Water well drilling report in Surin near Rattanaburi

29POSTS

6 years ago

I married a Thai woman from Baan Khok Kong, Nong Bua Ban, Rattanaburi District, Surin in the summer of 2019 in the USA. We will be living 6 months a year in the USA, and perhaps 3-4 months a year in Thailand.

We have begun building a house on her land, and the first thing we did was have a well drilled in November 2019. I'm sharing our experience in case it helps others. I had difficulty finding good information about well drilling.

First, here is what I discovered about the hydrology of Surin. Surin is a big flat sedimentary plain well-suited to growing one crop of rice a year. As there is little irrigation water available, no commercial crops are grown in the hot dry season from December to June. The soil is red clay. Salinity buildup in the soil due to fertilizer is a problem, compounded by the presence of rock salt layers in the soil.

Underlying the clay deep down are layer(s) of gravel, starting at 30-35 meters deep or so. Before the upper clay sediment was deposited, field termites removed the sand grains from the gravel while working, leaving a porous layer. This is where you will find water.

We hired a local well driller who says he is 'the best in Surin'. He quoted 22,000 THB to drill a well up to 50 meters deep, including the upper casing, but not the pump or pipes.

He promptly drove up in a mid-size pickup with rustic drilling rig mounted in back. A small pool was dug nearby, and filled with water from a neighbor. The drilling tower was tipped up, and a carbide-tipped drill of about 20cm diameter was mounted. Drilling commenced by hand-crank starting the small diesel engine. A powerful stream of water forced through the drilling pipe flushed out the drilled dirt into the pond, where it settled. The pond served as a recirculating water supply.

3 meter pipe sections were added periodically. After going down about 12 meters, a 20cm PVC pipe was forced down the hole as a sleeve. Then a 10mm bit was inserted into the casing, and drilling continued. The hole from here on down was not cased. I hope this is sufficient casing to keep out surface water!

Around 35m deep, lots of small gravel began appearing in the upwelling water. The drillers stopped for the evening. Drilling continued the next morning to 40-45 meters. The well driller recommended not going any further, as in his experience, there was danger of hitting very salty water. So we stopped drilling, and the following day purchased a submersible pump at an agricultural supply store in nearby Rattanaburi. An American-made pump (Schaefer Legend by Ferguson) was recommended as more durable than the less expensive Chinese versions. In our case, at 40 meters deep, we were told that a 1 HP model was appropriate. The pump, pipe and supplies cost 16,000 THB. It includes a control box up in the pump house, where the starter capacitor is housed, so you can replace it without pulling the pump.

The well driller installed the pump at no extra charge, and started it up. It appears so far that our well can yield 5-6 liters per minute if pumping steadily, at least in the dry season. It could be more, we're still testing. Pump faster, and you can draw it down below the pump. As our 1 HP pump will pump 100 liters per minute, it would seem that a smaller pump would have been quite adequate. Oh, well. A smaller pump would use less electricity, but it's too late now. We're not a farm, and will just have 3 bedrooms and a small garden. This pump draws about 7 amps.

We will pump water up into a 1,050 liter tank at ground level, and then using a small automatic constant pressure pump to supply the house from the tank. We are storing grey water separately for irrigation, so one or two tankfuls a day should be plenty. We'll build a small pump house around the tank and house pump.

As they used detergent to clean out the well post-drilling, I have not tasted the water, so I have no idea if it is brackish (salty) yet. I probably will have a sample tested. I doubt that we'll use it as drinking water.

All in all, I'm glad to have a reliable independent source of water in Surin, and found the well driller competent and cost-effective. Is it cost-effective overall vs. buying water from the village? I don't know yet. I'll be happy to answer inquiries.

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melmalinowski Active member

29POSTS

6 years ago

I have found a solution for the control of my submersible pump. In short, the problem is that the 1 hp pump draws the water level in the well down in about 4 minutes, after pumping about 400 liters up to our 1000 liter tank.

Though we have a float valve to shut the pump off when the tank is full, something is required to prevent the pump from continuing to run dry indefinitely if the tank is not full. The well seems to recover in about an hour.

I ordered a Hunter X-Core XC2 irrigation controller from Lazada. In about a week it arrived. I also ordered a 24 volt coil Omron relay, and a 220 volt coil power control Omron relay that can control 10 amps 220v.

The Hunter controller has a very useful feature that allows you to set multiple start times, and
'cycle' and 'soak' intervals. (Whole programming is easy but complex. Write me if you need it)

The controller now turns on station 1 for 4 minutes once an hour. This turns on the 24v relay, which turns on the 220v relay. Then, if the tank is not full, the pump runs either for a full 4 minutes, or until the float valve turns the pump off at tank full time.

Sounds kind of kludgy, but it works smoothly. The Hunter controller retains its program memory and clock time during power outages and resumes when the power comes back on.

This meets our needs, as we are residential, not a farm, and 400 liters per hour is more than adequate. By having our own well, we are assured of a steady water supply even in a drought or storm situation.

When I have time, I will calculate how much our water cost is compared with the village supply.

My next task is to find out how to get our well water tested. Any suggestions?

melmalinowski Active member

29POSTS

6 years ago

Our 40 meter deep well is working reliably now. The electricity cost is about 1 THB per 1,000 liters. The cost of village water is 15 THB per 1,000 liters.

