The Worst Well in a Decade!

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One of the worst wells we've ran into in a very long time! Well Drillers will understand!
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[@charleswelch249]

For someone your age, you have great knowledge about the family business. It's never boring listening to you explaining the situation you guys are dealing with. Can't wait for your next video, and your first obligation is the business, not utube. Just keep doing what you do.

[@advancednutritioninc908]

No one blames you for saving your $500,000 worth of equipment rather than film!! You did a great job explaining! You are a good teacher - I have learned a lot from you!

[@baeabcaeebdeebcdc]

Your videos are a throwback to the early days of KZbin for me, just someone generously sharing their own hard won experience.

[@geraldtrice4894]

I used to drill using an air rig in California gold country and occasionally would drill into an old, unmarked horizontal mine shaft whose location was long lost to history. This usually happened around 100 feet and would instantly stop the hammer at the bottom of the stroke and a total loss of air. Usually moved around 50 feet from failed well and started over.

[@glennsoucy4359]

Lots of those down around Georgetown, Cool, even out to Diamond Springs.

[@normanmack2368]

By the way, BTW, you do one heck of a job explaining things. Again most people don't realize a large or several hydraulic motors performing the power functions which is everything.

[@mikemmikem2758]

I absolutely love your videos as they are so educational to me as I'm not in your line of work. For you not to film tells me how concerned you were about losing the well. Glad it worked out for you and don't shorten your videos too much. Another excellent video. Thank you.

[@estruble]

Just be grateful you weren't drilling a geothermal well. Lived in Eastern Oregon in a town with a large number of geothermal wells. The underground water is about 195 deg and there was a 6.0 earthquake back in 1995 that caused the wells to artesian that actually melted the asphalt as they ran down the street. Appreciate you taking the time to explain what you see and hear during production and what they all mean. For the layman, I have no way to tell when you hit bed rock or water by the water spray under the rig.

[@shaunkelly9053]

How deep is one of those wells?

[@waynep343]

My cousin told me that the 1971 sylmar and 1994 northridge earthquakes happened just after so cal gas had increased the natural gas pressure in the old oil field they use as underground storage just before both quakes.

[@raymondheckard234]

You need to borrow from the oil fields in how to deal with this situation when setting the surface casing and drilling through the veins of rock. You need to drill with Bentonite drilling mud. The drilling mud will hold your drill bore shape while setting the stone and sand from back filling you bore.

[@Bleda412]

He mentions using Bentonite at 21:20

[@raymondheckard234]

@@Bleda412 this was in regards to grouting in the casing, I talking about a drilling mud that is used in the drilling process, and are 2 separate things. In the oil industry they USA a drilling mud that is a bling of Bentonite, cellulose and ground retired money, in the well drilling process to seal off zones during the whole drilling process. They drill through the aquifer zones, then set casing, then filling the casing with concrete, then set the blowout preventer, then they drill through the concrete to the target depth, then they set the production casing down to the production zone. This process isolated the aquifer zones from contamination. I am familiar with a well that was drilled which was a horizontal directional well that was to have well over 5000 feet of horizontal bore, that lost 3 drill bits, they had to send down explosives inside the drilling Cable to cut the cable, and had to do this 3 time because of fractured rock in a fault zone, at that depth we are talking salt water zone. The completed drilling the well as a directional diagonal well, which gave a very small production zone of the well. The difference is he is using a hammer drill rig,and in the oilfield they are using a rotary rig using a diamond Impregnated rotary bit to drill through the rock formations.

[@londen3547]

Worked for a core drilling outfit in my unger days, no way your going to make it thru overburden without bentonite, especially on a 45 degree hole. Must be nice for these guys to punch a hole in a day, leave a mess behind and hand the owner a $25k bill on the way out.

[@johnhardt5016]

@raymondheckard234 they have a small shramm air conditioner rig, they done have duplex or triplex pumps on site or even a mud tub. The run a hammer and water injection.

[@raymondheckard234]

@@johnhardt5016 this is a big problem because it does not allow them to use drilling mud to seal off the areas in the bore hole such as sand zones or gravel beds. Also with the drilling regulations of the EPA that is coming and is being pushed in states like California in the water well drilling, the days of allowing the tailings from the bore hole to run on top of the ground will be over and will have to be captured and filtered from the water before it is discharged. The EPA has a study that shows the tailings from water wells like all mining operations have contaminants of heavy metals. A friend in the oil and gas industry was talking that soon the water well drillers will also have to comply with the the same exact regulations as the oil and gas industry under the Biden EPA. He said it does not matter if you are digging a well 100 ft or 25000 feet, when drilling through the rock formations, many of them have heavy metals in them, and to the EPA Granit dust is toxic, as is all drilling tailings to the EPA are like all mine waste, Toxic.

