DIY Video : How to dig your own shallow water well for the garden
This project goes over the instructions on how you can dig your own shallow hand pump water well using simple tools and save a lot of money.
Before digging the water well, you need to know the ground. You got to have the right soil for this system to work. If your soil type is silt, clay, sand or loam, then its ideal .In our case, we have the first 10 or 12 feet of fine glacial silt and below that there is glacial deposits of river gravel.
The first step is to dig a hole for the well casing. The tools you need to dig the hole are six inch post hole auger , three quarter inch extension pipe with coupling at the end and couple of wrenches.
Once you have spotted the area where you want to dig the well, you start by applying downward pressure on the auger by twisting it. It screws itself into the earth filling its basket with material. When it’s full, you pick it up and dump it aside or in a wheel barrel. Sharpening the auger can help it cut through tree roots but it will not stay sharp long. It is important to do your best to keep the hole centered.
Once the bottom is reached, we pull out the auger and remove the basket from the handle and insert one of the extension using the pipe wrench.
The next part is getting the casing down the hole. For the casing we are using a cheap and readily available six inch PVC sewer pipe. We use a rasp to smoothen the end of the pipe so that it fits a cap . A round piece of PVC flat stock is bolted and glued on top of the cap using a PVC glue. This becomes the mounting base for the pitcher pump.
To get started with driving the well point, we need a long piece of 10 foot pipe and a sandpoint, a couple of drive couplings. The drive couplings are steel rather than cast which makes them stronger. But most importantly, they have that small diameter so that they can slip down inside, making them not much larger than the diameter of the sand point itself.
The sandpoint is made of perforated stainless steel and a cast iron point at the bottom.
We connect the sandpoint and 10 foot pipes using the couplers and some Teflon tape. Now you don’t want to hammer on your drive point or any of your fittings without them being quite tight because you need those extra threads to spread the load. We drive the whole thing with a homemade post hole pounder which is a gooseneck trailer hitch ball welded into a piece of pipe.
We insert the sandpoint with the extension into the well casing and start drilling by hand.
We are gonna find out how far down that water is by dropping a string with a bolt tied to it to the very bottom.
We finally attach a black ABS suction by sliding it down into our pipe .Then we cover the pipe with our PVC casing . And once the casing has been firmly tamped down, we will pack around the casing and tap that into place.
The final step is to install the pitcher pump and prime it by add some water. The top cap is installed on the casing opening and the pump is bolted to the top of the cap. Priming the pump simply entails pouring a little water in that top basin.
- How to build an DIY 12 V Portable Water Pump Box with filtration system for Outdoor Survival / RV
This project goes into the build of an offgrid portable water pump and filtration system that can turn any water from your creek,lake,river into safe and clean drinking water . This 12V portable system can be powered by solar or from your car directly and is ideal for camping , RV or outdoor survival enthusiasts. This system enables them to pump water from a fresh water source, filter and then store or use in case of emergency survival situation.
The materials you need to build this portable filtration system are as follows. A tactix storage box to lodge the water pump,inlet and outlet hoses, an inline water filter or twin carbon 0.5micron filter, pex pipe, garden hose pipes, 12mill barb strainer,rocker switch ,12V Shurflo water pump with the flow rate of 11 litres per minute, 50 amp Anderson plug and 10m heavy duty wire ,basic tools such as wire cutters, long nose pliers, solder.
The first step is completing the wiring for the water pump inside the tactix tool box. The rocker switch , the Anderson plug and a 7.5 Amp inline fuse are wired. The 12V rocker toggle switch is mounted at the center of the box lid.
The power input plug or the Anderson plug is mounted to the left of the switch. This input plug connects to the car battery or a solar battery. The positive red wires from the switch is connected to the Anderson plug through an inline fuse .The negative black wire from the plug goes straight to the switch. The remaining wires from the switch is then connected to the water pump which will be installed later. The wires are covered with corrugated split tubing to ensure that it is protected and safe.
The filter strainer is installed on the inlet side of the pump using an elbow, thread tapes. The strainer will filter out any unwanted debris before it goes to the pump.
Couple of holes are drilled into to the side of the box where the inlet and the outlet hoses will connect the water pump. The male fitting are attached to the holes before the pump is installed.
The pump is placed inside the box and mounted securely in such a way that the elbows are facing towards the two holes for the exterior hoses that was just made at the side of the box. Once the pump is mounted ,we connect the red and black wires coming from the switch to the positive and negative connections of the pump. The wires are once again covered with corrugated split tubing for safety.
To connect the pump with the hose outlets , we measure the distance between the outlets and the pump and connect two pex pipes . Heat was applied to the pipe for bending and moulding them to connect the outlets.
The 10 metre 50 Amp Anderson plug extension heavy duty cable wire is connected to the power source .Here the power draw is from a car battery. The other end is connected the input anderson plug on the top side of the box.
The inlet hose with the strainer attached is placed sitting midway
into the water source .The other end of the hose is connected to the intake pipe coming from the pump inside the box. The
The other hose is connected to the outlet pipe coming from the water pump inside the box. At the end of the hose , we connect an inline water filter or a twin carbon filter . The carbon filter ensures that there is no sediments or debris inside the water and also helps to eliminate bacteria and other contaminants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiTn8YacWo
- How to build a Homemade Chainsaw Mill from Scratch. Step by step Build Instructions
This project goes over the build of a simple and basic DIY chainsaw mill from start to finish. This chainsaw mill is portable and doesn't require very large space . This is a very inexpensive way of producing lumber from logs and can be made from easily available materials from your local hardware store.