I have yet to find a practical local way to test the water for salinity and health. For now, we don't drink the well water. We plumbed the house with a separate drain system and tank for grey water, and use that for irrigation. That also minimizes our cesspool tank filling, so 2000 liters capacity is good for several months.

1 member reacted to this post

celliselectrical New member

6POSTS

3 years ago

Hi did you manage to get your water tested, I’ve tried everywhere for a kit, Farm suppliers, Water authority, HomePro no joy, would of thought Chemists would stock them, due to health reasons, but hey ho what can you really expect we are in Thailand, beautiful country but the folk out hear are so god damned thick, might try Lazada

Cheryl Moderator

16313POSTS

3 years ago

Hello celliselectrical,

Let's hope you can get some positive feedback here even if the thread has not been active for the past 3 years.

Cheers,

Cheryl

Expat.com team

Leeds forever! ViP

1610POSTS

3 years ago

Hello celliselectrical,
Let's hope you can get some positive feedback here even if the thread has not been active for the past 3 years.

Cheers,

Cheryl
Expat.com team
-@Cheryl

On top of that, the category is Isaan/Accommodation. Why would anyone read about water wells there? Isn't there a better category?

melmalinowski Active member

29POSTS

3 years ago

@Cheryl

I could update our well experience, but the comment about this being in the wrong category is valid.

If you can fix that, I'll update.

Cheryl Moderator

16313POSTS

3 years ago

Hello everyone,

I have updated the category to Everyday Life.

This new category is more in line with the topic.

Cheers,

Cheryl

js9911 Member

1POSTS

2 years ago

#10

Hi I am in the early stages of building a resort in buriram. At present we are building up the land and building a wall all around to prevent land loss/slide/errosion.

To build the wall i will need water and later for the resort(14-20 units). I am completely new to this way of life, but i was thinking of getting someone to drill the well and then pump the water into a raised water tank, feeding the units via gravity.

My question is 1 Is this theory flawed in any way? 2 What size tank or how many tanks, would I require to service 20 units? 3 Is there a way of knowing water reserves when the well is dug. I will know more when we have spoken to the well diggers, but good to have other inputs?

cliffsao Member

13POSTS

2 years ago

#11

Hi ,JS9911,

It all depends on approx where in Buriram, having your own well would work out a lot cheaper than what the government, supplies for the cost of about 18 Bhat /1000Litre and depending upon where and depth it is drilled a lot healthier, also depending on what you are going to use it for,

some areas have a lot of mineral deposits, some places have been contaminated unknowingly by the farmers with a multitude of chemicals used on their crops;

We had a well, drilled using a 120 mm bore and hit 2 separate layers of 1 at approx 30 Meters down being about 500mm thick and the other layer about 900mm further, was about 700 mm, struck the water soon after that about 32 meters deep, then carried on drilling to a total depth of about 42 Meters, so we where well down in the water table, fitted top head pressure pump, 2 x 25mm pipes, after approx 30mins the water was as clear as bottled mineral water, I even tasted a mouthful and it was ok, we live not far from Prakhon Chai, Buriram, have just fitted 3 x 20inch water filters, Carbon, Resin & Green sand water is great, soft I think its fine for drinking, but wife won't let me, IF SHE's ABOUT, regarding volume you would need at least 2 x 10,000 Litre Resin Tanks so don;t forget your structure will need to carry near Twenty Ton's

Regards

Cliff

ps:- hope this helps in someway

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bamboozle428 Member

1POSTS

3 months ago

#12

@melmalinowski

Hi, I'm interested in hearing if you got the water tested? Do you use it for the house? Have you had any problems with limescale. I am in a similar position to you. I am married to a Thai lady and we have a 15 year old son. I built them a house back in 2017/18. We had a bore hole drilled by a ramshackle drilling rig, as recommended by my wife's sister. I'm not sure how deep he went, he said 30m, but we could only get the submersible pump down 22m.i never thought about it to be honest, being green as grass, but after the first 19 months when I returned, everything in the house was blocked with limescale. I had to dismantle both toilets, and soak everything for the flushing systems in a bucket of vinegar for a couple of days. Then all the taps, showers and jacuzzi system had to have the same. I went to Surin and called in to speak with someone in the Siam water company. He came and tested the water, and said it would need a filter system fitted. We had 2 large chrome cylinders fitted, and another large blue plastic filter. That cured the problem for about 6 months, but then everything started limescaling back up again, and by the time I returned all the toilet systems were to strip down again, and de-scale in vinegar. The filtration system cost around 10,000 baht to fit, and to change all the filters etc., costs around 8000 baht. I'm not too concerned about what it has cost up till now, as it's been my own fault. But it's getting a bit silly if it carries on. I called into Siam Water yesterday and asked him if he knew of a company who could drill a bore hole to any depth, and if they were there to test the water until we hit neutral. He said that it would be the storage tank that would need cleaning out and he knew someone who could do that. I walked out. The water is pumped out the bore hole goes through the filtration system and then into the storage tank. The water has too much alkaline, that's the problem. I can clean the tank out myself, but it doesn't stop the limescale building up again! My house is beautiful, and I have a beautiful chrome rain shower fitted in the large bathroom, and you can't keep the chrome taps and pipework and glass clean for limescale stains. We live near Sikhoraphum and I would be grateful if you could give me the contact of the man you used to drill the bore hole?

Regards Barry.