[@googacct]

At what point do you decide it is better to just reposition and drill in a different location?

[@charleswieand4445]

Grandpa had a 75 pound hand driver that we use for jobs like that one time we were going through a stone that took three hits ago a quarter inch well almost gave up on that one but it finally broke through after about two hours

[@drob5664]

Around here in Central Florida it is common to lose circulation due to cavity's. Sometimes you can see your circulation spraying out of a neighbor's well. That is not a good thing.

[@h2omechanic]

I've seen that when Fracking a well, I often go look around the neighbors well to see if we're pushing water out. Only seen it once so far.

[@johnhardt5016]

We had that happen on a Jordan well in Iowa. We were at 1860' deep and opened a sand cavity 3200' away to another well when we were developing the well. We had probably 100 dump truck loads of super fine sand come out of that hole.

[@drob5664]

@@johnhardt5016 Wow, that's a long way. Ours were only about 100 feet away.

[@johnhardt5016]

We also had sponge looking rocks as big as your first coming out. We did all this with an 18" hole opener on the end of our string of pipe.

[@fayastof5705]

Next time...That kind of situation we love to see. We like videos that include something special or different from normal jobs. Thx for the great effort in filming, explaining, and working at the same time, we know it's as hard as it looks.

[@HardDriveGuruOfficial]

I just found your channel having never seen or heard anything about wells, and the way you explain things is so clear I'm having zero problems understanding despite a lack of knowledge. Well done, and thank you!

[@STREETRAT98]

Just for giggles, you oughta throw a gold pan on your work truck. That old riverbed makes me think there might be some goodies in there. Makes me curious. Great vid tho. Love the channel

[@whathasxgottodowithit3919.]

Well from Hell springs to mind. Lost circulation is a nightmare on Oil & Gas wells too, especially if you get a well kick following the Loss Circulation. I have had to mix 400 pallets of LCM in 12 hours trying to regain circulation. (20sx on a pallet)

[@wayneould3819]

Thank you for the teaching of what the worst well drilling. We don't know the frustrations of drill on some days. Wayne from alberta,canada

[@stager33]

ever think of panning the talings on this type of well foe gold ?

[@curtnicholson7771]

I’m also proud to hear that we come in third as well. You have your priorities correct my friend. Workers and equipment first Customers next and us watching after you have accomplished the othered safely and with profitability or your company

[@karlschwab6437]

Wow! Glad you guys know how to handle situations like this.

[@chrisf5418]

As a viewer, I watch because you're a professional. I'm glad you were professional and stayed focused on the task and your team's safety rather than screwing around with shooting video in the middle of a bad situation. Keep up the good work!

[@robertreznik9330]

I will have a driller out in a week. It will cost over 100K to drill, steel case 575', and gravel pack. If they loose circulation that will cost $10,000 more for additives and cotton fiber. Sometimes a hole needs several hundred thousand gallons of drilling water.

[@clarkwg247]

Welcome to drilling a well in my hometown county in southern Wisconsin. Our drillers are good at doing exactly what y'all ended up doing

[@muchmuchmore]

Great video as usual. You do an excellent job of explaining complex topics without over simplifying.

[@peep39]

that's the soil composition I have here. Sand, pebble, river stone. I had a hard enough time digging by hand 4 feet down for concrete piers

[@Premier-Media-Group]

Maybe look at some tow operators who mount GoPros on their helmet and their equipment to capture any surprises on camera without having to worry about handheld.

[@tompinnef6331]

Nasty well this time. Glad you made it happen. Thank you for the video. Hope the crew / family and you are doing well.

[@deuce_hnd]

Great video, in my drilling area 70-80% of the jobs we do are like this. We just do steel temporary casing and pvc casing to total depth.

[@xFlavoriax]

I do the same here in europe...drill with steel casing after we finished drilling run pvc casing n pulling out the steel casing. (*We use double top head drive rigs)

[@deuce_hnd]

@@xFlavoriax that is the way. I am looking for one of those rigs and I actually asked for a foremost DR24 yesterday. The asking price is $1,040,000.00 (not in that league yet. )

[@philliporth2263]

Do you have to clean up yard after drilling?

[@ThatGuyFromArizona]

I subscribe to many different markets on KZbin and you do the best job explaining what goes on. I learn something new everytime you share one with us. Our family sends yours wishes for a safe and enjoyable holidays.

