Well problem. Worth $2300?

[fatjay]

I have city water for inside and well for outside. I keep my well for washing cars, watering lawn, and filling the pool. I have city water because a chemical spill from a near by plant contaminated my well and rendered it unsuitable for human consumption, but fine for everything else. A couple years ago there was a break in the main upstream from me and it cut off water for 2 days. The ability to switch to the well really saved me. Other people in the area had given up their well entirely when the city water came, and they were feeling it. Having to use a 5gal bucket of water(from my outside tap) to flush toilets isn't fun, especially when you have kids.

I try to have at least some form of redundancy on everything, and wouldn't give up a redundancy given the choice.

 

[dodge man]

I do not even know how much water we use in a month. Our water bill is between $50 and $60 per month and there is a minimum charge no matter what. We switched to rural water for a couple of reasons. I recently retired from land surveying but my degree is in civil engineering and we designed water systems and water treatment plants. As a rule, water systems will supply better, safer water than a well. Not always the case but usually is. The other reason is a loss of power leaves you without water. In the 23 years we lived here I would guess only a total of 6 days without water. I can not tell you how many times we filled the bath tub with water because they were predicting power outages.

When the system came through if you committed to connect, it was very cheap, like $25 to hook up, later itç—´ more like $1000. Also if you did not commit to hook up they would not always run a water main in front of your house. If you lived three mile out of the way, they ran a main to your place. We did have to pay to run the line back to our house, which is 600 feet off the road. My shop sits between our house and road so this was a good time to put water in my shop. In our case if we had not signed up we would have been about a quarter mile from the nearest main.

 

[Valveman]

The average electric bill for a house water well is less than 5 bucks a month. To be on the high side I would add about 30 bucks a month for drilling the well, purchasing the pump, and maintaining the equipment for a lifetime. A lot depends on how deep the well is. When irrigating, and using lots of water, on average a 1HP pump can produce 750,000 gallons for about 100 bucks worth of electricity.

 

[radios1]

a well can be a lot cheaper than city water if you are required to connect to the city sewer if you use city water.. any time you use city water in that case, you have to pay an extra charge for using the sewer.:shocked: at least with a well, you don't have that charge!..

 

[Diggin It]

We just got county water about 15 years ago. Ain't never gonna get county sewers.

 

[BoylermanCT]

Did you then check the pump you took out to see if it was good?

I did, and the original pump was not working.

You can also look at renting a pump puller. My local rental place has one for $50 a day. Its a large tripod with 3 car tires with one attached to a large electric motor. Grab the pitless adaptor with a 6-8' metal pipe and pull the well pipe up and feed through the 3 tires. Turn the electric motor on and it slowly pulls the pump up. Works extremely well with poly pipe. Will work with metal pipe, but you have to stop each length to un-screw it.

 

[dragoneggs]

I personally like being on well water after moving from suburbia to rural. We are blessed with very good tasting water and it is our only choice. We share a well with our neighbor above us so maintenance/repair costs are split. We have steel pipe about 160ft and we had our old 1/2hp replaced a few years ago with a 3/4hp recommended. No way I could pull that myself.

Knowing that you don't use much well water, I would not pay someone to fix it. It doesn't sound like you would ever get the return on your investment. But I would try to least pull it myself it if it is poly pipe. No expense at this point. Then you can figure out the problem, find out whether the cost to fix is worth the convenience and emergency back up (another luxury).

I second the idea of catching some rain water. Due to some kind of recycling/preservation initiative, our county recently gave away for the asking (registering) a 55gal Poly barrel pre-fitted with a spigot on the bottom and a PVC inlet pipe/screen with an overflow valve. Easy to connect to an existing downspout. My wife and I played dumb and both registered for our household and we ended up with two! Nice to have some backup water for losing power in a dry spell... rare around here but I like redundancy if it is simple and cheap.

 

[radios1]

We just got county water about 15 years ago. Ain't never gonna get county sewers.

unless it gets mandated, like many areas have in various states!..

 

[dodge man]

Rural water is fairly easy to put in. It’s pressure pipe so it’s easy to engineer and get flow where it need to go. Sanitary sewer is an entire different game. It has to flow gravity and/or be pumped. It can be done, from an engineering point of view, but it would be very expensive.

 

[deserteagle71]

Had to have my well pump pulled a few days ago. For reference, here's the damage:

The well was put in 26 years ago; I essentially got a new system so I don't have to mess with it again in my lifetime!

 

[Diggin It]

Color me odd, but I like businesses small enough to hand write receipts.

 

[newbury]

Thanks downslope, that was kind of the answer I was looking for. I know how this works, someone comes on here asks if a price for something is fair, and people say they had that done last week for half of what they were quoted. I kind of expected posts like that. I was more looking for good reasons to fix the well I had not thought of.

So far our rural water has been 100% reliable. It痴 part of a very large system in terms of area, but mostly rural in nature. One of the water towers is within 5 miles. I do have an IBC tote I could use for emergencies but that would be a last resort. When we only had the well we were without water several times, probably once every two years on average, usually because of a lose of power.

Emergencies are designed for last resorts. Fill the tote, maybe drain and refill annually. If you lose power that often you may need a generator but for refrigerator etc. not for water.

 

[Fuddy1952]

At the very least I'd pull the old pump.
Up on ground check it all out...maybe it's a simple fix. If pump itself is bad maybe you could find a replacement at a good price.
A 140ft well in casing is worth a lot.

 

[radios1]

Had to have my well pump pulled a few days ago. For reference, here's the damage:
View attachment 664125

The well was put in 26 years ago; I essentially got a new system so I don't have to mess with it again in my lifetime!

this would have worked. it comes with the control box included too.. FloTec FP3342-12 Flotec FP3342 - 20 GPM 1-1/2 HP Deep Well Submersible Pump 3-Wire 230V w/ Control Box I see the guy is making big markups, even on the wire!..

 

[MarkF48]

Had a new pump, piping, and wire put in last fall to replace a similar 1/2 hp Goulds pump I installed back in 1986. Also had the well hydrofracked. The markup on materials is significant. I priced out the Gould's pump online and it could be found at about $600-700 with the control box

 

[coldsteelva]

I see the guy is making big markups, even on the wire!..

If you have to hire out a job, I try not to complain too much about the markups. If you could do the job yourself, you would, but a commercial business has overhead expenses like vehicles, insurance, licensing, business taxes, building leases, etc. They have to build those costs into the markups. The labor rate is generally to just pay the laborer (owner).

This small outfit even credited the customer $50 for helping out - that's pretty cool.

 

[grsthegreat]

I really think its funny when people complain about a contractor marks up their cost. Of course they do. Its the only way they can stay in business. I learned the hard way that just charging exactly what you paid for an item nearly ended my business. The hidden costs attributed to running a business is staggering. When i finally got serious and itemized every cost to my business using quickbooks, i had a rude awakening. I generally only add 15% markup on materials, but even this earns comments from customers occasionally.

 

[TnAndy]

You don't know that. You don't know that HIS pipe isn't partially collapsed or swelled from rust/corrosion or other blockage. You don't have any idea of the conditions at HIS place.

I was commenting on the half dozen I've done over the years. But I can always count on you to find something to pick at.