DIY well drilling / trench digging for GSHP

[AlanE]

Go to imageshack and set up a free account. Upload the pictures from your hard drive and imageshack will give you a URL address for each photo.

When you want to post here click on the "insert image" icon on the message box menu.

Presto.

[abogart]

Now we need some experience, advice, educated guesses? I am very interested in this because open loop is probably the only way I'll ever get geo in my big house on a little town plot. The yard is way too small for any loop field, and 400 ft boreholes are way too costly to consider.

It's against local ordinance to dig a well in town, but it's not against ordinance to sink a shallow well. There is a good video on youtube of a guy doing it with PVC, very interesting. My neighbor bought the stuff to sink one in his garage. A steel well point, some sections of steel pipe, and a heavy sliding head to pound the whole thing down into the ground. Seams simple enough.

I'd like to sink a supply well on one side of the basement and a discharge well on the other side. It's not the 200 ft or whatever they say the minimum distance between the two should be, but I don't see why it wouldn't work at least a decent amount. It would be no different than a standing column well, especially if the supply well intake is deeper than the discharge. Either way I think that even in a less-than-optimal open loop system, COP would be much higher than an ASHP.

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by Vlad

Wanted to post some pics, but need to find how to upload them first

1. Start your forum post.
2. near the bottom is a button marked "Manage Attachments"

3. Push the button
4. A window will pop up that looks like this:

5. push the button marked "choose..."

6. When you have chosen, push the button marked "upload".

...you can do five pictures per post... they will now have be in the thumbnail window of your page. Readers can click on them and they will be full size.

There is a way to put images in-line, too...

-AC_Hacker

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by abogart

There is a good video on youtube of a guy doing it with PVC, very interesting.

I used the same method using water pipe.

It worked remarkably well down to about 14 feet for me.

-AC_Hacker

[AC_Hacker]

To do in-line images is actually easier than adjusting Super-Heat on a running HVAC system...

1. follow the instructions in post #43

2. If you have not posted (AKA: hit the reply button), go to the 'manage attachments' area at the bottom of the window and you will see the names of your photos that are underlined. If you right-click on the underlined photo name, you will see a menu that will include the choice "copy link address".

3. Left-click on this choice (this will buffer the link address into clipboard memory).

4. Then go to the In-Line Image icon and click on that...

...a window will pop up...

5. Left-click your mouse pointer into the text box, then press 'ctrl' and 'v' at the same time, this will paste the buffered text into the text box.

6. Click 'OK'

7. Some curious-looking code that looks like this will appear in your editing window:

... the code is what makes your in-line image.

8. If you really want to do a pretty job, you can center your image...

9. The way you do this is to click and drag across all of the new code like this:

10. Then press the center button...

11. Now hit 'Reply'... and you are a master of in-line image posting.

-AC_Hacker

[Vlad]

Here are some pics of machine I built and used. I will post description bellow.

The whole unit where I was drilling:


The Frame. It is welded from steel I bought as a scrap. It is very heavy. I didn't want to weld it all, just in case to store it or move it. It is welded and bolted together.



Drilling head. Steel sprockets are welded. Heavy duty chain. Middle sprocket is adjustable it is bolted from the bottom and moves for adjustment.



Water swivel. I didn't built it. It is commercial swivel I bought in on.....you bet Ebay. It had originally short threaded end I welded sprocket and welded pies of 1.5" pipe. I put 2 pillow block bearings and bolted them into rest of drill head:



Closer look at frame and head. You can see wheels!!! Yes I had to add wheels after I tried to move it. I added jacks to make it easier to level



Here you can see 12 volt ATV winch. It helps to lift drill head up.
Also you can see cross cables that hold to posts(1.5" vertical steel pipes). There are 4 cross cables 2 in the front ant 2 in the back.
Later I was thinking easier would be just to use 4 3/4 steel pipes then cables.



This is a hand winch that helps to push drill head down. I had to add it because I used tricone bit for drilling rocks. You need a lot of pressure to use tricones. They actually don't drill (cut) they crash rock with pressure.



Here is a tricone bit. I bought it .... Ebay. Originally it had special cone thread. I cut it off and welded heavy duty NPT coupling .



I used heavy steel hydraulic couplings(not cast iron cheap ones) for connecting pipes together. I welded 2 pieces of road on each side to make it easier to turn them. Also this pieces lock coupling on table. When you want to lift pipe you can't hold it by hand. It is easy to drop it down the hole. I am not the best fisherman this is why I built sliding table.





This is a sliding table. Coupling can't go though its slot but pipe can. Also 2 pieces on each side lock coupling with welded rods. So when you lift pipe above table it slides out. You lower the pipe and coupling rests on top of the table holding pipes that are still underground. After you can spin off top pipe and lower head to connect it to coupling that rests on table.



Here is another VERY GOOD bit from Ebay. It carbide is step bit.



This is a water pump I used for circulating mud. I used bentonite clay for mud. The best is to use gas engine because you can adjust mud flow by adjusting RPM. With electric motor I had to recirculate extra mud back. What a pain.



I will post some more pictures and tell you the drilling challenge story.

[abogart]

Wow Vlad, that is quite the drilling rig!

I'm not sure I want to go through that much trouble to drill two shallow wells. But I can definitely see the benefit of having one of those to cover a yard in boreholes for closed loop.

Nice work!

[Vlad]

I started with low speed high torque hydraulic motor. I used Sauer Danfoss DH 315.

I lowered speed to get even more torque but I did not need it. I had only 1100 Psi of pressure in the system and that was enough.
Here some specs:


Second main component (even first) was water swivel. King swivel 2J
Here some info:


Hydraulic pump I just found one in my garage. It is model 310L. This is all I have about it. It is a bit too small. Hydraulic motor needed more GPM for full speed. But pressure/torque wise pump was big enough.

At the beginning I wanted to use electric motors because I didn't want to disturb neighbors. I used 5 HP electric motor to drive pump and 2HP to run water pump. Water pump need only gas engine because it allows to change its speed and water flow. Hydraulic pump can be driven by electric motor but 5 HP was just enough.

After I switched to gas engine for hydraulics. I used 15 HP Honda-like engine. This was real power.

So next time I will post my experience about using it.

[AlanE]

What I'd like to do is build a drilling unit which would allow me to drill a well for water and a series of GSHP wells and then dismantle the unit and repurpose the parts for other purposes.

I'm interested in reading about your thoughts on the power of that Honda engine. I plan on repurposing the engine I'm going to buy onto a home-built bandsaw mill. Same with the hydraulic unit which will allow me to move logs onto the unit.

That leaves the water swivel, mud pump, drilling rods and bits, and the frame. The frame can be cut up for other projects, so my questions are a.) what other uses can be devised for the water swivel, mud pump and drilling rods; and b.) how expensive are those components.

[Vlad]

AlanE, I don't believe in toy-rigs and plastic pipe drilling. Maybe somewhere where you have sand and clay only it will work but even a small rock or just a packed gravel will stop you.

I know I spent time and money to build this rig but I didn't want to spend half of what I spent and get nothing. Drilling is not cheap and easy.

You can read ACs struggle. He just ended up using a shovel and vacuum cleaner. And after all that He still doesn't have enough capacity.

I know it sound discouraging but you know it is better to estimate everything and find the right way then just jump into the project spend time, money and after all sit in a puddle of mud with mud all over your face and think "what the hell...." read my next post and try to feel what I was feeling at that time......

What about slinky? Slinky is much more DIY friendly.