mud pump for 100 feet dug wells factory

When choosing a size and type of mud pump for your drilling project, there are several factors to consider. These would include not only cost and size of pump that best fits your drilling rig, but also the diameter, depth and hole conditions you are drilling through. I know that this sounds like a lot to consider, but if you are set up the right way before the job starts, you will thank me later.

Recommended practice is to maintain a minimum of 100 to 150 feet per minute of uphole velocity for drill cuttings. Larger diameter wells for irrigation, agriculture or municipalities may violate this rule, because it may not be economically feasible to pump this much mud for the job. Uphole velocity is determined by the flow rate of the mud system, diameter of the borehole and the diameter of the drill pipe. There are many tools, including handbooks, rule of thumb, slide rule calculators and now apps on your handheld device, to calculate velocity. It is always good to remember the time it takes to get the cuttings off the bottom of the well. If you are drilling at 200 feet, then a 100-foot-per-minute velocity means that it would take two minutes to get the cuttings out of the hole. This is always a good reminder of what you are drilling through and how long ago it was that you drilled it. Ground conditions and rock formations are ever changing as you go deeper. Wouldn’t it be nice if they all remained the same?

Centrifugal-style mud pumps are very popular in our industry due to their size and weight, as well as flow rate capacity for an affordable price. There are many models and brands out there, and most of them are very good value. How does a centrifugal mud pump work? The rotation of the impeller accelerates the fluid into the volute or diffuser chamber. The added energy from the acceleration increases the velocity and pressure of the fluid. These pumps are known to be very inefficient. This means that it takes more energy to increase the flow and pressure of the fluid when compared to a piston-style pump. However, you have a significant advantage in flow rates from a centrifugal pump versus a piston pump. If you are drilling deeper wells with heavier cuttings, you will be forced at some point to use a piston-style mud pump. They have much higher efficiencies in transferring the input energy into flow and pressure, therefore resulting in much higher pressure capabilities.

Piston-style mud pumps utilize a piston or plunger that travels back and forth in a chamber known as a cylinder. These pumps are also called “positive displacement” pumps because they literally push the fluid forward. This fluid builds up pressure and forces a spring-loaded valve to open and allow the fluid to escape into the discharge piping of the pump and then down the borehole. Since the expansion process is much smaller (almost insignificant) compared to a centrifugal pump, there is much lower energy loss. Plunger-style pumps can develop upwards of 15,000 psi for well treatments and hydraulic fracturing. Centrifugal pumps, in comparison, usually operate below 300 psi. If you are comparing most drilling pumps, centrifugal pumps operate from 60 to 125 psi and piston pumps operate around 150 to 300 psi. There are many exceptions and special applications for drilling, but these numbers should cover 80 percent of all equipment operating out there.

The restriction of putting a piston-style mud pump onto drilling rigs has always been the physical size and weight to provide adequate flow and pressure to your drilling fluid. Because of this, the industry needed a new solution to this age-old issue.

Enter Cory Miller of Centerline Manufacturing, who I recently recommended for recognition by the National Ground Water Association (NGWA) for significant contributions to the industry.

As the senior design engineer for Ingersoll-Rand’s Deephole Drilling Business Unit, I had the distinct pleasure of working with him and incorporating his Centerline Mud Pump into our drilling rig platforms.

In the late ’90s — and perhaps even earlier —  Ingersoll-Rand had tried several times to develop a hydraulic-driven mud pump that would last an acceptable life- and duty-cycle for a well drilling contractor. With all of our resources and design wisdom, we were unable to solve this problem. Not only did Miller provide a solution, thus saving the size and weight of a typical gear-driven mud pump, he also provided a new offering — a mono-cylinder mud pump. This double-acting piston pump provided as much mud flow and pressure as a standard 5 X 6 duplex pump with incredible size and weight savings.

The true innovation was providing the well driller a solution for their mud pump requirements that was the right size and weight to integrate into both existing and new drilling rigs. Regardless of drill rig manufacturer and hydraulic system design, Centerline has provided a mud pump integration on hundreds of customer’s drilling rigs. Both mono-cylinder and duplex-cylinder pumps can fit nicely on the deck, across the frame or even be configured for under-deck mounting. This would not be possible with conventional mud pump designs.

