10-11-23 / wellboring

Addressing the broken well problem in Africa

WellBoring’s sustainable approach to well maintenance emphasizes our proactive Maintain, Repair, Install (MRI) strategy. This not only addresses our own newly built wells but also rehabilitated wells.
To forestall potential well failures and ensure the durability of each element, the hand pump requires complete disassembly for an exhaustive inspection. This in-depth scrutiny is the key to detecting any issues that could lead to future breakdowns, ensuring the well’s continued operation.
During annual inspections, temporary fixes are not an option. Experience dictates that only the replacement of worn parts is sensible, which is a critical component of WellBoring’s strategy to ensure the longevity and functionality of water wells.

WellBoring goes to great lengths to keep its wells working. Agreements are made with schools who have enough income to pay for maintenance. 

However, many other wells have been installed but not maintained, and they have died well before their time. Most often the pump seizes up. There’s a hole, there’s plenty of water, but there’s no longer a way of getting the water out. This has happened to thousands of wells. 

Unfortunately the local community may simply believe the well was defective, and anyway they may not have the ability to fix their well. NGOs and local government may prefer to add more wells, even at much greater cost, than fixing broken wells.

At WellBoring we have started to fix other parties’ broken wells. But the real problem is the lack of maintenance. WellBoring has found a sustainable solution by working with primary schools who have a small water budget, but enough to fund maintenance. 

WellBoring is starting to explore where micro-charges might be made for water, with funds contributing to a Well Life Fund. 

Rather than wait for wells to break, WellBoring is about to start maintaining other organisations’ unmaintained wells. 

This is leading to a much more cost-effective approach, because fixing a broken well costs much less than drilling a new well, but maintaining a well so it doesn’t break is much cheaper still. It is called Maintain, Repair, Install, MRI for short.

We start our work by assessing what needs to be Maintained, what can be repaired, and what must be Installed. An MRI Scan. Then an appropriate way forward can be found. 

Nigel Linacre BEM is Chair of WellBoring.