Hydrogen Well info ????

[vzdude]

A friend of mine has an old hydrogen well in his back yard. Anyone know how to use it? Any info would be greatly appreciated!

[MooseToo]

i have one in my yard but the hydrogen is contaminated with oxygen - so, i just use an old pitcher pump -

[vzdude]

What do you use it for then? How would he go about testing to see if it is contaminated? How would he use it if it isn't contaminated? Like for gas lamps that he believes it was originally used for?

[vzdude]

Sorry...I guess I missed your humor. Although I WAS serious about a hydrogen well. Do some research, they used to use them for gas lamps. Funny, most forums I am a member of are for helping. If you have nothing positive to add, say nothing please.

[MooseToo]

Sorry...I guess I missed your humor. Although I WAS serious about a hydrogen well. Do some research, they used to use them for gas lamps. Funny, most forums I am a member of are for helping. If you have nothing positive to add, say nothing please.
sorry - i assumed your first post was written as a joke - nobody has a "hydrogen well" -

[vzdude]

He was renovating his house and found the original gas lines. He then followed them out to a "well" in the back yard. Neighbors told him it was an old hydrogen well. I've searched and searched, but the only thing I can come up with is that maybe they were tapping into the water well and getting the hydrogen sulphide gas out of it for the lamps. We have a lot of sulpher water around here. Evidently the hydrogen sulphide would collect at the top of the well? That is the best scenario that I can come up with at least.

[jott]

Can you describe the well any, I never heard of a hydrogen well. Could it possibly be a carbide reactor? They were common before electricity if you did not have city gas. The one I have seen was a shaft filled with water inside was what looked like a tank that you put calcium carbide in, water would drip in and react with the carbide to produce acetylene gas. The gas was then piped to the house to use in lamps. If you had no idea what the thing was you could mistake it for a well easy.

Only other thing I could think of is maybe you are in an area that could have a natural gas well.

[vzdude]

He said basically it looks like a water well, but has what he thought was a float or a tank of some sort in it. He thought that maybe they pulled the gas from below that water??? Does that sound more like a natural gas well?

[Catalpa]

LOL, Moose. You are just so quick! Loved it.

Doubtful that he has a 'hydrogen' well. Due to it's very nature, hydrogen will combine with other elements around it - becoming water, methane, other hydrocarbons, etc. Hydrogen is also very flammable.

He may have a water well with a high concentration of methane. This occurs naturally, and usually isn't noticed unless it is in high enough concentration to cause 'vapor lock' of the well pump, bubbles in the water as it is poured, or problems with the pressure tank.

His best bet is to contact a local well driller and have him take a look at the well, or call the local health department and ask if there is a well log for that well, and also if methane in the water is a common problem in the area.

There are different types of apparatus available to separate the methane out to make the water well usable. That may be the float or tank he was talking about. Again, the best bet is to ask around locally.

Cat