Well Drilling - North Texas

[slappie]

Guys,

I live about 25 miles north of Dallas in Prosper Texas.

I want to get a well dug for irrigation purposes, and they are quoting about 800 feet as the depth they need to go to.

$30-40 per foot is what the local companies want for drilling.

Does anyone know of any cheaper drillers that would work in my area.

I've got 13 neighbors that want wells also, and we've tried calling some East Texas well diggers that are about 1/2 that price but they say they've got enough work to last them out where they are.

I really don't want to spend that much on a well but then again I don't want $800 water bills either without the well.

Thanks

 

[Kendall69]

Yep, well drillers have you by the nads, always. What I did was offer a flat fee, to a guy 9 he came down about 5k, because I said, no hurry,and you can dig on weekends, or off days. Still I went down 500ft, and it cost me 20K.

I would suggest sharing a well, but I did that with my neighbor and it was a disaster. It cause such a war that we both drilled two wells 100ft apart from each other at 20k each, the driller was happy. Actually I'm also happy as I don't have to get the neighbors opinion or approval for anything I do to the well, it's done my way.

 

[DieselPower]

800 feet. Shoot, you just might hit oil and end up making money on this deal.

 

[Jimbrown]

Sorry Diesel Power I may be way off base but and all my kin that used to be wild catters are out of business ( and broke ) but i think/bet all the shallow oil in Texas was pumped out long ago. I guess you got to go ten times 800 or better for any new oil. And it is about $20 or so around here for the first 400 and then it goes to $22 or so and bet after 600 it really goes up so $30 or 40 for 800ft does not seem out of place. glad I don't have to dig it.

 

[mocassincreekranch]

Slappie,
I had a 480ft well drilled 2 years ago by Double J Waterwell Drilling from Grosbeck Tx, Phone 254-625-0965,254-729-3762 Jimmy Lenamond, I dont know if he will come to North Texas but I do know he was the most honest well driller I met when I was looking. I had bids anywhere from $5600.00 to $12500.00, the East Tx drillers were the most expensive. I had some tell me they would have to go 700 to 800 ft to hit good water. Double J was the bid for $5600.00 and he told me he would hit good water between 400 to 500 ft. Good luck on your quest.

 

[john_bud]

Guys,

I live about 25 miles north of Dallas in Prosper Texas.

I want to get a well dug for irrigation purposes, and they are quoting about 800 feet as the depth they need to go to.

$30-40 per foot is what the local companies want for drilling.

Does anyone know of any cheaper drillers that would work in my area.

I've got 13 neighbors that want wells also, and we've tried calling some East Texas well diggers that are about 1/2 that price but they say they've got enough work to last them out where they are.

I really don't want to spend that much on a well but then again I don't want $800 water bills either without the well.

Thanks

This might sound funny, but your hole and the 13 other holes are going to cost $400,000. Why not buy a well rig?

 

[CurlyDave]

I've got 13 neighbors that want wells also, and we've tried calling some East Texas well diggers that are about 1/2 that price but they say they've got enough work to last them out where they are.


This sounds like a business opportunity to me.

 

[true temper]

I have just what you need, a directional drilling rig it would not take much work to stand it upright. comes with 550'drill stem. cheap need to move it. drill your own well and one other will pay for it.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I have just what you need, a directional drilling rig it would not take much work to stand it upright. comes with 550'drill stem. cheap need to move it. drill your own well and one other will pay for it.

That's an image for you, watching a fella ride sideways on a directional rig going down instead of horizontally. The only thing more hilarious than that would be watching someone trying to get a reading on the head after four lengths of rod is in the ground.

I was once asked by a telco to justify using a directional bore instead of open trench for a cable installation. "Subterranean congestion" worked.

Getting back on topic about the cost of well drilling, I don't believe the water well drillers are any different from the rest of us contractors. They're not out there to rip people off, they're only trying to be compensated for their investments and the costs of doing business.

If they had a gold mine I can tell you that every boy with a father would be out there buying a rig and going into the well drilling business.

 

[jinman]

Guys,

I live about 25 miles north of Dallas in Prosper Texas.

I want to get a well dug for irrigation purposes, and they are quoting about 800 feet as the depth they need to go to.

$30-40 per foot is what the local companies want for drilling.

Does anyone know of any cheaper drillers that would work in my area.

I've got 13 neighbors that want wells also, and we've tried calling some East Texas well diggers that are about 1/2 that price but they say they've got enough work to last them out where they are.

