My drill "watered out"

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We had a well drilled and there has been much drama.


We are in south east Missouri on our family farm dating back to 1905... These days it is a weekend place, and we had always stayed in the log cabin my grandfather built in 1932. Due to some unfortunate circumstances we found ourselves financially able to purchase a new manufactured home. The site was chosen a couple hundred feet from the old home site. The old home had a well drilled in the early to mid 1980’s, that well was shallow and always had a problem with brown iron staining in the plumbing fixtures. That water however, was clear and silt free. This is the fifth well drilled on the original 240acre farm, all within a quarter mile of each other or less. Only the shallow well has had the brown staining issue. None of our neighbors have the brown staining issue.


Naturally we wanted the same luxury in the new home, so a new well was drilled for the new home. There was a problem with the first hole some 40’ into it, gravel he claims. That hole was abandoned and a new hole started some 30 ft away. The new hole was drilled to 127’ and “gravel packed back to 115’ but its puting out 50 GPM” the depth was not impressive and because of this we had trepidation. The Driller claimed that he “watered out on the drill” and could drill no deeper. The pump was left running for a week or so. The water appeared clear and clean and had a good taste. However by the next weekend water began to appear yellowish brown in the fixtures, we were hopeful that this would flush out eventually. The new Jacuzzi tub needed a repair and was not useable on the first weekend. It had been repaired by the second weekend, however upon filling it for the first time the water turned into a dark brown mess, leaving a layer of silt in the bottom of the tub and toilets. The driller suggested opening the hydrant outside and letting it run. By the middle of the next day the hose attached to the hydrant started surging as if the well was running dry. We were told to shut the pump off at the breaker.

The driller returns to drill yet more well. He set up onto the 6” casing and drills to a pathetic 150-something feet, a mere 30 some feet deeper than it was, and then lines this hole with 5” casing for another $3600 dollars, claiming again that he “watered out on the drill”. What do we have now? Courser dirt than we had previously. The driller installed a filter that promptly clogged in about 5 minutes. We watched as the clear bowl (with element removed) filled with about an inch of fine tan/brown sand over this last weekend, while we pumped continuously from the hydrant outside. (Note: hydrant does not pass through filter)


We were perfectly willing to pay for a 300’ foot well with 150’ or 250’ of casing if that was what it took, and that was made perfectly clear and we were perfectly aware of the potential costs involved. We were specifically not looking for a crappy well with crappy water. We could have piped over from the old well for a lot less money.


I should state that the pump/ tank/ electrical hookup was done by one company, who in turn contracted with the well driller separately, though I use the term “driller” interchangeably.

So we are left with a $8400 dirt hole it would appear. (Just the hole, not the pump/ tank or installation, I think we are over $10K components and install included.)


Personally “watered out on the drill” sounds like B. S. to me. He either doesn’t have the equipment to drill a deeper well in those circumstances, or he doesn’t have the skill. My question is what do we do now? It seems like the only option is to hire someone else and start over, it sounds like going in again with the 5” casing installed is not an option any longer. Starting over is not a great option in anybody’s book. What responsibility should or does the well driller have? I know there are no guarantees that you’ll find water, or what kind of water you will get, but I feel like this guy just didn’t want to put the effort/capitol into the hole or his drill rig to get us what we wanted. Starting up again for a lousy 30 more feet and a few grand worth labor and additional casing at $15 a foot is the part that’s hard for me to swallow. If he had drilled another 400' and had this problem I would be a bit more understanding.

Thanks in advance.
 

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I don't understand that term either. The best I can come up with is he lost circulation, "watered out", maybe. When you hit gravel the drilling fluid needs to be thickened up with mud to make the gravel float out or you lose circulation and can't drill anymore. Some areas have enough mud in the soil so extra mud doesn't need to be added when drilling. If a driller is not set up to "mud up" when needed, I guess you could call it getting "watered out". Loosing circulation makes it tough. I have seen many things used to try and get circulation back including wood shavings, paper pulp, even cotton burrs.

Talk to the driller. Then talk to another driller or two. If you still think you are not being treated fairly the well drillers licensing board has some pull to help you.
 
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I don't understand that term either. The best I can come up with is he lost circulation, "watered out", maybe. When you hit gravel the drilling fluid needs to be thickened up with mud to make the gravel float out or you lose circulation and can't drill anymore. Some areas have enough mud in the soil so extra mud doesn't need to be added when drilling. If a driller is not set up to "mud up" when needed, I guess you could call it getting "watered out". Loosing circulation makes it tough. I have seen many things used to try and get circulation back including wood shavings, paper pulp, even cotton burrs.

