There is a huge difference between drilling methods for water or rocks. Water well drilling equipment is usually easy to transport on a truck or trailer. Most water wells are drilled using top-head rotary style, table rotary or cable tool drills. The equipment usually needs to be able to reach 20 to 600 feet. There have been some wells that reached 3,000 feet before accessing water.
Drilling equipment has been around for a long time. Drinking water is one of the first things people dug for. The cable tool drilling machine is has been used the longest of all the machines used today. This method does require drilling to stop to clean out the hole of cut up dirt and then the sides are cased. Rotary drilling uses a fluid to displace cutting (dirt) and cool bits when drilling. Hydraulic pressure holds the side walls of the bore hole open until it can be cased. Drilled wells need to be cased with steel or plastic/PVC to keep the well walls up. This prevents the well from collapsing upon itself. Once the well has been dug a pump is required to extract the water.
Rock drilling equipment is designed to get through rock. It can be needed by many different industries. The oil and gas industry may require it to get through a specific area or section of a well. A water well company may also require the use of one. The equipment is can be used to get samples of the rock.
Rock drilling equipment is mainly used in mining. The purpose is to get the rock, minerals or ore in usable pieces. The equipment and process is different then used in oil or water drilling. Rock drilling is not trying to find and deal with a liquid. Instead the methods of drilling are focused on accessing and then extracting solid rock. The solid rock is what is valuable. With water and oil wells the solid is something to get rid of. There is no care put into keeping the solids intact. Both use drilling methods but each has a different focus and equipment.