I really don't want to spend that much on a well but then again I don't want $800 water bills either without the well.

Thanks

Ah yes...Prosper. I used to have an uncle who lived right across the street from the water tower back in the '60s when Prosper was just a tiny little town up on the side of the hill just north of Hwy 24 (what Hwy 380 used to be). Things have changed a bit since then, huh?

I live pretty darn far west of you in Wise County. We have good water from the Trinity sands here at about 400'. My well drilled about 6 years ago was $10 per foot plus the pump and tank. I'm sure it's a lot more expensive now, but your quote sure sounds expensive to me. I think you'll also hit good water before you get to 600 feet too.

You can give this guy a call. He is the waterwell expert in Wise County. He and his son run two drill rigs and he really knows wells. His name is Larry Bisidas and his business number is 940-627-3858. If he can't do it, he may be able to make a recommendation in your area. Also, Pete Pockrus used to have a waterwell drilling company in Denton, but I think Pete has been gone for years. What I'm thinking is that someone in Denton County might be more reasonable than your quote. A yellow page search might come up with a source. Good luck!

 

[scott_vt]

This might sound funny, but your hole and the 13 other holes are going to cost $400,000. Why not buy a well rig?

Mornin John,
Well rigs go for about $800,000 Yeah thats what I said too !

Strange but true !

 

[gsganzer]

I had this guy do some pump service for me a few years ago. I don't know what his drilling prices are, but he showed up when he was supposed to. With contractors these days, showing up when they say they will means an awful lot.

Madewell Well Svc
Address: 5972 Jackson Rd, Krum, TX 76249
Phone: (940) 387-4357

 

[gsganzer]

I wanted to keep this story separate from my first reply.

When I bought my house some years ago, I woke up one day and had no water. I went out to the pump house and found that the breaker was tripping (something was shorted down the hole). I was travelling quite a bit at the time, and arranged for a well water outfit to come out on the weekend to fix it when I'd be home. The next weekend the guy didn't show up.

I travelled again the next week, so we rescheduled again for the next weekend, again the guy failed to show up the following weekend. We rescheduled again for the next weekend.

The next weekend they were supposed to arrive at 10 AM. They didn't show up and I called, they were running late and would be there at noon. Didn't show up at noon, called him, said they were still running late and it would be 2 pm. To make a long story short, a well service truck pulls into my drive at 7 PM. Two kids, one 13 and the other 14 jump out. It seems the kids got lost driving to my place, compounded by the fact that they had to take back roads all the way, because neither of them were old enough to drive. A minute later a guy pulls into my drive in a fancy car. He climbs out and comes over to greet me. He has shiney rings on every finger, starch pressed shirt and slacks, fancy boots and hat and smells like a french #$&*.

Obviously, alarm bells are going off in my head. I show him the well house and pump controls and he asks if he can borrow my multi-meter to check the electrical. He does a little checking and then starts saying that something isn't correct with the power feed to the pump controls. he can't figure out that when he checks between the three wires, he has 220 between two of them, but then only 110 between one or the other and the common.

I'm smart enough, so I ask him "what's the deal slick?", before I get ready to send him packing. It turns out that he was a bail bondsman and his brother, the "well driller" was running late fishing a pump out of someones well after the homeowener backed over the well head.

Smartly, "slick" decided we'd wait until his brother arrived. Thankfully, his brother was pretty sharp and found a short in the wire 40' down the hole as we began to pull the pump. We fixed it and put everything back together. We decided that they'd come back on Monday and pull the entire length and replace some pretty rusted pipe sections and string new wire to the pump.

I never saw them again. I also was never asked to pay a dime (I was going to pay after all the work was complete.)

 

[redlevel]

Depending on what is covered in the "$30 to 40" a foot, that sounds pretty reasonable to me. What diameter well are you talking about? You said for irrigation purposes. How much volume of water? One hundred gpm? Five hundred gpm? One thousand gpm? When someone says you can hit "good" water at X00 ft., are they talking about good for residential use or for irrigation. On one of my farms I have a residential well that is 170 ft. deep. It yields about 12gpm with a one-half horse pump set at about 110 feet. I also have a ten-inch irrigation well that yielded 650 gpm when it was drilled. It has about twenty-five feet of stainless steel screen and a turbine pump. It is 565 feet deep. This well, as are most irrigation wells around here,is also gravel packed. That is in the Coastal Plain of Georgia.

