My experience of digging a water well on my own

Good day everyone, I had a need to have a well in my garden and I decided to dig it myself, yes a solo well digging project...

Got basic tools like crow-bar, Indian spade, and buckets. Let it roll...

Day 1: 6th August 2017

I really don't know how to start and how wide the well should be, I just selected a corner of my garden and started to dig 2 foot wide and ended up digging 2 foot deep in 1hour.

Day 2: 8th August 2017, 5:30 PM

Came early from office and decided to work for few hours. Changed to farm clothes and started digging.
Found that 2 ft wide is not good enough to freely move around the pit, so I made it 2.5ft wide and it was ok to move around for digging. Today I ended up adding 1ft deep.

Summary: 2.5ft wide x 3ft deep 

Duration: 90min

Day 3: 11th August 2017

It was a cloudy evening when I came to the garden. When I started digging, it started raining, it was a steady rain for about 2  hours. Made the well a bit wider, and now it is 3ft wide. Dug for about 90min. Till now I came out of the pit for every bucket of soil and thrown dropped it at the boundary walls of the garden just to retain the rainwater inside the garden. Ended 1ft deep today.

Summary: 3ft wide x 4ft deep
Duration: 90min

Day 4: 13th August 2017 5:07 AM

Today I reached garden early morning, 5 am and got ready for digging. It was quite dark, got into the pit and started digging. after digging for about 4 inches deep, found the soil is changing. It was from red soil to rocky soil, the color was also changing from red to brown. It was not hard but was not soft as soil. The first milestone at about 4 1/2 ft.

Now the challenge is where to dump this rocky soil, it's definitely not good to have in in the garden as will not be good for plant growth. 

Summary: 2.8 ft wide x 5 ft deep
Duration: 90min

Day 5: 15th August 2017 4:30 PM

It was a cloudy evening and even had a heavy thunderstorm. First I cleared the rocky soil which was accumulated The moment I got into the pit, it started battering and thunder was heavy - Something was running in my mind "I am holding Crowbar which is an Iron rod and I am on earth, will the thunder strike me?".

There was mud inside the pit which the rainwater flow brought from the surface. Started to clear that and found there was a baby snake inside. First I thought it was an earthworm, but as it was moving fast I got an alert. I stood on top of the basket (which I use to take the soil outside) and searching for it. The baby snake was trying to hide itself in all possible ways, it was dark in color. I took the whole mud and make it into the bucket to carry outside. 

After coming out dropped the soil and the baby snake escaped quickly into the bush outside.

It is going to be tougher going deep and if something bigger than this is found. I decided that I should not get inside when it is dark, also need to check if something in there before digging.

The deeper, the more rocks were there, but it was not hard rocks, I could dig easily. But the problem was to take the mud out to the top. I went more up to 6 feet now, it was above my head now. I decided to stop and took the crowbar and Manvetti outside.

When I was trying to jump outside, found that I could not do that anymore as the pit is deeper than my height. Tried a couple of times and failed. Then made grip-holes in the sides of the well and came out. Next time I need to have a rope to get in and come out. 

Rope climbing is going to be a new sport;)

Summary: 2.8 ft wide X 6 ft deep

Duration: 100 min

Day 6: 20th August 2017 6:15 AM

Today I got a volunteer to help me out in digging. He gave an idea to make the digging simple, that is - to dig half for about half feet deep and then cut the other half by stepping down. By this way, we can cake out more instead or digging the full circle every inch. 

But every inch deep is getting difficult, because or more rocks and less aeration. Today my volunteer helped me to take the earth out as I was inside the pit. But the next time I should plan to manage to take out the soil by myself. Comming out for every bucket of soil is going to be hectic. I haven't discovered any other way till now.



One other friend suggested me that digging a well less than 3 ft wide is risky going deeper, and today I feel the same. So, I think I should make it atleast 3 ft and 3 inches wide.

Summary: 2.8ft wide X 6.8ft deep

Duration: 60 min


Digging continues...