The Hand-Dug Well.
Water wells, ironically, can seem like a dry subject to many. The photo below is of a Victorian-style wishing well which you will also notice is iron-y.
The wishing well is probably open at the top, but a drinking water well has to stay covered, since anything can fall or drift in. Wells can by dug by hand or by machinery. Nowdays they just use machinery. The one serving my house was hand-dug. Hand-dug wells had to be wide enough across to so that persons digging the well could fit down it. Wells drilled by machines are usually 6 inches across.. Hand-dug wells are around 30 inches across. Below, is a well at an old Victorian home, from the internet.
In the above picture, see the reflection from the water at the bottom? Water sits in the earth starting anywhere 5 to 30 feet deep, usually in the Northeastern U.S.
Above is my well with the cover off. Below, the photo is looking down into it. You can see 1) water reflection, 2) rings of clay pipe stacked, and 3) hose from the pump suction sticking out the side. See the reflection? The water is about 12 feet below the ground. The well ends about 4 feet deeper than the water level.
Can you see the rings of clay pipe? The clay prevents the well from caving in.
Below is from an Athenian well circa 4th century B.C. Just like my well, the ancient well is supported using clay.
hSource: ttps://www.pseau.org/outils/ouvrages/iahs_hand_dug_water_wells_a_vanishing_technology_2001.pdf
Below, is a well in Sri Lanka. Instead of clay, the well is built from stone and mortar. But can you see how all old wells are just basically circular deep holes in the ground? At the bottom, there would be holes in the masonry or clay to let water in.
Photo below is from the same site in Sri Lanka, since we might be tired now of looking at holes in the ground.
Concrete Project
The well in my yard (photo below) has a stone exterior. This month I made a new cover for it out of concrete. It's the gray disc in photo below, to the left of the well. I had cracked the old cover last year, trying to poke a hole in it for adding chlorine. Why chlorine? My water is of good quality, but in late summer the water gets a little rusty from microbial activity. The rust can clog the filter and cause taste problems but is not a health issue. Adding bleach takes care of it.
Photo below, is what the new cover looked like in my garage, after I broke the mold off (just like a cake mold). Those white chunks are pieces of insulation board, that I used to make a circular mold of the correct size. The concrete is Sakrete fiber-reinforced. Reinforcing was 6-inch spacing wire mesh. Afterward I coated the concrete with Silane7 silicone to prevent water from entering small pores in the concrete. Why the coating? Water in the pores could prematurely cause freeze-thaw cracking. Finally, I sealed the new cover to the well using G.E. Silicone. The seal can be easily cut open to add chlorine or service the well.
The cover is considerably heavy,
The below photo shows the well with the old cover which is under the green tarp that you see. The previous well cover, had to be covered with that green tarp, weighted by rocks, so nothing got through the accidental crack that I caused. To the right, is the new cover about to go on!
Below is the newly covered well. It could use some statuary or planter on top. Hope to see that in a future post!
Much of my career is dedicated to the study of groundwater. Click on the Youtube link below to learn some basics of taking measurements.
Link:
Youtube about Groundwater
1 comment:
Really interesting. I can remember, as a kid, watching them hand dig a well at the nursery. As the well went deeper, I got anxious for the man in the well doing the digging. It gets pretty claustrophobic down there!
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