Then the ones who pleased the Lord will ask, "When did we give you something to eat or drink? When did we welcome you as a stranger or give you clothes to wear or visit you while you were sick or in jail?"
The King will answer, "Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me." .......Matthew 25

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Living waters in Cambodia - the tube well

The tube well is a cost effective means of accessing safe water. Essentially the technology allows for a pipe to be bored 30-40 metres down to the water table and a hand pump is used to pump water to the surface. A cement apron is placed around the well. Typically, tube wells can supply water for 5 families (40 people).

Current costs for us to put a tube well in the school compound is approximately US$1200. Putting up a 3 roomed toilet costs US$1100. The waste is flushed into a septic tank at the rear of the toilets.

2 comments:

Yuli-Moon said...

hi, would you share more about how to build the well? i will be going to cambodia to build the well. so appreciate if you can share some tips. thanks

Unknown said...

The tube well, otherwise known as a drill well, is sunk about 40m through rock layers to tap into the aquifers. The tube well provides very clean water suitable for drinking. Not necessarily chemical free, but microbiologically safe. We are not able to do this ourselves because it requires engineering equipment for the drilling and for the insertion of the "tube". There are the usual contractors we pay to do this in the villages. If you need the contacts I can probably get some names for you. It is not a foolproof method, and there is an element of 'hit and miss' with regards to being able to get into the aquifer. But so far it has been a good experience, and very few misses.