The second generation design for the Centerline Mud Pump is expected later this year, and I believe it will be a true game changer for this industry. It also will open up the application to many other industries that require a heavier-duty cycle for a piston pump application.

The average water well in the foothills surrounding the Santa Clara Valley is a 10-inch bore with 5-inch PVC casing to a depth of 300 feet that will yield 10 to 20 Gallons Per Minute (GPM). The casing is a 5-inch diameter PVC-F480, SDR21 well casing, the “screened” casings are factory perforated with a .032” slot size. We typically install 20 feet of screen per 100 feet of cased well, with a cap on the bottom of the well. A gravel pack is deposited into the annular space between the earth and the casing, from the bottom of the borehole to within fifty-five feet of the surface. A sanitary surface seal consisting of bentonite grout or sand-slurry cement is then pressure pumped from the top of the gravel pack to the surface of the well (as per County requirements, the depth of the seal will vary in different geologic zones).

A common misconception is that bigger is better when determining the size of the well casing. Customers are often led to believe that a larger diameter casing will mean that their well will yield more water. Consider this, a 5-inch water well may produce up to 90 GPM if Mother Nature can supply the water. Therefore, a larger diameter casing will not supply more water, just more storage. Additional well screens and sand pack is not typically necessary but is recommended for certain locations and circumstances.

Our water wells are constructed according to the California Well Standards and the specifications set forth by the customer, Guardino Well Drilling and the local governing agency. All wells are chlorinated after completion of drilling in order to disinfect the casing and gravel pack. When your well is complete it will be ready for pump installation. All the necessary information concerning your well will be contained on the Water Well Completion Report to be issued upon receipt of payment.

It is the customer responsibility to check for easements and underground pipelines. We usually recommend that the well is placed at least ten feet from the customer’s property line to provide for future access. The exact location of the water well will be chosen by the customer. Guardino Well Drilling will offer suggestions as to where to place the well based on the topography of the land, neighboring wells, and known geologic conditions in the area. If requested Guardino Well Drilling will provide the customer with the names of local geologists who may be of assistance in locating a site for the water well.

We require a minimum 20’ x 40’ semi-level pad for our drilling equipment. The site must also be free from overhead trees and limbs and accessible for drill equipment, piping and maintenance. The road entering the site must be at least nine feet wide and have a clearance of fourteen feet for our equipment to enter the property, bridges entering the site will also be checked for weight capacities. We often tell customers that if a cement truck can get into the site, then so can we. You may also want to consider that the well will eventually require electricity and piping and will need to be accessible for servicing in the future.

Logging is the record of the geology encountered while drilling the water well. Logs are also used by Geologist and Engineers in the design phase of the well. Logging is generally taken in two forms; 1) A Drillers Log written by the driller 2) E-log which is performed after the borehole has been drilled.

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Whether it’s home to animals or humans, every habitat must contain a source of drinking water. And because most homes in most places are not sited on the bank of a stream or lake, it has been a practice since biblical times to obtain the water needed by creating an access to aquifers concealed below the earth’s surface. Before the industrial era made pumps and pipes common hardware items, wells were created by simply digging a narrow hole down to the water table, then drawing the water that seeped into its bottom upward in a bucket attached to a rope.

An improved version of the open seepage well is the driven well. In its simplest form, this method of bringing safe groundwater to the surface uses a pointed, rocket-shaped “well point” to drive downward through soil until it reaches the water table. The well point is hollow, with slotted holes along its barrel to allow water to flow into it. Inside, these holes are covered with a heavy-mesh screen to keep out coarse sand and gravel.

The first step is to determine the best place to sink your well — where the largest deposit of water lies, and where it is nearest to the surface. The most time-honored method for accomplishing that is through “divination.” This unexplained yet sometimes effective means of locating subterranean water was once practiced by well-diggers using a green willow “twitch.” Water “witchers” would walk a selected area holding their twitches — which weren’t necessarily made from willow — parallel to the earth; when the twitch began to vibrate or dip toward the earth of its own accord, there was water present underfoot.

