If you can drive a nail into a board, you have the skills to augment your water supply. Drilling companies charge thousands of dollars to tap ground water sources that you can often reach yourself with a few common tools and about two weekends of work.
Methods ranging from digging to blasting are used to reach the underground layer of fresh water that lies beneath dry land. Most of these are too technical, expensive, or dangerous for the average person. However, at the turn of the century the U.S. Army developed a fast, effective method to provide bivouacking troops with water that did not involve a lot of expensive, cumbersome equipment. Soldiers simply drove a pipe into the ground with a sledgehammer until they reached the aquifer. Subsequently, it has proven to be ideal for supplying water to homesteads, second homes, and remote villages in developing nations.
An Inexpensive, Do-It-Yourself Water Well
