| When the pros excavate a well they use a drilling rig. But that wasn't an option for Thorpe, so he came up with his own solution. Says Thorpe “I knew you could use water pressure to jet a pipe down into sand, but I needed to find a way to extract the sand from the pipe.” The excavating tool Thorpe devised he dubbed the “Well Rocket” because it resembles an upside-down firework. It comprises a four metre-long electrical conduit, with a quick-release hosepipe fitting on the top and a 80 mm-diameter PVC pipe attached to the bottom. He used a heat gun to melt one end of the PVC pipe into a cone-like shape and then riveted it to the electrical conduit running inside. There's a bolt that passes through the electrical conduit and the outer pipe to give the tool strength. And Thorpe attached a line to the bolt, just in case the hose disconnected while his tool was underground, making it easy to retrieve.
This is how the Well Rocket works: as sand is forced up the hole by the water pressure, the sand rises and collects in the larger diameter pipe. All you need then do is extract the pipe, empty the sand out manually and reinsert, repeating the procedure as often as needed. Thorpe elaborates “You don't need to put force on the conduit as the water digs in to the sand effortlessly.”
Now that’s what I call impressive stuff.
To see how Thorpe built his well check out the April 2010 magazine – on sale on 22 March. |
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