Yesterday A customer rang to see if we could assist them with water bore rehabilitation. They had a problem getting water on their property in the Swan Valley. Two previous contractors had already tried to get them water and failed.

After asking some relevant questions the history of the problem was as follows.

The original old well on the property ran out of water and had been deepened in the seventies. This well recently failed.

One contractor attempted to drill a new bore adjacent to the well to a depth of 24m. They were unsuccessful and got no water. The next contractor installed a 4 inch submersible in the old well down the 6 inch steel casing. This solution lasted a week before the pump failed.

We ran a camera down the failed 6 inch steel casing to see if the old bore was salvageable. The bore was 62m deep with casing that was showing its age and was heavily corroded with numerous perforations and restrictive casing scaling.

The bottom screen was letting in large amounts of sand. Examination of the existing pump showed marked signs of overheating and premature wear due to ingress of sand and decomposed screen particles. This was due to it being suspended in the 6 inch casing without a shroud or any external screening.

Using the down hole camera footage we were able to map out a solution to carefully ream the old casing to clear the internal inclusions and screen of the perforated areas. We then ran 4 inch screen and pvc casing to depth, gravel packed the bore and grouted the anulus.

This allowed us to develop the bore to clear out the sand and steel screen scale. We then set a pump at the correct depth and reconnected the system. Customer once again has water for their property.