I have a client who needs a more permanent solution for marking wells out in west Texas. We drive a t-post with a lath tied to the top of the post at the surface location and the 4 pad corners. We write on the lath what it is marking but they fade out pretty fast and long before they get ready to drill the well. Regular flagging won't do because the client visits the wells before they are drilled in a helicopter and the flagging fades and breaks too fast in the west Texas sun and wind. The main objective is to have them be visible from the air and identifiable on the ground.
I have a few ideas but I wanted to see if anyone has any tried and true methods.
TIA
Maybe a small piece of plywood laid on the ground with the ID painted on it, that could be read from the air. Paint it on both sides so if the up said fades, it can be flipped over and probably still be read.
Had a similar problem with t-posts not being visible and the flagging weathering quickly. It was the client that slipped 6' pieces of 2" PVC down over the t-posts. Upon our return I noticed what he had done and added a good blast of flo-pink to the pvc. The points were then very visible.
After a year the paint had definitely faded and flagging was non-existent, but the cattle had pretty much left most of the pvc undisturbed. There was one or two that had become their scratchin' post and suffered a bit.
I think Kent had once mentioned the use of pvc pipe as lath also.
An old tire painted white slipped over the point is definitely visible from the air.
Don't know if this is any help, but in situations where we expect to return years later, not days, we will use two lath, both completely filled out. Sandwich them together, drive them in together, flag them together. The touching parts of the wood protect the writing redundant writing.
Use a good quality yellow or white paint marker to label the well info directly on the post. wire tie the lath on to the post and on the upper 1/3 of the lath, securely staple a brightly colored piece of cloth (+/-18"x18") folding so you are stapling thru 2 layers of the cloth. If you want to get fancy - have your company logo stenciled on the cloth...
Thank you all for the suggestions! We have to use a mule to get to most places so the size of the material is a little bit of a factor. I was talking with some colleagues and they suggested that I write the well location info on a piece of paper and use pill bottles or film canisters to put them in and wire tie them to the posts. Does anyone know of good bulk source of them? I really like the idea of putting the client logo and our company's logo on a cloth and attaching them to the lath/pvc! Any idea where to get the cloth flags with logos?
It has been a lot of years since I worked at the place that used this method, but would think the best method is to find a local shop that does custom T-shirts/silkscreening and see if they would be interested in producing a batch for you.
> I have a client who needs a more permanent solution for marking wells out in west Texas. We drive a t-post with a lath tied to the top of the post at the surface location and the 4 pad corners. We write on the lath what it is marking but they fade out pretty fast and long before they get ready to drill the well. Regular flagging won't do because the client visits the wells before they are drilled in a helicopter and the flagging fades and breaks too fast in the west Texas sun and wind. The main objective is to have them be visible from the air and identifiable on the ground.
>
> I have a few ideas but I wanted to see if anyone has any tried and true methods.
>
> TIA
Around here, (water) wells must be tagged by law. The drillers use aluminum embossed "dog tags" that are banded to the well. If you had them made up in advance (or had your company name and number pre-embossed), you could add additional info (well number, location, etc) using a simple set of punches.
Then just permanently band them to the post (many options there), or, even simpler, use a screw type stainless steel hose clamp to attach it to the post. It'd probably last 100 years.
When I was at Schumann, we would write the well info on a slip of paper, roll it up and stick it in a prescription bottle. The bottle would get wired to the lathe or t-post with a little bailing wire. Always had a roll of bailing wire in the truck for attaching medicine bottles and making extra tall lathes. Mr. Schumann was in his nineties so we had plenty of used prescription bottles.
I think we also had a pharmacy that would sell us new, unused bottles.
We use something similar to this to mark pipelines in the marsh and bays when we need to go back 6 months to a year later. We tie them to the cane pole and flag it up. Can pole will still be there (unless it gets run over, burned or taken). Most of the flagging will be gone, but the tag is always still there.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/106388999/100-aluminum-tags-garden-tags-plant?ref=market
> I think Kent had once mentioned the use of pvc pipe as lath also.
>
> An old tire painted white slipped over the point is definitely visible from the air.
Yes, I use 48" lengths of 1/2" thin-wall irrigation pipe for laths. You can set them in solid rock if you have a hammer drill with a 3/4" bit or you can set an 8" x 3/8" spike and just slip the pipe over the head of the spike. Either way, it lasts for years.
For high-visibility marking, setting a t-post with a piece of white 4" PVC pipe slipped over it gets my vote. Depending upon the height of the brush, either half or a third of a 20' joint should do the trick.
We've done the note in a pill bottle thing for decades, any pharmacy can sell cases of bottles.
We've also stapled cloth to the lath on top of the T-post, but pvc over the post might show up better.