Talk to the driller. Then talk to another driller or two. If you still think you are not being treated fairly the well drillers licensing board has some pull to help you.

Thank you for your response. We will talk with the driller again. Like I said, I have no illusions that this is an easy process, and geology is an unknown, I am able to understand that quality and quantity of water is a crap shoot. It just strikes me wrong paying over a hundred bucks a foot for that last 30' and that is the best he could do.
 

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I have heard the term used when drilling air rotary with a down the hole hammer....when they encounter a large amount of water (more water than they can airlift out) it can make the hammer eventually ineffective. The real question is do you have an air rotary driller trying to do a mud rotary job...that's what it sounds like to me but I'm not familiar with the local geology. I would talk to some other local companies and ask specific questions about the process...and see how that compares to what your "driller" did.
 

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I have heard the term used when drilling air rotary with a down the hole hammer....when they encounter a large amount of water (more water than they can airlift out) it can make the hammer eventually ineffective. The real question is do you have an air rotary driller trying to do a mud rotary job...that's what it sounds like to me but I'm not familiar with the local geology. I would talk to some other local companies and ask specific questions about the process...and see how that compares to what your "driller" did.

I didn't think of that. Yeah if drilling with air and you hit a large water bearing formation you would probably have to switch over to drilling with mud. That makes "watered out" make sense.
 
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Thank you all for the responses.

It was a Schramm unit that looked pretty much exactly like this:

It had a big detroit diesel power unit that appeared to be connected to an air compressor.

If that's not the ideal rig for this area he's going to be having problems all the way to bankruptcy, I don't know the geology either, but I know it's not isolated to this one spot, and this isn't the first well in the immediate area. We have contacted another driller and they said they had never heard that term either. I do not know the method they use though, but they did quote $14k for a 500 foot well. I would have appreciated, it if this is a real issue that he was limited by the first go-around, that he had stated as much, so that we could have hired a driller with the right rig before setting up for failure again. We have been told that there is no round three on this hole due to the 5" casing inside the 6".

Question: one of the largest expenses is the casing, is there any way to retrieve and re-use the casing? It has only been in the ground for about a month and a half. I have a 953 caterpillar, a welder and a cutting torch, it can put a lot of vertical pressure on that pipe. I was thinking of giving it a go regardless if we had to abandon this well, just to salvage the pipe.
 

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VAWellDriller

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Thats an air rig for sure....which may be perfectly normal for the area...i just dont know. So get another quote and ask the method of drilling from both. Since you've got other wells on the property may check with state and see if they have records or a completion report as we call it here. Also maybe see who drilled the other wells and try to get them back.
 
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Thank you guys again for the information, it has been invaluable. We'll pursue those suggestions. What options do you guys suggest for filtration? It seems to me to be a pretty large volume of grit and dirt, and the filter that was installed was pretty small as seen in the picture. This weekend's use constituted bathroom use for 7 people, but only 3 showers and that filter housing had about an inch of grit in the bottom, not counting what passed through and is stuck in the faucets... It boggles my mind that a well 150' deep with the pump at about 85' isn't settling out the sand. Can we hope that this will settle down with some time? We're hoping not to have to start over on this thing. At what level of junk in the water do you call it a loss and start over?
 

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Reach4

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We'll pursue those suggestions. What options do you guys suggest for filtration? It seems to me to be a pretty large volume of grit and dirt, and the filter that was installed was pretty small as seen in the picture. This weekend's use constituted bathroom use for 7 people, but only 3 showers and that filter housing had about an inch of grit in the bottom, not counting what passed through and is stuck in the faucets...

So if I understand, you have plenty of water from the new well, but it is crappy with sediment and/or iron. The term "dirt hole" does not seem to me to describe that. When you put your crappy water into a glass jar and shake, how long does it take for the sediment to settle?

Anyway, run lots of crappy water (high flow) to the ditch for a few days, but shut the pump down if the well runs dry. Run the water from the drain at the pressure tank, and not thru the filter. If you put in a device, such as the Cycle Sensor, that turns off the well for a while, you could run 24 hours per day for a while. A week maybe.

It would be nice if you could get a pvc liner, with fine slot screen, to the bottom. I am not a pro.
 
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Sorry if my frustration is showing through my terminology, yes we seem to have sufficient volume of water at this point, though it could change. It took some time before it went dry on the first go-around. The well is running now, and has been since friday, however it is in the care of neighbors to shut down if there is a problem. Fortunately we have terrific neighbors, yet it could be some time before it is discovered, it's a risk we have to take. Logistically we cannot be there 24 - 7 for a week at this time. It's running from the hydrant outside which I understand is in line before the pressure tank. I do not know if a screen was installed. If not that seems like a good first line of defense. Again, thank you.
 