I recently had a well drilled at my wife's homeplace. The driller hit rock at 118 feet and broke into an aquifer at 450 feet. The total price, including pvc casing and submersible pump was $4800. This particular driller guaranteed 3gpm or you don't have to pay. They say that is the absolute minimum for a residential well. This well actually yields about 15gpm with the one-half horse pump. The driller said I could easily pump 100gpm without drawing the well down. This is with six inch casing and one inch column.

My point is that for, say, an 8" diameter well with slotted pvc screen, or better, stainless steel screen, that doesn't sound like a bad price at all. If the price is just for a 4" hole in the ground and you pay extra for casing and screen, it sounds pretty steep. There are a lot of variables.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Check with your local water utility company. They sometimes have a small rig that they use and you may find someone there who is willing to do "weekend" work. It all depends how much water you need but you'll usually find some shallower than 800' if irrigation is all you want it for. Also consider digging a pit (pond or lake), using a smaller, shallower well to fill the pit and a bigger pump from the pit to feed the irrigation sysyem.

 

[slappie]

Thanks for all the help and replys guys!!!!

Excellent information.

All I know at this point is that the well, free and complete with pump and PVC casing is that price. They don't expressly guarantee that the well will produce water but if it doesn't they will drill another for you in a different location. There are two outfits here, Moser drilling and Earth Tech. My dad had Earth Tech drill his well and they had to drill it 3 times before they hit a good flow. His well is about 50 gpm or so, I believe. Not sure the diameter of the casing.

The tip about sharing a well is a good one. My brother and I live next door to each other and we will most likely go in half and share the well.

I don't really know much at this point, as you can see, except that the price sounds steep but I may be way off base.

Jinman, yes Prosper is definitely growing. I lived in Frisco 10 years ago when the only thing there was the Hacienda Ranch restaurant and Home Depot. Now you can't tell where Plano ends and Frisco begins!

Prosper is still "country" compared to that but there are definitely signs that the growth is coming. I am lucky to have 3.5 acres with my brother's 3.5 right beside me. At the back of my lot there is a wooded area that is really big and we've made this our camping/hammock/rope swing/BBQ/hangout area. To the back of that is Wilson Creek, a limestone bedded creek that runs all the way to McKinney for about 25 miles or so. We take the kids out there and ride around in our Polaris Ranger for fun.

Prosper is nice but the city is coming!!

Thanks guys.

 

[ToadHill]

My ex-boss had a really high quote for a well on his farm. He looked at the cost and for half of it he went to an equipment auction and bought a drill rig, drilled his own and about 20 others before he sold the rig for just what he paid for it.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

$30-$40 per foot drilled

I just started a thread on my drilled well and they are charging $9.00 per foot and they went 625'. At $30-$40 per foot I would of had a heart attack or told the wife we were going to carry water from the river and build a water tank.

He did say they would be going up next year because of a well tax the state or county is adding. But it was going to be more like $12.00 per foot next year.

 

[RandyB]

I to just found out that I'm having to install a new well, the old well casting which was two inch galvanized pipe has gone bad leaking water out under pressure. The leak seems to be down about ten plus feet so a new well is in order. This old well has served us well for over 40 plus years. The galvanized casing in down 383ft and the total depth of the well is 600ft thats into lime rock.The esimate for a new well with tank and pump is about 5000.00 here in Coastal Georgia.

 

[smitch99]

Wow does this thread hit home. I am a chicken farmer in East Texas and started to drill my own wells to save money. You can read more about my story on my website A1 Water Well Drilling and service. I have been charging $14 a foot plus equuipment cost and set up and I am not making a killing at that price. I would make killing in East Texas at $30 a foot but I think that I might loose money at that price in your area. You see in East Texas we drill with mud rotary. We use mud to wash up the cuttings that the bits produce. We have what is called unconsolidated formations. These are sand and shale formations with multiple layers of water. We can drill pretty fast most of the time. A typical borehole in East Texas will only encounter limited amounts of rock. If I had to drill through hundreds of feet of rock it would take me weeks and cost a fortune. I bet the guys in your area use air to drill. This takes a larger initial investment and cost more to operate but it is very fast in consolidated rock formations. With a down hole hammer and air you can drill through hundreds of feet of rock in a day. I bet that the differences in equipment and formations are the main reasons for the price differences. Hope this helps...feel free to contact me. I really enjoyed reading through the thread!!