Today’s witchers tend to use a pair of L-shaped steel wires with equal-length sides about six inches long. To eliminate any chance of being influenced by the user, one side of each wire is placed inside a plastic PVC (water pipe) tube, and the tubes are held vertical so that the free end of each wire is parallel to the ground. With tubes held at an even height with about four inches between them, the witcher walks his chosen area until the wires swivel toward one another and form an X.

There are several methods of getting a well point down to the water table, but the one most used by people in remote places today is the driving method, in which the point is driven downward like a nail. A pipe cap screwed snugly, but not tightly, onto the threaded end protects it from being damaged or deformed while being pounded from above. It is critical that neither the open end nor the threads below it are harmed while the point is being pounded into the earth.

Begin by digging a pilot hole at least two feet deep using a hand auger or a shovel; the auger will make a pipe-size hole, but the wider shovel hole will require that soil be tamped around the well point to help hold it straight when pounding. A PVC casing placed over the well pipe — but kept above the point so that it doesn’t inhibit water flow — keeps loose dirt from falling in around the well pipe as it is driven downward.

Well hammers can be as simple as a sledgehammer, or more preferably a large wooden mallet for softer soils. When punching through harder earth, some well-drillers prefer a pile-driver weight (a pipe filled with concrete) suspended from a tripod where it is hoisted upward then dropped onto the capped well point. More physically demanding versions include “slam hammers” comprised of a heavy, flat-bottom iron weight with a long steel rod that extends from it and into the well pipe as a guide.

The pipe should move visibly downward with each blow from your hammer. If it stops and refuses to sink further after several blows, you may have hit a large rock. Do not continue hammering to force the pipe further, or you might damage the well point. It’s easier and safer to pull up the well point by gently wobbling the pipe back and forth to widen the hole as you pull upward, then move the operation to another location.

When you reach the water table you will hear a hollow “bong” sound that issues from the pipe with every blow. To test it, remove the cap and drop a long string with a weight tied to its end (chalk line works well) down the well pipe until slack in the string tells you that the weight has reached the bottom of the well point. Draw the string back up, and measure how much of its length has been wetted to determine how deeply the well point has penetrated into the water table. To ensure good suction at the pump, it is important that the entire length of the perforated well point be immersed, and preferably at least two feet beyond that to account for seasonal variations in the water table.

When the drop-string is wetted to a length of at least five feet, it’s time to screw on a pitcher pump (remember to seal the threads, or it may not draw efficiently). Prime the pump to create suction for its vacuum cylinder by pouring a cup of water into the pump’s top, and jack the handle until water spurts from the pump with each downstroke. To be sure the well point is fully immersed in water, remove the pump, replace the cap, and hammer the pipe another two feet. Replace the pump, and jack the handle roughly 100 times to create a hollow filled with clear water around the well point. Alternately, you can use a portable electric water pump to create a water-filled cavity around the well point, and to test for a benchmark flow of five gallons per minute. When only clear water comes from the well spout, remove the pump and thread on a “check valve” between the well pipe below and the pump above; this will help to prevent water in the pipe from draining back down and will reduce the need to prime the pump.

How deep your well needs to be of course depends on how deep the water table is in a particular place. Depending on the type of pump, the depths to which manual pumps can operate is limited by the force of gravity and the length of its drawing stroke. In general, pitcher, jet, or centrifugal hand pumps are effective to a depth of 25 feet; larger stand pumps with draw cylinders will work to a depth of 50 feet.

Finally, check with authorities to be sure that there are no laws prohibiting wells where you live, and that the groundwater is not contaminated by toxic chemicals that have leached into it — this is not uncommon in more developed areas. Even where home wells are permitted, you will probably need to buy a building permit, and maybe have the finished well inspected and approved. Even with the red tape, a driven hand-pumped well is worth the hassle for the peace of mind it brings knowing that you can never run out of drinking water, come what may.

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