[@kamalnadan6114]

Bro I don't know if this is a 22:20 coincidence or an intervention but iam drilling a well right now with the same exact situation with the same Boulder problems and I dont know how this vlog just came up. I just removed the 6 inch casing cos all torn up. Will use the 8 inch hammer to break all the rocks at 30 to 40 feet then put a 8 in casing then clear more space and put the 6 inch. And then drill the well to the bottom to 150 feet. Man I thought I was gona get lucky before Christmas and this nightmare well confronted me hahahah. Loved your video bro. Regards from western drilling Fiji

[@northwoodsguy1538]

Nice job. Thanks for sharing.👍😎

[@nicholassimpson8232]

There's nothing like seeing the Derek barely poking out of the ground from a massive sinkhole

[@xFlavoriax]

In drilling which makes drilling very difficult is drilling through boulders...i remember one site we left it because we cant drill any further. In this case using some other methods r very important.. here in europe we have double head top drive which makes the work easy or using auger bits and let the casing going through, after we go through the boulder formation normal drilling continue till the end. I like to hear from ppls used a different system. 😎

[@OwnageTheCat]

Y'alls inspector guy sounds like a cool dude

[@h2omechanic]

@@OwnageTheCat 90% of them are. & 50% of them get training from other inspectors on our jobs, so the new guy/gal knows what to look for & for a little education. Nothing is as good as on the job experience, even for inspectors.

[@user-lx7ns4sf5n]

Mud up my guy, put a shaker in there. Done! Easy money

[@jmazoso]

Loss of circulation sucks, I feel for you man. Other thing about those round river rocks is that they kill those hammer bits.

[@nathanhatcher7096]

That interesting i recalled my parents well being drilled back in the 80's same thing they hit weird looking rocks much like hard river rock at 30-40' after drilling for the better part of the day the old man called it quit. Next morning he brought in what he called old and faithful percussion rig ended up driving in 71' of steel casing! Then finished out at 164' with 22 gals a min.

[@jamessteelman4913]

In nj we use steel casing with cement grout

[@ToddLarsen]

Have you ever drilled so deep that the water inside was hot or warm? Thanks for sharing, and as always, keep building 👍

[@yellowlab5624]

Maybe a side view diagram of drilling a well? Interesting for sure!!👍👍

[@epistte]

This is about oil well lost circulation but the theory is the same. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWnHiKqMbttsiZo

[@jeff95050]

I have never felt so appreciated and valued coming in third.. I hope I speak for all your audience that you make us feel like total winners in first and very fortunate for the valuable videos and education/experience you consistently GIVE us. Outstanding! Thank You!

[@h2omechanic]

I appreciate that

[@MikeHarris1984]

ancient river bed? maybe a good source of gold deposits??? lol. I wonder if you pan the dirt coming up and out of the river rock/sand if you would find any gold deposits?

[@rcf8367]

Great video, not many folks understand the complications of well drilling!

[@Premier-Media-Group]

Dude, that quartz and river stone may have gold with it...maybe the owner should pan those drill waste piles...😂

[@roddraper9921]

Tri-cone, reverse circulation, heavy mud, and lots of beer.

[@markwilliams4525]

In Florida you can lose circulation before you get your surface casing in and you can watch your rig and everything around it disappear sometimes even after you get surface casing in

[@swedenfrommycam]

Good Work! U should have a shaker table to process the sand and gravel and catch the Gold ;)

[@lukasandrysik3666]

Hi, bit unrelated to todays video but I have a question: Lets say you are drilling a well and hit (bit of) water at 200ft, decide to drill deeper and hit another water at 600ft. Now those two aquifers are connected by the well and the water can flow from one aquifer to another? What if your neighbour has 200ft well. Can your well drain the 200ft aquifer making the 200ft wells in the area dry over some time? Similar situation: you hit water at 200ft decide to drill deeper and don't find another water. Can you lose the water by draining it into some porous rock deep down? Thanks

[@h2omechanic]

The static water level on both wells will be the same. Both would fill equally, one would just have deeper storage. It would only cause a issue during the drilling process of the 600ft Well bc if its connected to the 200ft well it would drain it dry temporarily (I've seen it happen). But during typical usage, both should be fine. It's rare unless 2 wells are 50-75ft away from each other.

[@stevefoose3206]

When we lose circulation, we go to reverse air which makes a huge difference. But your rig has to be set up for it. Down here in Florida.

[@samtipikin]

Can u do a video installing a frost free water hydrant directly to well pump. Does it need a power box or do u hook up power to well and the water will flow when water hydrant open

[@TalRohan]

You could find alluvial gold in an old river bed gravels like that, it would be interesting to pan it out and see exactly what small heavies are down there . I Can't say I fancy the idea of a blow out like that...sounds scarey as heck. You must go through a huge amount of copper grease in a week of drilling, you paint that stuff all over the coupling threads , I'm not sure what you would do if you got drill rods stuck together. What sort of speed does the drill cut through granite? Thanks for sharing

[@bradp136]

You are amazing! thank you so much!

