If you are ever in southern Kansas, this place is worth a stop:
My brother in law did this with large pre-cast concrete rings in NJ for a well, so I know it works for a complete ring. But for a bunch of loose stones, even if they fit well I'm not sure would slide down nice and uniformly. It also depends on the soil being pretty nice and uniform and no rock intrusions. :-) ...lew...
Concrete rings in sandy soil is routine if you consider digging a twenty plus foot deep hole and removing the soil with a bucket and rope routine. At least you don't need to worry about a stone slipping out of place.
I had a well built of round stones on a farm in upstate New York. I needed to connect this well to a pump in the house. I dug down about six feet on the outside to run plastic pipe into the well and down to where there would be water in August. This well was 23 feet deep and about 3.5 feet in diameter most of the way. It tapered to about 3 feet near the top.
It scared the hell out of me every time I had to put a ladder in and make repairs to foot valves etc. I told my wife if the damned thing collapsed not to dig me out. Just put a grave marker on top and abandon the well. There wasn't a lot of room left to work with the ladder occupying its space and the thought of dislodging one of those boulders was always on my mind.
I often wondered how they were built but doubt that starting at the top and digging out the inside as you went down and filling with stone as you dug was a viable solution. At least for me it would not be as the men in the white suits would have taken me away before it was very deep.
My thoughts on this is the best way would be to use wooden shoring to dig a somewhat larger hole to the required depth and then start at the bottom and lay stones, fill between the shoring with sand, finally removing the wooden shoring as one progressed to the top.
You really need to descend into one of those wells to appreciate how scary it can be.
One of my first cousins started a construction business back in the '70's. They use the sinking concrete ring routinely.
I remember our algebra teacher dumping a quart jar of water on John's head to stop his snoring in the late '60's. Then he went to 'Nam, came back and got an industrial arts degree. A couple years later he started this business, then hired brothers (he has 7) as project managers, later made partners. They've done some big projects. See
Merry-go-round pump info:
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.