Forest and sons pump11/30/2023 Question: Is there such a thing as drilling for water and simply not finding any?Īnswer: Sometimes if you’re not finding water, you can just drill deeper… but not always. That’s why we’re making an educated guess when we drill for water-it could be that your neighbor a mile down the road has a well with plenty of water, but you can’t find any… because the underground river has a bend in it that you can’t see. And like every other river, they have different thicknesses, ups, downs, curves, and bends. They’re called “aquifers,” but they’re really just rivers, exactly like the ones we have above ground. Question: Where is water stored in the ground, anyway?Īnswer: It might sound funny, but the water we’re drilling into comes from underground rivers. Colorado is very serious about water usage: they can even require you to install a meter, and send in a report each year of how much water you’ve actually used. Those are the common stipulations, but occasionally, they’ll even require that you run a geophysical log with a video camera you put down into the well. The annual withdrawal of water from the well shall not exceed a specified number of acre-feet.The irrigated area shall not exceed more than a specified acreage of lawn and garden.You must install plain and grouted out casing between certain intervals.You can only drill into the aquifer specified on the application, at the specified depth.You cannot use more than 15 gallons per minute.You must drill within 200 feet of the exact area you specify on the application.Permits often have stipulations on them, called “conditions of approval,” that look something like this: To apply for a permit, you fill out an application, prove your ownership of the land by sending in a copy of the deed, then pay a fee (somewhere between $100-$500 or so) and hopefully in six weeks your permit is approved and you’re ready to go. Question: Do I need a permit before drilling a well? If so, who issues them and what do they cost?Īnswer: In Colorado, well permits are issued by the Colorado Division of Water Resources. But my advice to people is to find a well driller they trust, and give them the exact address and legal description of the lot so they can give them a true idea of the cost. If you’re lucky enough to just need a small air driller and the drilling is super easy, it might only cost $7,000-8,000. Our company has three rigs: a small in/out rig, a bigger one, and a “monster” rig the bigger the rig you need, the higher the cost. Your total cost will depend on three basic variables: If you’re drilling into the Denver, Arapahoe or Laramie-Fox Hills aquifers, you can plan on spending $15,000-30,000 or even up to $50,000 depending on the area you’re in and a few other factors. Question: How much does a well cost, generally speaking?Īnswer: Obviously that number depends on several factors, but generally, in the Front Range of Colorado, if you’re drilling into the Dawson aquifer and you’re staying under 500 feet, you can plan on spending about $15,000. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s usually very close you’ll often have conditions similar to what your neighbors have. We can also make an educated guess on how deep we’ll have to drill and what the ground conditions will be like. Based on your aquifer, and what your neighbors have, I’ll know whether you’ll be able to have only “inside water” (just water to supply the inside of your home), or enough to have outside water that you can use for irrigation, etc. I do this for people all the time: I can pull up aerial photographs that will show me every well within a certain number of miles around, and I’ll look at the ones closest to where your lot is. If you do this, the driller can look up the lot on a map and see which aquifers you have access to. We hope you find this information helpful! – Ron Stauffer Question: When a homeowner is buying land to build a home on, what should they do if they need a well?Īnswer: If you’re considering a lot to build on, you should call a well driller before you buy the land, and give them the address and legal description. For this guest post, we’ve asked our well drilling contractor for information about how wells work, what their associated costs are, and how the process of drilling for water and maintaining a well might affect a homeowner we’re building for. Introduction: About 75% of the homes we build use a well to supply their water.
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