[@insanewayne442]

That would have been some good content. Can you set up a time lapse on a tripod when you start drilling?

[@sidmorgan4980]

I had a dad and son drill me a well in 2011, dry year. They had one that dropped down. It took them 3 days. It hit 3 gallon , but he said it would It would improve. It did. That summer ihad to haul water to the pasture to cows, like every one else. It was a really dry year

[@paull.drownjr.5477]

I really enjoyed this video. I love your goals for making videos and you a quite good at maintaining your goals. I really appreciate what you do and your attention to details. Keep up the great work and above everything else, stay safe!!!

[@dnalia64]

That sounds like a total nightmare.

[@brentwentfishing]

Wow! I learn so much every time I watch one of your videos! That one looked extra tough alright. Finally got my shallow well working with the parts I ordered from y'all. Thank you so much for all the knowledge you pass along! 😎

[@gregsatterly9412]

KZbin probably would not have let you post that video anyway. I imagine there was ALOT of language flying!!! Great job as always.

[@WrenchHead]

Do you all have access to and/or reference a geological map? I was just wondering if that could potentially aid in y'alls drilling efficiency.

[@WrenchHead]

That's what you call a SNAFU 😂

[@robm8089]

Interesting videos! I got a worse one yet for you if you like the tricky ones lol. Had 3 drillers here, worst/most expensive failure we have here was drilled 380ft total into 'traprock', 6" steel cased to 340', static water level around 250', produces 1-2 gallons per day. Can't get any of them to come back after a taste of the nightmare over here haha.

[@Old-bold-pilot]

We would rather you be safe than video star. Thanks for the video and information. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@user-dn4iv2ne6r]

I know a driller that cements the bad areas or voids and then drills through the cement. Is that something that is viable in your area?

[@h2omechanic]

Yup! That idea actually went thru my head. If it was more common, we'd be more geared up to do things like that.

[@tom99790]

You must have quite a rock collection!

[@daviddziomba9664]

I wonder why you fellas didn't try using a tri cone bit and mud the casing in, at least that way you would not have the air pressure to contend with, you may have been able to grind up those small stones and been able to lift them out with water and mud , it may have been an easier time of it. Just a thought. Dave D.

[@ogles824]

When I was a kid my grand parents had to drill a new well on their place because the water quality was so bad. They lived south of Monroe, Louisiana in an area where one of the largest natural gas fields also exists. They had to go about 450 feet to get good consumable water. They were on their third hole before they were able complete a hole. At about 75 feet they’d hit a natural gas pocket and it would blow the whole drilling rig several feet into the air when they’d hit those pockets. The first pocket they hit cost the driller a few sections of drill stem because it broke off when they hit it. I got to see that and it was scary.

[@whatevernamegoeshere3644]

God this is exactly like where I live lol. Haven't seen a successful drilling just broken tools

[@BryonBarros-zu2bk]

I had my grandfather in law tell me about them hitting red wood stumps at 400 feet in the Central Valley of California drilling for water.

[@Keith_Mikell]

Great video. You've doubled growth since i found you. Much love.

[@wdxwm300]

Thanks for the great explanition

[@bobbyboucher05]

Enjoy your videos they are very informative . Just a suggestion when you lose circulation in the hole ,try using Horse manure with bentonite to regain circulation. It will work to gain your circulation. When drilling in River Rock . Have been in the drilling business for Many many years , Have drilled all over the US and Mexico. Thank and keep up the good work.

[@shawnbrown1953]

Sounds about like my Monday!!

[@shawnbrown1953]

Derick pin broke and came out Managing to get that fixed without it coming down! 🙏🏼 The next hole ate my roller cone..

[@robertmcbee4671]

You made mention as to your preference in using chips vs. grout. I believe that using grout would probably be best as grout expands when it dries therefore creating pressure between the casing and bore hole sealing the two. The use of chips would not do this. I am not a driller but learned the use of grout in the traffic industry as it is used to hold the traffic poles up against their anchor bolts and base.

[@toshihitsu1989]

I think a lot of us would love to see a video on that process, but I think a lot of us will also respect that you don't want to be losing equipment or the well while trying to film something. If it's stressful or you get nervous, I would say focus on what you're doing and not worry about filming for us. Yes, it would be cool, but in the long run is not worth jeopardizing equipment just for a bit of videos on KZbin

[@nicholassimpson8232]

You got it easy up there try drilling on some of these islands in Florida

[@carlcarlson180]

My driller said I hit an under ground stream. We have great water

[@darcam]

Out in southwest it's not unheard of drilling wells to over 1000 ft deep

[@johnsites5105]

Man I wish you lived and drilled wells in South Carolina. We enjoyed the video and glad everything turned out OK.

