Digging Well

[Egor]

Hello all, I was hoping one of you might have some expierence with digging a well in Isaan. We are building a home near Chiang Pin 10 km outside Udon towards Kut Chap. Anyway have about 30 Rai farm and we tried to have a well dug today. It was friends of girlfriends mom and dad and they couldn't find water and gave up. Not sure how professional they were, but girlfriends mom thought they were go enough to do the job. As I am not there I did not see exactly what they were trying but girlfriend thinks they went 30m deep. The farms around have wells so this would lead me to believe it is possible. If anyone has knowledge of this process or knows a company we could use and general cost it would be much appreciated.

Good thing we specified "no water no pay" with the friends since they didn't find water. They did get a belly full of finest Isaan food for their efforts.

[Dakoda]

I'll ask around. Someone I know said they had to go down 100 feet which I guess is 30 meters.

[laphanphon]

wow, 30 meters and no water, that sucks. mine is about 25 meters and neighbors is about the same, and we are kind of high compared to rice paddies out back, good 3-5 meters lower than us. don't know anyone to recommend out that way, i'm the opposite direction, sw of udon. but it should cost something like 10-15000 to have well dug. some charge 20-25 including everything, but they usually get substandard pump. make sure whether it's a submersible, or above, that it is for deep well, don't worry about liters per minute, as they seem to be negative numbers on pump. my well is 25 meter, pump for 19, rated at 9 liter per minute and it pumps almost 40 liters per minute, so not bad at all. actually the previous pump was for something like 12 meters or something ridiculous like that and actually pump pretty good. submersible is supposed to be better, but bit more money. when done, no matter what, make sure everything is sealed and nothing can crawl/fall in well, trust me, takes about a week to decay and work it's way thru system, water useless to then. also a water filter for drinking water, no matter what anyone says. micros and pesticide and minerals, your main worry. i got a cheap counter top one, less than 2000 baht and filters are cheap also. make sure it's 3 stage .03 or .003 or something like that, to get pesticides and micros out.

[Egor]

Thanks for the info

We were being charged 20,000 baht for everything including the pump. But since they could not find water we did not have to pay.
I didn't even think about different pumps types, probably need to discuss that prior to the next attempt. I figured G-friends mom and dad who have lived in Udon their whole life would be best left in charge of that project. They have been very helpful with everything, but are unsure of what to do now about the well now.

30 meters does seem pretty deep, there are a few ponds on the property so I figured there must be ground water around although I am not sure if that is a good reference. Anyway need to try again because we need some water.

[Nick]

We have a garden about five kilometers further on towards Kut Chap with two wells, one dug (3 feet wide) and one bored (8 ins) and the water table is at about 5(five) meters. Guess it just depends on where you are.