I always thought it would be neat to have an old style water well and pump on my place somewhere. I cannot find any info on how to go about doing this, I am assuming it is possible to do so, I live in south mississippi and figure It could be done. How did the old timers do it? any help would be great !! Thanks-- Greg
You need the well, first. That would be drilled by a local well driller -- it's not cheap, but a well with hand pump is a very good investment, in my opinion. If your water level is close to the surface that will make using a hand pump easier, but there are hand pumps made for deep wells, also. It just takes a lot more pumping to get the water up from a depth. You can do a Google search for hand pumps (I found mine by doing a search for deep well hand pumps), and should find quite a few. Whoever installs well pumps in your area can install your hand pump, though it probably wouldn't be too hard for you to do it yourself. I'm going to have to get some help with mine because the electric submersible pump is in the same well (and we'll continue using it as long as we have electricity), so the wires need to be disconnected and moved by someone who knows what they are doing. Kathleen in Oregon
Hey Greg: The old fashion pitcher pump will lift water about 26'. They are used for shallow wells, cisterns, etc.. New pitcher pumps are 29.00 to 70.00. My local (non-chain) hardware store carries all parts to rebuild these pumps. For water deeper than 26', a medium or deep well pump is needed. As the depth increases, both resistence to lifting and price increase . The old timers used windmill operated handpumps to overcome the difficulty in lifting deep water. Lehmans has some good info on what is needed to install a medium or deep well pump. Handpumps are really very simple. Good luck. thprice in sc.
Greg, In the not so distant past, people dug shallow wells by using a "drop auger". It is possible to go as much as 60-80 feet using this labor intense technique. The tools required are a tripod (three trees), old well pulley (or equiv), and the drop auger itself. A auger is simple to make- take a piece of 2 in steel square tubing...cut about 6 ft. long, weld a 6" diameter piece of pipe (with a slit in the bottom sides about 4 inches about 12 inches long) to the tubing (using two piece of rebar on either side) and a circle at the top to tie the rope (use about 100' heavy rope. Then go to town - simply drop and the large pipe will pick up about a half a shovel full when retracted. You'll be surprised how quickly it goes - and fun when you hit water.... It was very important to have someone "witch" a proper location. You'll end up with a hand dig well about 8 inches in diameter.
