To maintain a water well, what are the estimated annual maintenance costs?
I am considering having a water well drilled to use for watering a new lawn I am planning to start this fall. The cost for drilling the well and installing the pump and running electricity to the pump was quoted at almost $1500. Aside from this initial up front costs, what regualar maintenance costs should I anticipate. I have a neighbor who said he considered a well, but the upkeep on it turned him away. He mentioned the water needing to be treated, wells closing up and needing to be cleared out, etc. I watered my grass a lot this summer and the water big was quite expensive, but I don’t want to trade one big expense for another. I’m mainly getting the well to save money because we already have city water service.
I guess part of it depends on where you live and the water you end up with. I live in rural Maine and do not have access to town water (our town has not public water). When I bought my house I had a new well drilled (the old one was shared and on a neighbors property so the bank made me get my own). The drilling, piping, pump, and all that was almost $5000 and this included water testing and shocking (pouring bleach in and running until its flushed) until it passed state water tests. Other than the electricity to run the pump I have no upkeep costs on my well. If you do not plan to drink this water as you have town water you may not care if it passes these tests, but if you are going to go to the expense of having a well drilled you may as well get completely off the town water. Good Luck!
I guess part of it depends on where you live and the water you end up with. I live in rural Maine and do not have access to town water (our town has not public water). When I bought my house I had a new well drilled (the old one was shared and on a neighbors property so the bank made me get my own). The drilling, piping, pump, and all that was almost $5000 and this included water testing and shocking (pouring bleach in and running until its flushed) until it passed state water tests. Other than the electricity to run the pump I have no upkeep costs on my well. If you do not plan to drink this water as you have town water you may not care if it passes these tests, but if you are going to go to the expense of having a well drilled you may as well get completely off the town water. Good Luck!
References :
Very little to maintain. I had to purchase a pressure switch in the past 20 years (about 20 dollars). YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE DRINKING QUALITY OF YOUR WATER AS YOU WILL BE USING IT FOR THE LAWN. I have to question where you got such a cheap price on drilling. Around here the typical well will cost about 1000 dollars plus 15 to 20 dollars per foot (of depth). Most wells being 150 to 200 feet deep.
References :
LIFE
I live on a farm and we always have had wells. You only purify the system ONCE at the beginning and I personally check the system every 5 or so years. The average pump has lasted me approx 10+ years and the $1500 is a good price to have them dig a new one. Replacement pumps are around $600.00 installed. Other than that, electricity in the Southwestern Pittsburgh area is cheap for the well to run. Good Luck!!!
References :
$1500? for a well to be drilled? WoW!!!
I paid over $7000 for my well to be drilled. It’s 290 deep, of which, 190 is casing. I have a 32 gal. tank, the pump runs on 220 current, it has a 7 gal. per minute output of water.
I also have a water treatment system.
To be quite honest, I don’t think the overall cost to run/maintain the system is all that bad. My electric bill is less than $100 per month, and believe me when I tell you, we use a lot of electricity.
Imo, I’d get the well done and go from there.
References :
My entire life has been spent on several properties, all supplied water by wells.
If the well was properly drilled and cased, it should not close up and the water should be pure enough to drink right out of the ground.
The water will need purification only if you are getting surface water and not water from the aquifer.
If you put in a submersible pump that fits into the bottom of the well beneath the water and pushes the water up out of the well, and insulate the pressure tank and plumbing properly for the winter, electricity to run the pump should be your only cost for many years.
Jet pumps are cheaper than submersible pumps, but they fit on top of the well and they do require fiddling with every so often mostly from air getting into the system and loosing the "prime" or ability to suck the water out of the well.
References :
Have had several wells drilled and installed and maintained the pumps myself.
owned our home with a well for 5 years now, we have not had any maintenance on the well as yet, only cost is for electricity, wells are great for both watering lawns and for the household, besides saving money buying water, some cities charges sewer taxes base on water usage. also the well water has no chemicals added , our water table is 18 feet ,our well is 85 feet,
References :
I do not understand what costs your neighbor was talking about; After living here for almost 40 years the only cost we had for our well was to replace the pipe that goes down in the ground and that was just 2 years ago, and we had to replace the water storage tank, since the house was built in the 1940s I think that is a pretty good thing as far as maintance goes. I would ask him what maintance he is talking about.Make sure you can drill a well, where we live they said if we hooked up to city/county water we had to disconnect our well.
References :
me