City Water Well?

[RossA]

OK, I live on a fairly normal residential lot in a big city. Our water supply is from the city. Ordinances and deed restrictions say no private wells to be drilled on your lot.
Of course, when TSHTF the city water might not function. Stored up water is always good, but a well with a manual pump would be better. I'm not sure how low the water table is in Houston, but it can't be very far down.
Not that I would ever advocate violating city ordinaces, but as a purely theoretical matter, how difficult would it be to drill a water well in my backyard? How big is the equipment they would have to bring in to do the drilling? How noisy and how much attention would they attract? How long would the job take? About how much does it cost to have a well with a manual pump drilled and installed?
I would assume, theoretically, that you could use plants to hide the well once it was installed.
Any ideas?

[snal]

Wells in my area are typically 200' minimum...no way to hide the huge, noisy equipment required. Just in the last 8 years they have initiated a permit requirement too.

[Xolar]

I have been involved in quite a few wells and it is noisy and can be expensive depending on the depth. There are small drill rigs though depending on the company, I will look for more information and send it later.

[RossA]

Thanks. I have to assume that the well could be fairly shallow since we are only about 50 feet above sea level, and we get annual rainfall of 4 feet. Seems like water would be pretty close to the surface, but then I know nothing at all about wells.
Of course, being in Texas, maybe I'd hit oil or gas!

[Xolar]

No guarentees on this but it may work for your situationhttp://howtodrillawell.com/

[David M.]

This reminds me of a guy in eastern NC. His well would stop up due to swamp muck and sand. While talking to him about it, he told me of his secret of unstopping the well. He'd go in the house, grab the 12ga. disconnect the pipe and shove the barrel in the well pipe. He said one or two shots usually cleared the blockage! He never mentioned lead poisoning. Ooookay.....

[Xolar]

This reminds me of a guy in eastern NC. His well would stop up due to swamp muck and sand. While talking to him about it, he told me of his secret of unstopping the well. He'd go in the house, grab the 12ga. disconnect the pipe and shove the barrel in the well pipe. He said one or two shots usually cleared the blockage! He never mentioned lead poisoning. Ooookay.....

I am sure when rusty gets here he will confirm that they use 30-06 down the oil well's also

[sd allen]

houston.craigslist.org/grd/1035505921.html

1 man hydra-jett
Drill for water with water

[Brosia]

I'd make sure you know where any gas lines/sewer lines etc might be on your property before drilling, if it ever came to that.

[RossA]

Yeah, if I ever do this, I'll call the gas company out and tell them that we're going to dug so we can put in a fish pond or some other type of landscaping. They can locate the pipes for us and not know the real reason.

[mjbaker]

I helped a friend of mine put in a shallow well in NJ a few years back. I don't know where he got the parts but he used a drive cap, drive couplings, drive point and 3 10' lenghts of rigid pipe. If the soil isn't rocky where you are this should work great.

We put the drive point on the first pipe and the drive cap on top of it and hammered it into the ground till about a foot was showing, Then we took off the cap and put on a coupling and another pipe and drove that one in, and did the same thing again until all 3 pipes were in the ground.

He then filled the pipe with water and hooked up a pitcher pump and we had water. It was later tested and found to be safe to drink!

He said that we would have water at 15' but he was told the better water was at 25 to 30' down. I guess that all depends on the water table in your area.

Hope this helps.

[RossA]

How did you drive the pipe in, with a sledge hammer or with some sort of powered equipment? Driving a pipe through 20 or 30 feet of the thick clay we have here would take a dozen strong men a week.
Also, how did you clean out the pipe when you reached the right depth? I assume that after going through all that dirt, the pipe was full of dirt, mud, clay, or whatever you went through.

[Mungo]

Reality Check

You guys are going to learn to hate me. I am the ultimate realist. Reality is this: If the water goes out in Houston, or any other large city for more than a week, the last thing you'll be able to do is drill your own well. You'll be too busy trying not to die from all the looters and rioters as the very fabric of society will collapse. There will be no order, no commerce, no anything except anarchy. You need to make plans to leave large cities in the case of power / water outages.

[RossA]

I'm not trying to drill one AFTER the SHTF, but before. I agree, there are times when it's best to flee the city, but there could easily be circumstances where that's not possible. I think it's smart to plan for both.

[rsanders]

I'm not trying to drill one AFTER the SHTF, but before. I agree, there are times when it's best to flee the city, but there could easily be circumstances where that's not possible. I think it's smart to plan for both.

What part of Houston are ya in? I lived there from 1980-87,I was up around the airport (Intercontinental) Greens point area,worked down on West Hardy, place called MBCI. I would think that hitting water would be fairly easy since your practically at sea level. But if the SHTF Houston would not be my first choice of places to be. I'd at least try to make it to North East Texas that's pretty nice up that way.