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dealing with a new water well failure nightmare
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jfqc
Posted 11/29/2020 19:36 (#8633632)
Subject: dealing with a new water well failure nightmare


se montana
about 3 weeks ago, I had an old shallow 30 foot water well start losing flow and sucking air (pump cavitating). It is my only well for my late fall grazing so pretty important to say the least. I fooled around with a few different submersibles before concluding that the well was dry.

I called a well driller to come and drill a new well. He made it out within a weeks notice, and found a 5 gpm vein of water at 80 feet down. I was there when he drilled it, and I wasn't very confident that would be enough flow for my herd of cows, so I told him to keep looking for a better vein. It was dry all the way down to 320 feet, at that point I told him to pull out and take the first 5gpm and Id have to make it work.

Well, when he got done casing and sandpacking the first 100 feet and he bailed it at a rate of 5pm for 1 hour and left, assuring me there was 5gpm there. After pumping on it for 8 hours to water cows, it has dropped to 3.5 gpm and sucking air and cavitating pump , running dry.

I've been in contact with driller several times and told him there was not 5gpm, and hes been good at returning calls and contacting me. He cant believe that its not maintaining 5 gpm. He suggested I try different pumps and drop more pipe in the well, which I did and didn't help with the fact that the water just isn't there. When shut off, and rested, well will put out 5 gpm for about 4 hours, then it drops off to 3.5 and sucks air.

I got the bill yesterday for $10200 and I'm not sure how to handle it. He estimated $40/foot cost when I first called him. Is it my obligation to pay full price for a failed well? At 3.5 gpm I consider it a failure as it wont water very many head. I don't want to burn bridges with one of the only two local well drillers, but I'm not sure he should expect full price.

How would stocktalk readers handle this situation? Am I a fool for writing the check and moving on? I plan to run pipeline in the spring from a good well to fix this mess.


thanks for your opinion.


Edited by jfqc 11/29/2020 19:39
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