Has anyone made their own concrete well tiles?

I'm looking for ways to make my own shallow (12-20ft) dug well but I don't want to spend a fortune on prefab well tiles. I'm wondering how difficult it would be to make my own. Besides frugality, it would allow me to avoid the transport hassles, as I'm 3 hours from a manufacturer and my well site is in the woods, 500 feet from road access.

I saw someone attempt to make concrete tiles using sand molds.  He put in lots of work on a failed project. Hopefully you will have better results.

Our neighbours down the road have a well that was built by the now-deceased builder of their house. I can't figure out how he did it, but it didn't go smoothly. It is about 3 feet square and increasingly misshapen the deeper it goes. I'm guessing that he built forms and poured in place but the ground pressure must have put the squeeze on it. Round would be my choice, despite the challenges that go with that shape.

Round wins the compressive strength contest, no doubt. I'd be inclined to do a test casting with sonotube and/or PVC culvert pipe as forms. You'd probably want reinforcing mesh in there as well. I'd assume that commercially made ones are reinforced. Doing the operation on an old truck tyre would allow you to vibrate the form with something as simple as a hand sander, and that will allow you to use a drier mix and do less tamping.

Phil Stevens wrote:Round wins the compressive strength contest, no doubt. I'd be inclined to do a test casting with sonotube and/or PVC culvert pipe as forms. You'd probably want reinforcing mesh in there as well. I'd assume that commercially made ones are reinforced. Doing the operation on an old truck tyre would allow you to vibrate the form with something as simple as a hand sander, and that will allow you to use a drier mix and do less tamping.

I agree that there must be some reinforcing in the commercially-made well tiles, but I'm surprised at how little information is available on the webs. I did find teaser info on ferrocement well sections, but the full document is behind a paywall.

While I was searching for manufacturing methods for these things, I ran across this:

Six pack well

I like several things about it: safer because no one is down at the bottom of that hole digging, the crushed rock backfill to provide storage, and how quickly the whole process went. Hand dug wells are a major cause of accidental death and caveins are almost guaranteed in some soil types when you hit the water table.

Phil Stevens wrote:While I was searching for manufacturing methods for these things, I ran across this:

Six pack well

I like several things about it: safer because no one is down at the bottom of that hole digging, the crushed rock backfill to provide storage, and how quickly the whole process went. Hand dug wells are a major cause of accidental death and caveins are almost guaranteed in some soil types when you hit the water table.

That's really neat. It would simplify things in many ways, AND reduce the cost. Thanks for pointing this out to me.

Do you think this unit will save any money?

John C Daley wrote:Do you think this unit will save any money?

I'm having difficulty finding a price for the 6" PVC pipe, but I'm pretty sure the whole scheme would be a lot cheaper than prefab concrete tiles. I'm still looking at ferrocement tiles as an option though. It would be something I could make on site and would negate the need for a large excavation.