Trying to find a well...... Again.....

[spot]

There's a well somewhere in our back garden that was capped in 1955 when the house went onto mains water.
The owner who was here at the time recently visited for a trip down memory lane and pointed out roughly where they remember the well being.
So far so good....
Today i've been sinking a metal pole into the ground to a depth of about 2 feet hoping to hit the cap but so far nothing.
How deep should I expect the cap to be? A freind of a friend recently found a well (he previously knew nothing about) in his back garden and the cap was only about 6 inches below the surface.
What's normal for a cap, should going to a depth of about 2 feet be sufficient?
And how wide would the well be? Was there a standard-ish size for well diameter in the late 1800's?

 

[Lime]

The well head would normally be very near the surface assuming it wasn't smashed off or the ground level altered at the time of the capping.
If the well is of the dome construction it could be near the surface or several feet below (the top of the dome being extended to the surface by a tube of brickwork).
Other peoples' memories are normally not to be trusted in situations like this.
You may be looking just for a ring of single brickwork... that is quite difficult to find using a pole.
Or the well could have been filled in with rubble and no cap fitted.

If it is still in use by your house roof drains, a good idea of where it may be can sometimes be gained by examining each drain to see in which direction the buried pipe runs.
(with standard earthenware drains the "P" or "S" trap will often be in the same direction as the pipe run)
Most earthenware surface drainage ran as straight as was possible from drain to well.

 

[Flyfisher]

Are you certain it was actually a well and not just a borehole?

I found some documentation about a water supply for our house before it was connected to mains water but the details stated it was a 4-inch borehole.

I don't think I've got much chance of ever finding something so small again.

 

[Penners]

How deep should I expect the cap to be?

I'm afraid that's an unanswerable question, Spot. As Lime has said, it depends on whether the top few courses of bricks were removed before the well was capped. Do you know for sure that it was capped and not filled in?

I'm afraid you've just got to keep hunting. Have you tried dowsing for it? I was a complete sceptic about this practice until I was once challenged to try it myself. I, and several other people, were completely successful at divining the course of an underground drain.

Albert Einstein believed in it!

 

[fluffytail10]

We found ours in a dry spell when the overlying grass turned yellow. Didn't see it till looked out of bedroom window, and there is was complete with drainage pipes etc. The concrete plug was only about 10cm below soil level, and was filled in during the 70's according to our neighbour.

 

[spot]

The story goes that it's a "proper" brick lined well (so i'm expecting to find something about 3 feet in diameter") and very deep and was capped and not filled in.
There was a big old pump that used to get the water out and I found the remains of this in some bushes.
The pipework from the well to the kitchen is supposedly still in place and I used a metal detector but found nothing.
Rainwater goes to a soak away and i've traced the pipework which goes off away from where the well is supposed to be.
The last dry spell we had I looked for tell-tale patches but saw nothing.
I guess i'm just gonna have to keep banging in the rod.....

 

[spot]

And yes i tried a dowser with no success.

 

[d49xc]

Not much more I can to what has already been said.
The surface water drains will certainly go in precisely the opposite direction to the well. The last thing that is needed is contaminated surface water getting directly into the well. This is the most usual reason for wells being declared unsafe to use/drink in developing countries.

Standard late 1800's house well would be just over 3' in diameter. Single brick construction. Smaller cottage ones might be a little smaller in diameter.
Standard capping is two semicircular concrete slabs placed over well, probably only 2ft max below ground level.
I've seen far worse capping done though, so a degree of caution is suggested in your excavations.
One such horror is to stuff a tree truk down well and fill to top with rubble/earth to "cap it". Skip forward 100 years: tree trunk has rotten away totally, rubble now suspended over nothing. Someone either drives a heavy vehicle over top or starts to remove rubble/topsoil -----all of a sudden whoooosh entire lot collapses into well.

Borehole unlikely pre 1900, especially in a private house.

Tracing Kitchen pipe is indeed a good idea (usually 1.25" galv) - but obviously a dud in your case - but remember these pipes may have been quite deep so outside the range of 'normal' detectors.
Location of well is usually near to property in a convienent location for access to/from the kitchen. Remember this is the house as it was in the 1800's. Since then the kitchen may have been moved. Also consider that an extension may have been built over the old well since.(regardless of what old timers' may have said about the location).

Keep digging/prodding.....best of luck

 

[Onetap]

2' 6" or 3', or wide enough for a man or small boy to hand dig it.

There was a big old pump that used to get the water out and I found the remains of this in some bushes.
The pipework from the well to the kitchen is supposedly still in place and I used a metal detector but found nothing......

I thought the usual arrangement was a pump which filled a loft tank and then downpipes from the tank to the outlets. Any tanks or mystery pipe ends in the loft?

You can hire cable detectors (CAT?) that have a separate signal generator. The output cable of the signal generator is clipped to a metal pipe and the detector can then trace the route of the pipe. Whether they pulled the pipe out is anyone's guess.

Wells were often shown on old maps, but I wouldn't know whether a local library could be expected to have any of a large enough scale to be of any use.

 

[Onetap]

We found ours in a dry spell when the overlying grass turned yellow. .....

Have a look on Google Earth.

