Another day in the life of a Water Boring Contractor. We recently received a call from a new client with an existing bore that was experiencing problems. Upon attending site and learning whom drilled the bore….a “cheap Affordable” water bore, the issue became obvious immediately as we have seen it many times before.
There are “Water Boring Contractors” and then there are Water Boring Contractors, unfortunately the client had been told everything he wanted to hear and offered a “cheap” price, which he was delighted to accept. His bore was drilled and pump installed, however after a very short time the bore stopped working. The “Water Boring Contractor” had only installed a few meters of Bore casing into the hole, leaving it open underneath. Subsequently the hole collapsed on the pump, rendering it pretty much useless.
Unfortunately neither the pump nor the casing was able to be removed from the existing bore, so a decision was made to drill a new bore. Another permit was obtained, which is about a 10 minute online process for stock and domestic water bores and a new site divined.
During drilling we encountered Clay and boulders to a depth of 5 mt”s which required an oversize hole be drilled into the solid underlying basalt and extra large heavy duty bore casing installed to stabilise the top 5 mts. Once this was done we drilled into the basalt which ran to a depth of 20 mts, then encountered heavy clays to a depth 34 mts, which then turned to soft mudstone to a depth of 57 mts, which then turned to a quite nice hard slate. At around 80 mts we began seeing quartz intrusions into the slate, then some nice heavy fracturing. The bore was drilled to a couple mt”s past the fracture zone to a depth of 97 mts. The fracture zone was water bearing, as they often are, yielding some good quality water.
Then the drill string was removed and the bore was lined to the FULL DEPTH with certified Australian Made Bore Casing and PVC screen with 1mm aperature. Then an air line was run to the full depth and the bore was developed, ie high pressure air pushed down the air line to lift the water and any sediment/slurry left over from the drilling process. See Video…..you can also see the existing failed bore in the video. Development was continued until the bore was producing a consistently clean clear flow of water. The flow rate was tested and noted so a suitable pump size could be selected.
Bore development is a very important step in any Water Boring Contractors construction methods. Its done primarily to ensure the bore is producing clean water and to flow test the capacity of the aquifer. The very last thing you want is to have a pump installed and have it pumping dirty thick sludge. This will dramatically cut down on the life of the pump and in many cases can cause it to “lock” as it gets jammed full of sediment and slurry. Pump installers have told us many horror stories about some “Water Boring Contractors”…..client was told the bore is 60 mts deep, yet the pump will only go down 47MT”s…the remainder of the “bore being full of slurry and sediment. In some cases after pumping for 10 to 15 minutes the pump locks…..the pump has also become jammed in the bottom of the hole by slurry and sediment and is extremely difficult to remove, if it can be removed at all!
As I say to all our clients, ” Do it properly the first time, then its done and you can move onto something else and its one less thing to have to worry about”. Cheap “affordable” bores sound too good to be true and whats the saying about if something sounds too good to be true? Dont try and find out the hard and expensive way
.https://www.facebook.com/borewaterdrillers/videos/301916682798459
For a quick yet comprehensive explanation of how an experienced honest Water Boring Contractor operates, check our Water Bore Drilling Tutorial here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKweHAwj9-A
If you would like a free groundwater database search of your vicinity (Victoria Only) ie depth flow rate etc of bores in your vicinity, you can do so here https://www.centrestatedrilling.com.au/free-groundwater-database-search/
