2 inch water well casing with some gravel in the bottom couple of feet...

[lenray]

Have this open end 2 inch water well casing down 28 feet and sitting on top of a hard pan. I augered down by hand thru clay until I hit the hard pan. On the way down I picked up some small gravel stones that are lodged in the bottom 2 feet of the casing. Any ideas on how I can remove this gravel???? in Michigan. Have done many of these, but this is a first with this issue. I ran auger down the casing, but it gets lodged in the gravel and the casing...

 

[a49deere]

How about a tow behind air compressor with the hose stuck down well, don't look down when you turn air on! Or maybe a good shop vac with a pool vacuum hose attached.

 

[Russ from MN]

Good suggestions by a49, If you have an air compressor with a large tank you might get that too work too, run a line down as far as you can, and blow it when the tank is full.

 

[olddavid]

If you can't get the gravel out, consider driving a sand point down through the gravel to the hardpan and pump it. My guess is the water is on top of the hard pan.

 

[Texasmark]

If you can't get the gravel out, consider driving a sand point down through the gravel to the hardpan and pump it. My guess is the water is on top of the hard pan.

Gravel has a lot of air space that sand or mud lack. At the bottom of a standpipe in a well, seems to me that gravel can help to insure that you will have a pool of water from which to suck water......at least initially. Static pressure will drive water up the pipe to the ambient pool level. One of our community wells is 2000' deep to get to the Woodbine aqueduct where there is adequate water available. When the well pump is off, static pressure pushes water up the pipe to the 400' mark. The pump is at 500'. The aqueduct we use can supply water to the pipe at a rate that at full pump velocity, the water only drops about 50'.

 

[joeysmith]

Do you have another water source an a trash pump?
Get some 1 inch pipe an run down the casing
Pump as much water as fast as you can down the casing
Enough velocity an volume you can pump the trash out the top of the casing

 

[Ozlander]

I don't understand the problem.
Shallow wells have two to four feet of gravel around the casing to keep dirt out of the water.

 

[Scott 730]

I don't understand the problem.

That makes 2 of us.

 

[a49deere]

I don't understand the problem.
Shallow wells have two to four feet of gravel around the casing to keep dirt out of the water.

I think the problem was the gravel was in the casing!

 

[Russ from MN]

I think he would like to get his suction line/foot valve down close to the bottom, or maybe drill down into the hardpan, and the gravel is preventing that. Hardpan used to be a problem in my area, then rotary drills became popular. The guy that drilled our first well could drill a 6-inch hole 25 feet an hour is solid granite, in 1974.