 

[dans]

We jt found ours last week- its huge! There's a pump further up next to the house, about 20' from the well, which has seized so I've no idea if it works or not yet. The Well is a concern as its so big and directly under the driveway where all the big skip and goods lorries come down!

 

[Lime]

We jt found ours last week- its huge! There's a pump further up next to the house, about 20' from the well, which has seized so I've no idea if it works or not yet. The Well is a concern as its so big and directly under the driveway where all the big skip and goods lorries come down!

That is a very good reason to know exactly where any wells may be.
I had a house years ago that had several wells dotted about.
The pantechnicon delivering my furniture found the first one when I moved in!
(With its back wheel)

 

[tobydog]

We found our well when we were having our extension built. It was under a parking area. Thankfully it turned up within the walls of the extension and not where the footings were going otherwise it could have caused us big problems. Having said this, even though it was filled up with earth, the builders found it on the day the building regs guy turned up and he insisted on extra strengthening to the floor. £700 later............. :roll:

 

[Feltwell]

You can hire cable detectors (CAT?) that have a separate signal generator. The output cable of the signal generator is clipped to a metal pipe and the detector can then trace the route of the pipe. Whether they pulled the pipe out is anyone's guess.

You certainly can - what you want is a "Cat & Genny", the Cat being a Cable Avoidance Tool and the Genny a signal generator. If you can find where the pipe enters the house then it will be easy to trace with one of these - the genny clips to the pipe and sends a pulse down it, which you then scan for with the Cat in a similar way to a metal detector. I used them quite a few times back in my (brief!) Civil Engineering days, they work very well, much better than a normal metal detector.

 

[dinglem]

Coincidence. I have popped online to post on this very subject. I mentioned that i was trying to locate an old well that had been suggested was on my property by an elderly neighbour back in 2006(!) Still haven't found it and unfortunately the gent in question is no longer with us....

However, in my recent boredom I started looking up old maps of my road and stumbled across a website called old-maps.co.uk, plugged in the area/coordinates of my house, and bingo, there were two maps that showed not only my house but also a pin-point annotated 'Well'. Both maps from very different dates showed the 'dot' as being in exactly the same place. The maps can be zoomed in slightly, but then i found if i hold down the 'Ctrl' key and hit + then the entire screen display becomes enlarged until the scale is suitable for seeing plenty of detail.

The actual dot is not where i expected to find the well at all - in fact it isn't even on my lawn but directly adjacent to the end wall of my kitchen, where my brick-paved drive now sits. As soon as i saw the maps i remembered that although the driveway is almost completely flat, there is a slight depression at exactly this point where water collects when car washing etc.... I now presume this to be settlement of some kind.

I am really keen to get digging, raise the bricks and have a look. I have found a few companies that make very strong glass caps for such things, although whether they would make something to hold vehicular traffic i have no idea (still waiting for a reply). My Hillman Imps aren't exactly heavy though! I would very much like to have the well as a lit feature, but the expected position isn't exactly ideal i have to admit. I have to investigate due to the settlement as i obviously have concerns as to whether it is securely capped, back-filled, or about to collapse!

You can hire in a guy with a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to locate a shaft or well for you; i have seen these used in the past to locate capped mine shafts during ground investigations and they work well.

Cheers Martin.

 

[AMc]

I have a well in my kitchen which we found when excavating the floor.
It has a glass lid set in a stainless steel upside down "top hat" covering the floor construction and hiding the lighting.
The glass is 19mm laminated with 10mm - it's less than a metre across and cost about £300 for the glass and about £800 for the hat.
The glass came from a local glazing contractor and the cap from a stainless steel fabricator to my rough design and their specs.
Plikington had the specs for structural glass on their site when I was working it out - I dread to think how thick you'd need glass for vehicular strength.

My glass has picked up a few scratches so you need to consider that more outside where you can't keep it clear of grit.
You also need to ventilate the shaft or you end up with condensation on the glass and can't see - as happens with a friends well which is just outside their front door.

In a drive I would really consider if you want to have a level well cover. Perhaps a metal grate suspended over the glass to take the main load?

 

[dinglem]

Thanks for the info AMc, much appreciated.

I am still only considering what to do, and I guess the first thing for me to do will be to open up the well itself and have a looksie.

I was thinking about condensation being an issue, and the ventilation solutions, as i have seen an outdoor well capped with glass online and it was covered in condensation on the inside.

The grate is a good option, which could be lifted and removed when required to expose the glass. I will wait to see what the glass people come back with and go from there. Hopefully i will have some photo's of the well excavation as and when the time comes.

Incidentally - sorry for hi-jacking this thread!!!

 

[Penners]

My Hillman Imps aren't exactly heavy

Good grief! Having bought one Hillman Imp, you actually went and bought another one?!

In my book that's tantamount to self-flagellation!

:wink:

 

[LadyArowana]

My Hillman Imps aren't exactly heavy

Good grief! Having bought one Hillman Imp, you actually went and bought another one?!

In my book that's tantamount to self-flagellation!

:wink:

Now now Mr P, don't be so hasty, it could have been "buy one get one free".

 

[dinglem]

Haha... i know. Family weakness I'm afraid. I actually have 4 :?

Now we really are going off-topic.

Anyway - here's the glass-capped well photo i found online that I mentioned earlier. No ventilation and lots of condensation.