The materials you need to build this chainsaw mill are one by one square tubing, half inch square tubing, quarter inch flat bar, weld nuts, bandsaw and welding unit. The welder used here is Millermatic 212 auto set mig welder and the saw is Homelite 1130g
The dimensions of the saw are as follows. A 12 inch deck to slide across the log that acts as a milling surface. The max width of the mill is 26 inch. An 8 inch metal to grab the bandsaw on both the sides. A quarter inch flat stocks for the holding the saw.
We start by cutting 26 inch pieces for the sides and 12 inch pieces for the sides. Assemble them into a rectangle and weld it using a MiG welder. Do Check if the corners to make sure it is square and the sides are even.
A center bar welded into the rectangular guide plate, just to give it a little bit more support and make it so that it doesn't twist.
Two guide posts are welded onto the sides. 2 larger pipe sections of dimension one by one is cut .This will slide within the guide posts. This is done so as to make the saw adjustable to how thick it cuts a slab .The side posts also gives you adjustability on the deck to move up and down.
4 quarter inch flat bars of length nine inches are cut . Two of them are bolted onto bottom section of the rails that slides up and down on the guide posts . The saw blade is placed securely between these bars. A small spacer block is welded onto the bars so that it doesn't touch the saw blade. Three eighth inch weld nuts are welded onto the side posts . Tightening with the bolts locks the adjustable rails in place.
A crossbar is welded onto the guide posts .These help push the bar along when you are operating the mill and it is a nice place to put your hand , It feels like you are farther away from the chain.
The chain saw blade is inserted between the flat brackets at the bottom and it is locked tight in place between the spacers using 3/8th inch bolts.
For the first cut, we attach a flat plate at the top of the log so that the bar has something to ride. The height of the cut is adjusted with the help of the side rails on the mill . The saw is then started and placed on top of the flat plate to begin cutting the log.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA-HknSaBvI - How to build your own DIY off grid / grid down Solar Power Back up system from scratch
This project goes over the build of a Solar Power Grid Down Backup System to generate your own alternative power.A great way to utilize renewable energy as a backup source of power.
Whatever may be the reason , may be to offset electricity bills or for self reliance to provide when the grid goes down, a solar backup system is simply a great way to provide alternative power to maintain a lifestyle of reasonable convenience.
If the grid should go down, I can have a freezer, power lighting, pump water, maintain communications, use tools, and charge every little device I have from flashlights to kindles.
This Off grid Solar Power System is composed of 5 components. Solar panels to generate the power, a charge controller to charge the batteries, the batteries to store the energy, the inverter to provide AC to the household items you wish to power.
Also you need a Kilowatt meter. The kilowatt meter measures two things you have to know how much energy your devices draw at any given moment, and how much power they consume over time.
Here we use 100 watt monocrystalline panels, a 40 amp MPPT charge controller, a 1000 watt pure sine wave inverter and to store the energy, 446 volt golf cart batteries totaling 470 amp hours.
First you need to size your system by figuring out how many devices you are going to want to run at the same time. This will determine the size of your inverter, the inverters function is to take DC power from the batteries and converted to AC power for use with household appliances. If I have 1000 watt inverter, this means I can run up to 1000 watts worth of devices at the same time.
Once you have evaluated every device that you feel that you are going to need, should the grid go down, you are gonna have a good idea of how much power you need to generate each day.
The battery bank consists of four, six volt, Duracell SLIGC 125, golf cart batteries connected in series. Golf cart batteries are designed to deliver a lower amount of power over a longer period of time and then recharge quickly.
When picking a spot to locate your panels, you have to consider that the sun will be lower towards the horizon in the winter, and closer to directly overhead in the summer. Building a system that actually tracks the sun would be best as the panels are always pointed directly at the sun.
Also mount your panels as close as possible to the batteries. This is because the longer your wire run, the more energy is wasted due to resistance. You also need to select the proper gauge wire to transmit the power from the solar panels to the batteries.
Between the panels and the batteries is the charge controller ,it controls the charge of the batteries and make sure that the batteries get the proper voltage that they need and that they don't get overcharged.
Here we use an MPPT Solar Charge controller. If your solar panels are wired in series and connected to an MPPT charge controller, the voltage adds up ,thus giving us enough voltage to charge the batteries. An MPPT charge controller can charge your batteries nearly the entire time The sun is out. If your panels are far away and you want to save money and wiring, then the MPPT charge controller is way more efficient than PWM.
The first step in making your solar system safe is making sure that there's an automatic and a manual way to disconnect power in each segment of the system. Starting right here at the battery box we have a 300 amp manual switch to kill the power from the batteries to the inverter as well as a 200 amp fuse that will blow automatically.
Another component to the safety is the grounding. Grounding your system is quite easy to do. So get an eight foot grounding rod and drive it into the ground. Then pick up some copper grounding wire, some lugs and connect the frames have all the panels in any metal components in the system including the charge controller and the inverter.
