Let's visit on the Porch II (Hardin, Big Sky: transfer, law, legally)

[Threerun]

Originally Posted by Reziac

Ow ow ow. That woulda bought a lot of that pricy community water

You'd be jealous of my sister's well east of Bozeman... they went down to 2nd water at about 250 feet and got a 35GPM artesian fountain!

Yeah the last well we had drilled in WV they went 80 ft and ht over 65gpm- a geyser.. It was sulphur laden so went deeper. Guess what? Still sulphur laden. I guess that's why they named the main road we lived off 'Sulphur Springs Rd.', lol.

It's all chance. We found out there are 4 different geological formations just in the North Hills. I could move my well site over 300 ft and be in a totally different strata than what was drilled in. Pretty fascinating stuff, albeit a very expensive geology lesson, lol.

[Tuck's Dad]

I am feeling a little guilty reading these well digging stories. My well in Noxon was 57 ft in a gravel/sand bed and produces 35gpm quality clean water. They went through clay, rock, then standing water at 35 ft, more rock, then hit the sand and gravel bed with the water source.

Total spent was the $3,000 minimum price for bringing the drilling equipment out - 60 ft minimum well depth is how they bill to ensure they cover expenses.

[Reziac]

Probably the most ridiculous well was where I lived just outside Belgrade... they just banged the pipe into the ground and had a raging gusher at a paltry depth of 25 feet.

Had a neighbor in the SoCal desert who took a notion to dig his own well... by hand. (At the time he was around 75 years old.) When he gave it up the hole was around 125 feet deep. Had a ways to go... water level in that part of the desert is at 270 feet.

Neighbor here in Laurel just had to replace his well... some years back his dad became displeased with its meager output (5gpm) and took a notion to frack it. Dropped a stick of dynamite down the hole. This did the casing no good and improved the flow not a whit.

[Threerun]

Originally Posted by Tuck's Dad

I am feeling a little guilty reading these well digging stories. My well in Noxon was 57 ft in a gravel/sand bed and produces 35gpm quality clean water. They went through clay, rock, then standing water at 35 ft, more rock, then hit the sand and gravel bed with the water source.

Total spent was the $3,000 minimum price for bringing the drilling equipment out - 60 ft minimum well depth is how they bill to ensure they cover expenses.

Well it's a crap shoot here, so they litereally could have hit a sand gravel bed 300 ft to the east. It's just the way it goes sometimes.

[MTSilvertip]

Sorry to hear of your problem there Threerun. The whole valley, geologically speaking is a crapshoot. There are 3 large faults running around the valley, and all the folding and shifting and tectonic activity is part of the reason there was so much gold here. Gold is usually found close to fault line activity.

It's a real missmash underfoot here. If you go out on Holter lake you can see precambrian rock in the upthrusts. Rock so old there are no fossils in it, and that isn't far from where you are in North Hills.

I drove a sandspike into the floor of the crawlspace under my house and it's all sand/gravel as I'm on a flood plain, and only 10 feet down I hit water. I was looking to see if I could put a partial basement under the house, but I found out pretty quick why nobody in my area puts in a basement!

[ElkHunter]

Now that the new knee is in place, they can concentrate on rebuilding my right foot that I busted up when that roller lost power and I had to bail. That will be done at the VA in Cheyenne because it will take multiple surgery's. Then rebuild C1-c7 vertibraes. Hell, by the time I'm 65, I'll be a new man, or, I'll be on the list, to get on the list.

Having a great deal of pain, but I'm pushing through it. The therspist grounded me this afternoon.I've been pushing it pretty hard, harder than I should. She come in and said she had two new ecetvised for me. I said great, tell me what I need to do. She said I have to do. She said I start out on my back, in bed. So I laid down and said, what's next? She said, turn on the TV and turn it to your favorite channel. I did. Then she grabbed my walker and as she went out the door, she said, other than the bathroom, you are not to get up, see you tomorrow. She left.

[Montana Griz]

Originally Posted by MTSilvertip

..................I drove a sandspike into the floor of the crawlspace under my house and it's all sand/gravel and only 10 feet down I hit water. I was looking to see if I could put a partial basement under the house, but I found out pretty quick why nobody in my area puts in a basement!

I found the info in your quoted post above very interesting,,,,,,..and it brought a smile to my face.................

When I bought this 14 acres back in 1975, we had intentions to put a full basement under our proposed home. Our previous two homes had a full basement and I sure wanted one here..................however it was not-to-be!!....Right after signing the papers on the land I had a guy come over with his back-hoe and dig a hole where I knew we were going to put the septic tank.....................bingo, he hit ground water at 10 feet......so no basement. We then changed the plans for the house and garage to include a "storage room" as part of the attached garage. We also raised the elevation of the house about 3 feet and went with a 5 1/2 foot deep crawl-space.

