what is the best way to plug a artisian well

I got a old artisian 6"x125' drilled well, with rusted out casing that leaks badly on the outside. a new well was drilled about 10' away but can't be capped to build pressure cause the old one will leak only harder instead.

how can i plug that old well. the old well yielded 60 gal/min with 30 psi pressure when new.

both wells where present when i bought the place.

What do ya think.

well cement, but its not artisian if its a drilled well is it?

I think so. Artisian only means it forces its way to the surface

what else would you call it?
a free flowing well?

Never seen an artisian well that wasn't drilled.

I always thought an undrilled water spout was a spring.

Gary

Hi Bison,

Artisian would mean that your aquaifer is open too the autosphere too where it's getting 14.7psi of pressure. If we subtract 14.7 from 30 then we have 15.3psi of additional flow pressure times 2.31feet(2.31ft=1psi) then your opening would be about 35ft to 69ft higher than your existing well head outlet. Another old open well at the source?

I've never had to deal with a artisian well so I can't tell you.

To me too seal off the old well from flowing, you would have to cap the bore with a resistance greater than a 30psi seal. That sounds expensive.

If your new well is legal, then you might want to give your State DNR a call and see what they offer for help. I sure would research this before calling them as you may have a expensive problem that your responisble for.

T_Bone

Concrete mixed with bentonite (sp?) is usually used to seal off old wells

If the casing is in decent shape below grade an expandabe plug can be forced down to where the casing is good and the expanded, afer that has sealed the casing concrete the rest of the casing to point at which you would care to cut it off, alternativly (sp?); if the casing is good below grade dig down to good casing, cut of the rusted and then use a compression collar and add new casing back up to desired height, the force to shove an expandable plug in a 8" pipe with 30 psig would be roughly 1325 pounds, however your second bore should reduce that.
good luck
Lou

I have plugged several artisan wells this year.Your state regs may vary, but here we mix a plug gel (bentonite) and barite (weight material)solution to a weight of around 14lbs pr gallon and pump to the bottom with a piston pump through a tremie pipe. After filling to the surface, the top few feet of casing is removed a cement plug is installed and the surface covered with dirt.
Your best bet is to contact a local well drilling company. The old well should have been abandoned when the new well was drilled

With all this discussion on exactly what an artisian well is and isn't, I thought I would toss something in here.

Smoke Hole Caverns in Seneca Rocks, West Virginia has an artisian well in the cave. The only problem with it is that when the power goes out, so does the well. Hmmmm...

Just a thought,

Aaron

Having such a well is an asset. I don't why you want to try to plug it. Many only run part of the year - but . . . if your's is full time, why not make use of it? If you manage to actually stop the flow - with a well casing full of water above ground - it can freeze and break open.

The ability to plug such a well depends on many factors - especially how much pressure potential.
That water could be coming from many different sources - which you'll probably never know for sure. Soure may be only a few feet higher than your well - or - could be a mountain top aquifer a mile higher. If capped, it might stop at 2 PSI, and might keep going at 50 PSI. They are all different. I have a artestian well in the Adirondack mountains. It runs full-time around a gallon per minute. I temporarily sealed the well casing, and got over 30 PSI before I unsealed it. I dug a 6 foot deep trench, and installed a pitless adapter, and pipe along with some UF 12 gauge wire. Ran the water-line to my cabin to an upstairs water-tank with a float-valve for a shut-off. So, now we have water flow anywhere downstairs in the cabin, all the time, without using any electricity. By installing the pitless adapter and wire - I can always install a submerged electric pump later if the well dries out a bit and ceases to be artesian.
My wife's parents in northern Michigan also have an artesian well. There's ran full time for the first year, but now dries out by August every summer, and then starts to run again by late Fall. They put a drain on the side of the well casing and let the water run off through a drain pipe. By letting it run like this, it prevents the well casing from filling to the top and keeps it from freezing up.

In Holmes county Ohio they had a BIG problem with one of those wells. I don't know if they ever got it stopped ? but somehow ? maybe they were drilling another well ? it got opened up and the flow was so great they couldn't stop it and then all the surrounding neighbors wells went dry.

