WorldWide Drilling Resource

30 DECEMBER 2014 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Through the Back Door! by Jim Kuebelbeck Chicken Barn Part 2 Arriving on-site, we were both more than shocked to see an area for the barn had already been cleared and lev- eled, and a base layer of coarse grit had been laid over the entire future building site. Had we seen it from the air, I’m sure the leveled area would have appeared to be longer than some of the small airstrips we had landed on over the years! Carol asked me in dis- belief, “Jim, did you know he was already in the process of building? He doesn’t even have a well yet!” I told her I certainly wasn’t aware of it, but all we could do was try to find some promising drilling sites and try not to worry about it. People don’t always tell us everything about a situation, and it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn a number of dry holes had already been drilled on the property before we arrived. We worked on the property for about two hours, and surprisingly did locate and mark three sites where we felt a good well could be drilled. One of the sites, which we felt would produce the most water, was about 300 feet from the building site. Another location was about 200 feet away, and the third site was only about 100 feet from the future building. We suggested to the landowner that if we ourselves owned the property, we would drill on the site 300 feet from the building. We left and didn’t hear from the landowner, until about a month ago, when he called one afternoon. The conversation went something like this: “Jim,” he said, “We’ve got a problem. We just drilled today and got a dry hole down to bedrock!” I asked how deep they had drilled, and he said they hit bedrock at about 50 feet. Because we had located many productive wells for others in the imme- diate area before and never encountered bedrock that shallow, I asked if the drill crew was sure it was bedrock and not just a large boulder. He said they told him it was bedrock, and it was unlikely they could get the kind of water he needed out of it. They wanted to know where to drill next, and the homeowner said he wanted to talk to me first, and see what I would do in the situation. I told him I agreed with the contac- tors about drilling into the bedrock, and I would suggest he drill on another one of the sites we had selected, because I was still confident good water sources lay beneath the sites we had marked, and he agreed to do so. He called again two days later and said bedrock had once again been en- countered at about 60 feet, and no water whatsoever was above the bed- rock. Again, he asked what he should do because the building was already up and he had no water. About that time, I would have liked to have told him he should have looked for a water source before he even considered build- ing a chicken barn in the area. Instead, I told him, in my judgment he had no choice but to drill the third site we had marked. He told me the drill crew was still on-site and was becoming as frus- trated as he was, but he would tell them to drill the third site. I told him to call me that evening... What he said, next month. The statements and comments in this article are my own and are based on information and references believed to be true and factual. If you have any questions or comments, please forward them to me in care of WWDR . Jim Jim Kuebelbeck may be contacted via e-mail at michele@ worldwidedrillingresource.com "0",-" - 0 &' '" &) (*-. -&2"- )! )/( ", *# ' !"- "1 -"! &.- *'" +")",- , $ &.- &)$- ((",- ((", &.- &0",.",- " .&++&)$ . &'&2",- ' 1 &.- &+" &+"- *'. *) "".% / - * &'" &. *&) ,*! %*.( &' *( 111 &. *&) /-