Having had a private well in every house I had lived in since I was born and drilled 2 wells in IL & one in the foothills in CO, I felt I had some knowledge in this field. So I contacted three local well drillers here in the vallley and had each one come out and tell me where they would recommend they drill the well, (knowing where I had staked out the 4 corners of the house.) I also requested an "estimate" based on a 100 foot well AND that I would be suppling my own Submersible Pump (a 1HP Stainless Steel Gould--with S.S. Impellers-- no plastic stuff at all!.

The guy with the "old-fashion-Pounder" came in (highest) with-in a few dollars of the other estimates who both would be using "Air Precussion Rigs". I also told them that all the "electrical requirements" and the "Hanging of the 1 HP pump on 20 foot lengths of Galvanized Pipe would be done by my Electrician.
I also asked them to figure in perforating (2" long slits, cut with a Torch) the first (bottom end) 6 feet of the 6 inch casing (approx "300" slits) and leave the "bottom-end, "open".....Being in a location on the valley floor between two mountain ranges, I expected that we would be in an acquifer of sand and gravel (glacial-drift), and we would be "pumping sand" for many hours before the "well would run clean", and all that test pumping would be done with THEIR pump.

Almost all of the wells within a mile of my location were between 38 and 54 feet!, and produced between 12 and 20 GPM...........Since I was having a Cedar Shake Roof on my place, I wanted a well that would allow me to run (8) Rain-Birds on a 1" PVC Pipe Grid on my Ridge Lines in case of "Forest-Fires" in my area, and wind blown, glowing ash and pine needles would be landing on the roof.......(in the fire season of 1988 we did employ what I had envisioned.)

I wanted a "proven-well" before we ever started on the house...Here is what I got:..................

Gave the contract to the guy with the "old-Pounder".....(for a variety of reasons I had formed from my "so-called" research and experience.)

We first hit water at 42 feet..told him to keep on going. Hit another good source at 60 feet....told him to keep on going.......Went through a "wonderful" layer of "Clay" at 66 to 70 feet, told him to keep on going.

Hit a "Great" aquifer at approx 83 feet and we stopped (the casing) at 90 feet. The driller's test pump (a 3/4 HP jacuzzi) was lowered to 89 feet and was run for 3 days.......the last 20 hours "It Ran Clean"--no sand.

After my 1 HP Gould was installed at 88 feet, the well produced 44 GPM at the "Well Head" at 63 PSI in the Pressure tank. I have the Pressure Switch set to "Cut-In at 38 PSI and "Cut-out" at 65 PSI".

Under "Full Draw Down" (at approx 60 PSI) the water level in the casing drops to approx 60 feet.

After almost 36 years........I am VERY happy with this well.

Edit: The well is approx 1000 feet away from a 40 foot wide major "feeder stream into the B.R. river", which is approx 6000 feet to the east of me. All water (subterianen/sp and above ground) on the west side of the valley, flows to the east to the river. And all of the land in my immediate area has a maximum of 6" to 10" of dirt.....below that is: rock, gravel and sand for "God-Knows" to what depth. And I'm just about 1/2 mile from the mouth of the canyon that this 40 foot wide stream comes out of. Being a Glacial Valley and floor of the valley close to the mountains being covered with hundreds of feet of Glacial Drift, I would guess that may be one of the reasons why I was so lucky with this well.

[Threerun]

Unfortunately here you can't really test the ground, however we did obtain the geological survey maps. My neighbors well is one distinct formation, most of my ground is in the tertiary boundary sediment (pre Cambrian uplift). There are 3 layers here, and the north hills is basically a sedimentary uplift at a 52deg angle.

Had I been able to poke a hole farther down hill, I would have likely hit the Helena Valley aquifer which is alluvial. However my septic drain field encompasses most of my ground down low, therefore I had no reasonable place to go there.

So it goes. I may revisit it in the future, armed with a little more knowledge and data, maybe a different gameplan, but for now I'll be content to pay the $75-100 p/mo community water bill until it raises to the point of idiocy or the association goes under.

[Threerun]

On the brighter side of life I bought a 1/2 hog and just finished grinding 25 lbs of hog/venison for bratwurst. I gotta practice my technical German, ya know?

20# hog grindings, 5# venison grindings. I'm making two batches- 12# of plain- nothing added but brat seasoning and 13# jalapeño and cheddar cheese added.

Wife and daughter like plain, my son and I like it spicy!

That should hold us on brats for the year.

[Reziac]

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