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A good gravel packed well is the filter. The perforations or screen in the casing is very small. Then when a very small gravel, almost sand is used to pack the outside of the screen, it makes a media filter that prevents any sediment from getting into the well. In our area a mud drilled gravel packed well is the norm. We always guaranteed a sand free well. You can't go back in an old well and make it work, so I had to re-drill a few over the years to get it right. When done correctly a well should never make sand or sediment.
 

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In our area a mud drilled gravel packed well is the norm. We always guaranteed a sand free well. You can't go back in an old well and make it work, so I had to re-drill a few over the years to get it right. When done correctly a well should never make sand or sediment.
I wonder if a Certanteed 3 or 4 inch PVC liner could be put into that well, followed by a gravel pack in the new annular space.
https://www.certainteed.com/resources/slottedpvcwellcasing403733f.pdf

Developing the well with pumping could solve the problem sufficiently without a liner.
 
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"You can't go back in an old well and make it work"

Thanks again, heart sunk a little though... The stuff in the filter housing is definitely sand, anxious to get down there this weekend and see what difference 8 days of running makes. I hope Reach4 is right and the pumping solves it... I guess in theory there could be as much sand in there as water, and no amount of pumping will solve it.

Please help me understand the concept of "watered out", here is how I imagine it: The down hole hammer is operated by air, like a giant jackhammer, the exhaust air combines with water in the hole and flushes the drillings from the hole, when the volume of water is high enough the pressure needed to extricate it from the hole becomes so high that it can no longer effectively operate the hammer, I.E. the delta pressure is too low. Am I close?
 

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everybody here is doing a bunch of speculating about how your well was drilled. Have you received a well log from the driller?

the term “watered out” in the drilling industry is usually associated with air rotary drilling using a down hole hammer. However it could also be used as a term for losing circulation in a water bearing formation while mud rotary drilling.

the photo you shared is a Schramm T64. That was the first rotary rig I owned 30 plus years ago. It is primarily an air rotary drill. However it can also drill with mud. So just a picture of the rig doesn’t tell anybody anything.

Watering out with using air and a downhole hammer means that the driller has encountered enough water in the well that it creates enough back pressure that the piston in the hammer no longer has sufficient impact energy to break the rock and continue to advance the hole. The piston still operates. It is still hammering, it just doesn’t go anywhere. Usually we will start injecting a foaming agent into the air flow to try to help lift the water off the hammer. With a 6” hammer, it might water out at 300 gpm or so. My larger hammers will work up to 1,000-1,500 gpm or so. Air rotary drilling is mostly used in solid rock or in competent formations that will not cave in until casing is set. We can also dill and set steel casing simultaneously in unconsolidated formations with a drill thru casing hammer mounted on the rig.

with a mud rotary rig, we are using water with bentonite clay and some polymers added to flush the cutting out of the hole. The drilling “mud” is recirculated after the cutting are removed mechanically or by gravity at the surface. The additives to the water help to seal the borehole was we drill deeper. Many times when the driller hits a water bearing formation, he cannot maintain circulation to the surface. This is known as loosing circulation. I suspect that your driller is calling this “watering out”.

After the hole is mud drilled the driller then installs casing in the completed hole. The mud hole he drills is 4” or so larger than the casing he is going to install. After the casing is set, he then needs to backfill that annular space between the mud hole and the casing. It us usually common to backfill the water bearing area with a filter sand or gravel “pack”. The remainder of the annular space is then filled with bearing bentonite or cement.
 
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I'm speculating too, I was only present while the drill was operating on one occasion, the rig was set up on three weekends I was there, I saw no method to contain the drilling fluid, he had a water tank on a trailer draining into a tank on the ground and from there to the drill. The drilling affluent was allowed to flow offsite, in fact, he asked me to do some earth work to guide the flow of the affluent away from the home, which I did. I do not believe I have a well log.

He described "watered out" as if he was trying to drill deeper and the drill would not drill further. That is all I know. The most frustrating component is the second attempt to drill deeper resulted in only 30 additional feet of well with the expense of 5" casing and drilling. If there was any doubt in the drillers mind that he would not be able to drill further than that with his equipment I think he should have stated that, and we could have gone another direction at that time. Perhaps we should have taken that step regardless. Hindsight is 20/20.
 

Reach4

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I would think drilling deeper was not the problem (you have plenty of water), but the inability to put in a screen and gravel was.
 
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