I’m curious if anyone can share their experiences with having a well drilled for their home.
My wife and I are planning to build soon. We are building out in a desert area of California where most people are on wells, and I’m finding out the hard way that there doesn’t seem to be a very good process involved with having a well drilled! It’s kind of “blank check” ordeal, with wildly varying prices, and seems to involve a fair bit of luck. I’ve gotten wildly varying estimates from $30/foot to close to $100.
An uncle of mine built a house in westchester county, NY that ended up going down over 400 feet to hit water (the irony? His house fronted a reservoir that is part of the New Croton system that supplies NYC). The answer to your question is you never know, the water layer in any given area can vary, and also, you can drill in one spot, not hit water going down X feet, move the rig 10 feet, and hit water relatively easily. My recommendation , fwiw? Find firms that have done a lot of wells locally, especially in the immediate area/neighborhood, they probably have better instincts where to drill. Make sure to ask for people he has done in the neighborhood and check with them, to see how satisfied they were.
Our well is the deepest and has lowest production of any in the county. We should have followed the advice of locals and hired a dowser. It couldn’t have hurt.
@alh-
I told my uncle that at the time, and he threw a mason’s level at me lol…then later admitted it could’t have been worse than what they went through, multiple failed attempts and so forth.
@musicprnt Good advice on asking the local drillers. Unfortunately, there are only two in the local area and one of them has a broken rig, lol. I am extending my circle of contacts though to see if I can get drillers from outside my area to drill at a competitive rate. I’d like to get at least 3 bids before choosing.
Ah, I can only urge you to do whatever you can to be able to use a municipal water source. We live with a well (just outside the area where city water is available), and it is a giant pain to have to deal with one more major system, especially as you get older. You may find you have to treat the water for mineral content and/or acidity, which means maintaining/stocking a chemical treatment system or, heaven forbid, you may learn (sometimes not for years) that the water table has either been contaminated or is threatened by long-ago mining or manufacturing activity (this can affect water miles from the site), and you won’t know the condition of the water till the drilling happens; if the power ever goes out you have no water unless you have a generator that can run the pump; like any other mechanism pumps break down, but while you can go to the laundromat when the washer breaks or eat out if the stove dies, with no water you are instantly in an emergency situation and at the mercy of the well repair service. I’ve experienced all of the above and would never, ever again voluntarily put myself in the position of using a well (or a septic system, for that matter–even worse). There’s a reason municipal water systems exist–they’re one of the many benefits of civilization!
Yes, there is a bit of uncertainty involved. To reduce that, you can go to a hydrology database and see what other wells near you have reported finding.
Make sure you know what your well will need in terms of add-ons (casing, screens, cover, etc.) because they can bump the price.
Drilling charges per foot are very much regional, but you are in the range on the $30/ft end. The $100/foot is pretty special.
My wife and I put in a well about 10 years ago. We am in the northeast, so I am not sure our experience applies. For the most part, as you have noted, the cost is dependent on the depth. In additional to the per foot drilling cost, there are other costs associated with the depth of the well. The depth of where they hit bedrock impacted the price because the well needed a liner down to that point, so the price per foot was higher for the depth above the bedrock versus the depth below the bedrock. Also, when I put in my well, the pump cost was significantly higher if the well went beyond a certain depth (I think is was 1,200 feet when I put it mine in).
I appreciate your feedback MommaJ… all very good information. If access to the water grid were an option I would gladly jump on it. Unfortunately things are not as “civilized” out here, lol. The water grid is minimal. Most of the areas with the great views (which is where we want to build) require either: a) a well, or b) hauling water (which is definitely not an option).
Really good point about the power going out too… hadn’t put much thought into that yet.
We were on a well in California (Santa Cruz Mountains) shared with 3 other households. It was already drilled when we bought the house, so didn’t have to deal with that. The output was good, and the electricity for it was not much at all. We did need a water softener. Losing power for days at a time was not much fun with two young children. We had to use pool water to flush the toilets. If you are in an area where power outages happen, I would recommend a generator.
Our well is more than 500 ft and about 1 1/2 gallons a minute. We are not in CA. We recently had our pump depth adjusted but I can’t remember the details. The water fills the whole depth so it is more than enough saved for empty nesting needs. Our plumber, putting in a bathroom in a dependency, wants us to consider a larger holding tank so we have plenty for guests who take really long showers.
They had to drill through so much granite for our well that we had tiny pebbles coming out the faucets until we installed a whole house filter. Then we started having problems with our water and it turned out the pipe from the well to the tank under the house was just full of granite sludge. The well guy cleaned them out, but he did a bunch of other stuff before he got to that point. It wasn’t a situation he seemed to have ever encountered before.
We have been working on a rural building project that has grown and grown for the last five years. When I started out, I still thought budgets were possible. Wells are scary because it is impossible to budget for them. Good Luck! I will cross my fingers for you.
740 foot well here. 5HP pump. It takes a huge amount of power on startup. The problem with getting a generator is that it has to be sized for this one huge draw which is way overkill for the rest of the house. Ours was around $20K 11 years ago, and it was a shoddy job, so we had to replace the pump and pipe down to it 2 years ago(another $8K). Make sure all parts are PVC of required thickness and all fasteners are stainless. Don’t let them use galvanized anything anywhere in the system.
For well drilling in Maine last year we paid $12/ft for the well and $13/ft for casing. Ended up getting 5 gal/min at 120 feet total cost $1745 (without the pump).
I would be ecstatic if I could get the job done for under $35k (everything installed, with tanks, pump, line running to the house etc). It looks like most of the wells in my area are anywhere from 310-390 feet.
Great info on the PVC and stainless fasteners too btw.
I would look into a whole house generator. We have a small generator from an ice storm at our last house and it is not powerful enough to run the well pump. And that is what we needed to run the most. The good news is that our power lines are buried so we have had very few power outages.
yeah, get a whole house generator. For sure.
We have a well, a great well, a well that didn’t cost us an arm and a leg and the water is treated to take out iron and it tastes great. It’s 140 feet and flows at 23 gal/min., which sounds impossible to me but my husband swears this is what it is rated. I think he’s got the wrong number in his head.