My well is artisian, when they drilled it last year they capped it and put a spigot on it so I could hook up a hose and use it out side. Thinking of using it to water the herd without usig a water pump.
Also note: I live in michigan, the well is capped and otherwise unprotected and it did not freeze over winter.Dont know why..

Here is a simple explaination of what causes a artisian well found on Goggle.

An artesian well allows water to rise to the surface that has traveled through porous rock from a higher elevation. This pumpless well seems to defy gravity because the pressure that builds up between layers of rock gets relieved when the water finds a path to the open air. For nearly a thousand years, people have drilled wells to drink such cold, filtered water that doesn't need to be hauled up from the depths.

Considering the enviormental rules on water and water rights I would sure be carful on what I had done to the wells. girib

Mixing pinto beans in the concrete will make a nice well plug. It is used in the natural gas industry.
Get the concrete ready and then mix in the beans put in the well the beans swell causing the concrete to expand. then do it again once that plug sets up.

thanks for the replies folks,
here some additional info.

I have already put in a home made expandable plug in the old well.its sitting about 30'down,as deep as i could get it.its stopped the flow trough the casing but started leaking on the outside after i capped the newer one to use the pressure to get water to some pastures 1/2 mile away.the well is 1/2 ml from the yard supplying the house and corrals[piped to a cistern with pump system]as well.

The aquafier was found 30 yrs ago by a seismic driller,and as the story goes he got a 3000 gal/min flow at 200'depth.

By the way i'm in Canada.The wells are legal.
I do have the drilling log of the last well.

The nearest drilling company is 250 mls away and wants 10 thou to try to plug it with no garanties.

I dont want to contact autorities either,as they may force me to close that well at all costs.

Puts me in a bit of a bind eh

Hey . . . maybe you're one of the guys that some people in northern Michigan have been complaining about. Rumour is - somebody in Canada drilled a big hole somewhere and it's causing the levels of Lakes Superior and Huron to go down.

Buy 125' of 2-1/2" PVC pipe. Slip a cap on the end with some grease on the joint of the cap to pipe.
Open the other well head to minimize pressure.
Have the expandible rubber plug (mentioned) at hand.

Push the pipe , length by length down the casing with couplings at every connection glued as it is pushed down. When it hits bottom, Begin filling it with sackrete posthole mix concrete (small aggrigate). Use a funnel, and mix enough to fill the casing (roughly 8 cubic feet) (check this number!)
Concrete weighs more than water, and when the fill pipe is full, begin pulling it out. The cap will come off, and concrete will begin displacing the water. Pull up 1/2 length of pipe at a time, and cut it off. Then refill the now partially empty fill pipe. You may need to cut shorter lengths off of the fill pipe to keep filling it at a rate that continually keeps the fill pipe near full. Water will be displaced up and out of the well as the concrete enters, that is a good thing.
When the concrete gets near the top, Pull the remaining fill pipe, and put in the plug and expand it.

I believe that it is worth the bucks (Canadian)to try it. Putting concrete directly down the well washes the cement out of the aggrigate and makes porosity that will not work, this deposits real full strength mix to the place it will stay. Good luck, No guarantees, JimN

Here's an example of an "accidental" man made artisian well:

http://video.google.ca/videosearch?hl=en&q=Lake+draining+into+mine&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#

ooops!

Interesting. Believe it or don't, there are "scientists" out in the ocean trying to drill a hole thru the earth's crust.

It seems to me that some people are missing the point, that its leaking on the outside, right? We have an artesian well at our cabin and the driller pumped a lot of cement grout down the outside of the casing to prevent this from happening before it could. this will be hard to do when it is already leaking. I think you need to pump both wells hard enough to stop the outside leak and then pump some quick setting grout down the outside of the casing. you may have to pump 100 gpm or more per well to lower the water table and continue pumping until the grout hardens. this will require some equipment and that is why it is expensive. good luck and let us know if it works!

JimN,that sounds like worth trying.It will have to wait till next year.

THANKS for the idea. Bison

Sell the water to a bottling co.

you are right.I dont know if the casing was cemented in when the well was drilled. as the water has a lot of iron in it and the casing is rusted out till i dont know how deep down.
i can only get in about 30'deep,hard to figure out if it is a collapsed casing or debris blocking it off.