I purchased the 6” drill bit and the instructional videos from www.drillawell.com with the intention of drilling an irrigation well for my lawn in a suburban area. I knew that the ground would be clay with the potential for gravel and stones but what I encountered was 25’ of hard packed clay with lots of large stones and gravel, then 15’ of sand. The instructions to make the drill were easy to follow and the process is explained very clearly. It really is a clever design the way it works, kudos to Nathaniel on designing this system. As it took me over 50 hours of drilling to get to the water bearing sand layer (averaged 6” per hour) there were times when I questioned if I should continue, persistence is required. Due to me drilling through large rocks the entire time I did have to resurface the drill bit twice, the bit is well built and took the resurfacing just fine. Luckily I ‘punched through’ around 25’ and hit water sand where drilling was exceptionally fast. If you were to use this system in regular clay or sand I have no doubt that it would plow down to 100’ in short order, it’s the rocks and gravel that slow everything down as you have to grind or suction them out.

When it was all said and done I was left with a 40’ deep well that is able to produce 2.5 to 3gpm when tested for over 10 hours. I saved a lot of money drilling my own well but more importantly I was able to place the well in an area where a conventional well drilling rig could not access. If you are a practical person with mechanical skills it is indeed possible to drill your own well.

I used a Devilbliss 432 pump with a 5HP motor and ½” airline. This setup delivered 19.7 CFM at 125psi on spec, when running the drill I saw around 90psi at the regulator. Listen to the advice on the DVD, this thing needs a huge compressor, I thought I was using a monster with the 432 and it could hardly keep up. It ran continuously when drilling to maintain the 90psi. Also, I did drill this well myself and I agree with the instructions, get a helper as it is hard work.

Jim, Canada