He Shot His Well

He shot his well FARM HOME Miscellaneous 10-3-28 The pressure of his well kept going lower and lower. "It got so bad," says Ken Helgeson, Richfield, Minn., "that when I turned the water on to sprinkle the lawn, the sprinkler would only go about 4 ft. high!" Ken considered putting down a new well. But a co-worker gave him a better idea: "Why don't you shoot it?" he asked. The friend explained his idea: Open up the top of the well pipe and shoot straight down. Ken's first question was whether the bullet would hurt the sand point. The friend told him that when you shoot into water the bullet slows considerably. Thus reassured, Ken borrowed a rifle and that night he tried it. "I opened her up and plugged one shot down there. Just to make sure, I shot the well again. Then I went outside and turned on the water sprinkler. It shot up as high as the house!" Ken says the technique works this way: The impact of the bullet shakes the well point and breaks loose sediment that's plugging it up. He says water coming out of the well was a dirty brown for several days. During that time the screens on all the faucets in the house plugged up and had to be cleaned out. "But in a couple of days the sediment stopped coming and we had good pressure," he says. Story and photo reprinted with permission from Home Shop, 2028B Ford Parkway, St. Paul, MN 55116.

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