Stichting Connect International

The techniques for drilling a borehole (tube well), can be divided in two categories i.e. drilling with a machine or manually. In general manual drilling is cheaper and less complex than machine drilling but is limited to softer ground layers. Compared to digging wells by hand, the drilling of boreholes is less dangerous, can penetrate deeper into the aquifer and is more hygienic.

Baptist drilling is one of the manual drilling techniques. It is named after the Baptist Missionary, Mr Terry Waller, who invented the technique. See also Water for all International. This technique uses a sharp drill bit to loosen the soil and drilling liquid to lift the particles.

This method is limited to non cemented, sedimentary deposits of sand and clay, and will not drill through solid bed rock. Some soft rock can be drilled slowly. For gravel or stones from 1 to 3 centimeters an open bit can be used combined with sludging. A mayor difference compared to other techniques as the Rota Sludge is that this technique uses 1 ¼” PVC pipes on top of the lower steel drill pipe. Therefore this option is very light and can drill down to 100 meters deep. With the Baptist method, world wide more than 2500 wells have been drilled.