We have water! We grew up drinking water from our artesian well in north Idaho, but this was our first experience having a well drilled.
First, we want to commend D&D Drilling and Pump in Miller, Missouri for doing a fantastic job. When Dean first came out this summer to assess our location and access, we were struggling to find anyone to install a proper entrance. Dean called back to headquarters to get the name of an excavator in our area — and one of them did indeed install our driveway. Over and over throughout the project, they went above and beyond. We would highly recommend them to anyone in our area!
The drill rig came out in mid-September. The guys from D&D brought the rig from a previous job late one evening and parked it near our well site. They came back the next morning to start drilling. Bedrock was only 10 feet down. It was a long and noisy process, as the drill spent the better part of a day breaking through the Ozarks limestone.
In the end, the drill went down about 300 feet before hitting our water source. All that ground limestone made quite the mess pooling out all over the ground. It was a fascinating sight.
The well pipe was capped, as we needed electricity put in before the pump could be installed. It took a couple weeks to get the electricity, and then we were able to schedule our pump install.
Our well package came with the installation of electric lines to the pump, a well house, pressure system, and water lines to our dwelling. So the pump installation day was quite eventful.
Their excavator made quick work of the ditch for running the water and electricity. After hand digging our footings for the tiny bunk house, we really appreciated seeing so much dirt moved so fast!
The pump installation process was interesting. They used their truck to lift the pipe segments up as they fed them into the well. The pump was set 280 feet down.
After the pipe was installed, the truck lifted the concrete well house and set it in place. They set up the pressure system inside. They also recommended a heat lamp and farm outlet (turns on when it gets cold) to keep the well house from freezing.
We opted to have a faucet installed on our well house, so we could have access to water right away. The guys from D&D did a good job cleaning up the site and leaving it looking nice.
It was an amazing feeling to turn on the water and see it gushing out. Our well provides 80 gallons a minute, which is more than we will ever need. Knowing we have access to virtually endless clean water is so encouraging. Starting a homestead from scratch hasn’t been remotely easy. But watching that water pour it, we were reminded — we can do this!
If you want to learn more about the well drilling process, we enjoyed this video from OGB. It breaks down the different steps and all that goes into the modern way of getting water out of the ground!
HOMESTEAD SISSIES 