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Access to ground water (the aquifer) with a shallow tube well, but without investment in tools. The lining can act as filter.

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Shallow tube well
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Why To make a tube well is often easier and cheaper than to make a hand dug well if cost for tooling and expertise is not in the way. A tube well is easy to seal of from contamination from the top. When the water table sinks, it should be possible to push the tube well pipe deeper in the aquifer. Tube wells can for many reasons be preferred over hand dug wells, if not the cost for the necessary tooling stood in the way. A method to make a tube well with local means only, by the future user aided by the carpenter and the blacksmith could solve this problem. If only cheap and easily available materials would be needed, such a system would fulfill an urgent need of millions of people. Such tube wells may also solve a problem of reinforcing hand dug wells against caving in when finally digging below the ground water table. When a tube well is made from this level deeper into the aquifer. the problem of caving in is solved at a fraction of the cost. A hand dug has the advantage over a tube well that water can be collected with a rope and bucket. This assures availability of water, there is no need for a pump that may break down. A negative factor is that dirt from the rope and bucket as well from what falls into the well will endanger the safety of water for drinking. The application of this method of getting access to water should thus go together with the use of a cheap enough, reliable and quick and easy to repair hand pump. How The local carpenter can make battens of a special and precisely identical shape from sticks. Such battens can be tied together with plastic rope into a short tube. These tube elements can be interconnected into a tube. This interconnection is made strong and watertight by grouping the ends of the battens in the tube alternating a short equal length in and out. The ends of the tube well elements that face each other, can slide into each other. This strong wooden tube can be driven into soft soil. While the soil is removed from the inside, the tube can be hammered further down with a heavy wooden ring. This is even easier when the tube is driven into the water-carrying layer. In case the soil is soft and not stony, to use the tube well is cheap and easy compared to continuing hand digging in the water. In most cases concrete rings have to be lowered into the hand dug well to prevent caving in. The use of the RopePump makes it safe to utilize a tube well for communal water supply, as this water pump can quickly and easily be repaired without special tools.

Planned progress Make better planes and better guides as to produce the battens more easily. Compare cost and functionality between this method and using the usual applied system of making tube wells.

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External Links Links related to different types of tube well drilling Practical Information on Ground Water Development from British Columbia Wash Boring Small diameter wells in fine-grained materials such as silt or fine sand may be put down by washing. In this technique water or drilling mud is pumped down through a small diameter pipe equipped with a simple cutting tool at the lower end. ... Rotary Drilling Rotary drilling is being more commonly used for construction of water wells in British Columbia. In this method, drill pipe equipped with a cutter called a bit is turned in the hole. During drilling a fluid is pumped down the drill pipe and through the bit in order to transport the cuttings back to surface. This fluid may be air or water (mud), both useful in specific circumstances. Churn (Cable-Tool) Drilling This is the most widely used method for drilling water wells in British Columbia. It can be used to get through virtually any material, although progress under difficult conditions may be quite slow. The minimum hole size is usually considered to be six inches; holes over three feet in diameter have occasionally been drilled. Drilling is accomplished by raising and dropping a heavy "tool string" equipped with a bit. The tools are suspended by a wire rope. http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wat/gws/gwdocs/prac_info/GROUND7.html Drilling done with a drill driven by pressured air and mud pumped out by the rising air bubbles from the air-motor: http://howtodrillawell.com/product_info.php?cPath=3&products_id=40 Send us an email form about any relevant link, that should be added here

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