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Having your own well on the site is convenient, but drilling and maintenance services cost a lot. Well, at least there are ways to drill and, if necessary, clean the well yourself. One of these devices is a bailer. Usually it is made from a piece of pipe, and a valve is attached to the bottom. Moreover, it is not difficult to make a bailer with your own hands, as well as to use it. The work is long and physically tiring, but there are no other difficulties.
Bailer design
A bailer is a piece of pipe up to 4 meters long. A shoe with a valve is installed at the bottom of it. In large-sized shells, flat valves are placed, cut out of a steel sheet with a rubber seal, strips of leather, sometimes without a seal. In those that are smaller in size and diameter, ball valves are used. These devices are also called mechanical bailers – the work is due to gravity.
Rocks are taken out through a window in the upper part of the body, which are packed there during drilling or cleaning. When drilling viscous rocks – clay or loam, you have to make the window long and narrow – almost the entire length: it is very difficult to drop such a load through a small hole.
The ball valve is easier to make. The diameter of the ball should be approximately half the diameter of the pipe (maybe a little more). A washer is installed in the lower part, the inner diameter of which is smaller than the diameter of the existing ball. At a certain height inside the bailer (three or four ball radii), a limiter is welded – it prevents it from rising too high. If this is not done, most of the soil that has got inside can spill out (poured out). This is due to the too long time it takes for the load to sink and close the hole in the bottom.
At the bottom of the pipe in both versions, sometimes fangs are welded or cut out, or the edge of the pipe is grinded, making it sharp. So the soil or silt breaks better. But due to too high fangs, too little soil gets inside. When using a ball valve, the length of the fangs must be such that the ball does not protrude. The same picture – a small amount of soil collected at a time – can also be observed in bailers with a flat valve. In this case, reduce the depth of the shoe.
Too small an internal hole in a washer installed on the bottom with a ball valve can lead to the same result. The way out is to squander it.
In the upper part of the bailer, a loop or bracket is made, for which it will be possible to fasten the cable or rope. For this rope, the projectile is taken out of the well, and on it it is lowered back.
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How does work
The bailer is used when drilling loose, sedimentary and loose products (pebble, sand, gravel, etc.). It is also used when cleaning wells from silt or sand plugs, to increase the debit. In any case, the principle is the same: the projectile is dropped into the well. Under the influence of the impact force, the valve opens, some amount of soil gets inside. Usually not much. Therefore, they lift it up a little, and drop it again. This is repeated until the entire interior of the pipe is filled.
The full bailer is taken out, turned upside down and the soil is poured out. This is where the hole in the side comes in handy: it is easier to clean through it and you can reach the valve with your hand.
This technology is called shock-rope (it is clear why). Both drilling and cleaning require repeated repetition of this operation. Just to clean the well, it may take several days of work – from two or three to seven or eight, and even more for punching.
The work is hard: if a piece of pipe one meter long is enough to clean the well, then for drilling with the shock-rope method, the bailer is 2-4 meters. Moreover, the heavier the projectile is, the better: the soil is loosened and extracted more efficiently, the well is drilled faster.
To make the job a little easier, they put a tripod, the rope is passed through a system of blocks. Such an installation, even without a drive, makes the work much easier.
Sometimes a homemade bailer is not heavy enough: the impact force is insignificant and the work is slow. In this case, weighting is required. There are several ways to weight:
- Fill the top of the pipe with concrete.
- Attach a load in front of the bailer (as in the photo above). Just teach that the connection must be strong, but mobile.
- When making a bailer with your own hands, use a thick-walled pipe. If you find it with a wall thickness of 1 cm, no other methods of weighting will be needed: the projectile will be heavy.
Do-it-yourself bailer
With a welding machine and some skills in working with iron, a do-it-yourself bailer is done in a few hours.