[@candlermorris2209]

We appreciate the hard work! What questions should we ask local guys (north GA area) when shopping for a well driller?

[@catman5546]

Drilled in Alaska, bolder till field we used steel casing, welded together in a drill and drive casing hammer . Wait till you drill through 200 ft of Ice, then hit gravel stone , the water comes up through the hole , it’s artesian well, the well water starts thawing the bore hole to the point we almost lost the rig !!! Casing could not be set , due to pressure!!! You have not seen the bad ones , Drill in multiple states (licensed )

[@Isnt_ThatRight]

Gday from Australia… question ? We have situations here normally in commercial building were low flow is only available a holding tank is used to meet peak demands… is this something common in US? For example 1000 Lt tank with booster pump or gravity feed after the supply. What I am suggesting is well pump feeds tank and all water I supplied by tank.

[@sandy1653]

I don't know if I've seen it on a commercial building, but there's a few small neighborhoods in my area with communal wells that pump into small tanks like that overnight when the power is cheap and everyone uses the tank water during the day.

[@stich1960]

See it a lot in low producing shallow residential wells here

[@stich1960]

Do do you guys specialize in shallower wells (

[@daviddziomba9664]

You need a hard one every so often, to keep you on your toes. Dave D.

[@Chris_In_Texas]

Sop forgive me if you have covered it before, but I assume you just push air down the drill pipe then to the head? What kind of pressure / volume do you inject into the hole? Keep up the good work sir! 👍🤠

[@stevelalondejr2183]

Was the sand gravel water bearing ? Unconsolidated material would a mud rotary hole/drill rig done you any good ? We drill open hole and screen our wells here, screens on casing depths to 300' clays, sands etc unconsolidated material mud rotary rigs our wells average 50+gpm screened.

[@h2omechanic]

There was no water in the river rock/sand zone. It was eating up all our water.

[@neilgreaves2767]

Good video Life is not Always easy Like a Pro you sorted it WELL DONE Regards from Qld Australia Merry Christmas

[@shiningone3538]

id be panning a bowl or 2 and see if there was any gold in that old river bed :-)

[@imark7777777]

Don't feel so bad about the tire earlier this year my tires were getting a bit thin so I figured let me just do all four at once..... Two weeks later I had a flat tire. On top of that because I drove a mile they weren't gonna cover it so I had to buy another tire. I'm like I was getting off the highway there wasn't really any place to go in traffic wouldn't really let me off in the worst part I literally stopped two exits before I got off to put air in the tire and it was round and not flat.

[@professionalyoutuber3291]

Sounds like this would be a perfect time to use a ringbit with steel casing. Easy enough

[@toddavis8603]

Tricone diamond head bit---?Ten gallons per minute sounds great!

[@bryancherry9253]

takes a lot of air to move those sized rocks. Hard on equipment. Especially when the differential between the casing and drill string is so small. Do you typically do casing-following drilling? Do you ever do dual-tube reverse?

[@michaelladue5655]

I wonder if an old school spudding machine would have have been a better but slower machine for the job but I am commenting and just now getting to the part of the video and realizing you use plastic casing.

[@hemibreath]

Can’t beat a drive shoe and steel casing Plastic junk ! 😮

[@jamest.5001]

Just drop a 1/2" wall 5.5" pipe 4' long, filled with smokeless powder. , compressed until it's hard as concrete. Install multiple electric matches. Drop it below the casing drop it in set it off, open up a crevice down there!😮

[@RonaldWood-ep7vg]

I learned a lot , thanks & good job !

[@westonman1179]

As usual, I learned a lot thank you

[@BWIL2515]

I've always been curious about the pressure build up and how do you alleviate that have anyone ever use a pressure switch we have them on ray pacs hot water systems so we can monitor the pressure

[@SpaceSailor-tu3vl]

Glad I found your channel I’m going to need a well drilled in the future, you give a exceptional good explanation how and what you encounter given one a good understanding about what is need and some challenges you encounter . This will help when talking to a drilling contractor to see if they are open and experienced . Is there a video on how you go about where you drill or are you given the location by a the owner or another identity ie geo tech firm. Great job to all involved.

[@richardcobb2852]

Great video and educational as well. 👍

[@mrgoodtimes05]

I experienced a wave of air ripple underneath my feet. To be lifted 6 to 8" was very scary.