and in third world countries using this technique. I found this web site that talks about the use of a sand bucket but has no source. http://idh.vita.org/pubs/docs/ulw.html Quote: "Bailing--raising water, sand, and clay to the surface for removal--is a common procedure during drilling and afterward during the process of development. Bailing involves lowering the bailer (a bucket device) to the bottom of the well and lifting it to the surface for disposal." Do you have any knowledge or contacts that could lead us to someone that manufactures "sand buckets?" Thanks for just reading about my little dilemma. Charles Olsen

Posted by Charles Olsen on June 17, 2002 at 13:42:44:

Mr. Love- I have a few rental houses in Texas and often refer to your website for what has always been sound advice. Here is a brain teaser.

My Dad and I "drilled" more than 20 shallow irrigation wells on the homestead in the early 1950's using a tripod, 6" hand auger and a sand bucket or bailer. The property sits on a huge bedrock that is about
22' down. It is topped by 6-10' of water saturated sand and gravel; the upper 10-12 feet is black clay. A 4" well casing would slide down the hole and sit on the wet sand and gravel. We could undermined the casing by removing the sand and gravel with the sand
bucket and the casing would sink to the bed rock.

I still have and use Dad's sand bucket but, the neighbors want to buy one for their own use and are asking me where to find one. I can't locate a source. Surely a lot of wells are still being dug in
rural areas and in third world countries using this technique.

I found this web site that talks about the use of a sand bucket but has no source. http://idh.vita.org/pubs/docs/ulw.html

Quote: "Bailing--raising water, sand, and clay to the surface for removal--is a common procedure during drilling and afterward during the process of development. Bailing involves lowering the bailer
(a bucket device) to the bottom of the well and lifting it to the surface for disposal."

Do you have any knowledge or contacts that could lead us to someone that manufactures "sand buckets?"

Thanks for just reading about my little dilemma. Charles Olsen

Replies to this post

Re: Sand buckets for well digging? joe dupont 14:11:07 11/30/03(0)