Do-it-yourself bailer with a ball valve (without turning)
This version of the ball valve is assembled from spare parts that can be bought in stores. For manufacturing, a water pipe with a diameter of 89 mm was used. I also bought a concentric adapter 89 * 57 mm, and a ball from a bearing with a diameter of 60 mm.
The ball fits perfectly inside the adapter and gets stuck there. But it doesn’t fit snugly. To fit everything better, the inner surface of the adapter is sanded – it fits almost perfectly.
The narrow part of the transition is inserted into the pipe and welded. The ball is thrown inward, the stopper is welded. And the final touch is to make a mount for a cable or twine. Everything, the do-it-yourself bailer is ready.
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How to make a bailer yourself at home
If you need to clean the well, but there is no sheet metal and welding for serious work at hand, there is a way out: a bailer with a valve from a plastic bottle.
This option is suitable for cleaning the well, but not for drilling. You need a bolt, the length of which is slightly larger than the diameter of the pipe for the bailer and a nut. Stepping back two or three centimeters from the edge of the pipe, one opposite the other, two holes are drilled. Their diameter is the same as the diameter of the bolt.
The valve is cut out of plastic. It is an ellipse. The smaller diameter of the ellipse is equal to the diameter of the pipe. It must be cut very precisely so that when inserted inside it fits snugly against the walls. The cut-out valve in the middle will be attached to the bolt; for this, four holes are made in the plastic through which the wire is threaded. How it all comes together is shown in the photo below on the left.
Only such a mount, as in the photo above, is very unreliable. After a few hits, your projectile may come off and you will have to decide how to get the bailer out of the hole. The best mounting option is one-piece, without seams and twists. How to do this will become clear if you watch the video. By the way, there is an important thing there – how to make hooks so that, if necessary, you can pull the bailer out of the well.
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Features of use on soils of different types
When drilling sandy soils with a bailer, it is necessary to use casing pipes – without them, the well will fail. When drilling in such soils, it is necessary to ensure that the projectile does not penetrate into the sand without a casing pipe by more than half the length. This can lead to a collapse, the bailer will fall asleep, you will not be able to pull it out.
To make it easier to pass the sand, water is poured into the well, it prevents collapses and facilitates the work. If during operation the sand is rammed and not captured, a chisel is used.
They work with quicksand only by constantly deepening the casing pipes. And only if the aquifer is below the quicksand layer, otherwise the well may be inoperative.
For the passage of quicksand, a bailer is used with a length of at least 2 meters. It should have a flat, well-fitting valve with a leather seal. You need to work with at least two people: when pulling the bailer out of the quicksand, the casing pipe must be turned, lowering it down. The faster the casing is lowered at this point, the faster this layer will be passed. At first, the casing is lowered easily, then it becomes more and more difficult. Sometimes there comes a moment when they completely stop moving. At the same time, almost the entire pipe is filled with sand. In this case, the pipes are lowered under pressure. To do this, a platform is installed on the pipe, on which the load (sandbags) is laid. And it all rolls together. Usually this method is quite effective.
https://youtu.be/0N_KOvdK2xU
When passing pebble and gravel layers, a chisel is used together with the bailer. First, a chisel is lowered into the barrel, crushing the rock, then it is taken out with a bailer. The bailer on such soils rises by only 5-10 cm, the impacts are small and frequent.
For faster passage, a platform is made on the casing pipe, the worker does not get up on it. It is located above the well, gradually raising and lowering the bailer. As the soil is collected, the casing pipe, under the weight of the worker, lowers.
In viscous clay soils, it is possible to work without casing pipes. If the clay is too dense, first a chisel is also used, loosening the soil by about 50-70 cm. Then it is removed with a bailer. A flat valve with a rubber or leather seal is also used.
If the clay is dry and dense, each time the bailer is pulled out, several buckets of water are poured into the well. After the water from the aquifer soybeans appears, it is not necessary to add it from above.
If the rocks are very soft, sometimes the valve is removed. And they drill only with the pipe itself, raising it 2-3 meters above the bottom and dumping it.