Water Well Drilling & Service - Advice from the Pros

The answer to this question depends on your planned use, county requirements and the availability of water in the area where your property is located. In general counties require a minimum of 1 gpm sustainable production for a minimum of 4 hrs, banks that lend on homes are usually looking for a minimum of 2 gpm averaged over a 2 hr period. In order to determine how much water you need you first need to look at the number of faucets and fixtures in your home. Today’s American home usually has 2 bathrooms (1 faucet ea, 1 toilet, 1 shower = 3 fixtures) a full kitchen with a sink (1 fixture), a laundry room with washer/dryer and laundry sink (2 fixtures). If you put all that together, a home of this nature has approximately 9 fixtures installed. If you use low flow toilets, faucets and shower heads your demand out of each fixture is a little less than 2 gpm. So in this situation if you were to open every faucet, flush every toilet, turn on every shower in this home you would be using 18 gp...

Well drilling is messy business. If you can imagine a young child making mud pies and cakes out in backyard that’s pretty much what our driller’s go home looking like on a daily basis. During the process of drilling we use water, dirt, mud alternatives, polymers and additives that mix with all of the returns that we are removing from your hole and it can be quite messy! If you are contracted for an air-rotary, hard-rock hole the mess made at your property will be much less. During the drilling process you will see granite cuttings or shavings that are being removed by our large air compressor, water run-off from the well itself or the water we are using as a part of the drilling process and most likely foam or dish-soap looking suds. Those suds are caused as a result of a lubricant that is used to keep the tooling moving in the hole and clean the hole while drilling. “Foam” as it is called in the drilling industry will not contaminate your well and just like doing the dishes, easily wa...

  The process of drilling a well can take as little as 4 days up to 4 weeks or more. This timeline is based on the type of drilling required, depth and diameter of the hole.  For a standard air-rotary rock hammer drilling job, the timeline can be quite short. A typical schedule is: Day 1: Move-in/Set-up of Equipment and preparation of the sanitary seal Day 2: Installation of the Sanitary Seal under the direction of county personnel and drilling of 60-200 ft. Day 3: Drilling and Installation of casing if well is less than 600 ft Day 4: If completed with drilling on previous day, clean-up and move out, if well is deeper than 600 ft continue drilling, can usually drill to around 800 ft. Day 5: Continue drilling if well is deeper than 800 ft, can drill to 900 ft (100 ft per day after 800 ft) For a standard mud-rotary, alluvial drilling job, the timeline is about a week. A typical schedule is: Day 1: Move-in/Set-up of Equipment and preparation of the sanitary seal Day 2: Installati...

We have previously discussed the variety of underground formations found in Southern California and this adds to the unpredictability of well collapse during drilling. A well collapsing while drilling can be attributed to the formation of the property in which work is being completed or it can be attributed to a driller’s lack of preparedness. Let’s talk about being prepared first. At Heritage Well we have a step-by-step process in our drilling practices that we previously discussed in another article HERE. In a planned hard-rock air-rotary hole our team ensures that we have casing on site, ready to be installed. Having casing readily available allows our team to quickly install it in the hole and often times will save a hole from collapsing.  If the hole does collapse and our team is unable to complete it before it does there are several options for completion available to you. The first and most common option is called a “mud clean-out.” Most drilling contracts in Southern Califo...

  To keep loose sand and gravel from collapsing into the borehole, it is necessary to use well casing and screen. The screen supports the borehole walls while allowing water to enter the well; unslotted or blank casing is placed above the screen to keep the rest of the borehole open and serve as a housing for pumping equipment. Since the well screen is the most important single factor affecting the efficiency of a well, it is sometimes called the “heart of the well.” Installation of well casing must avoid excessive bending or vertical (downward compressive or upward tensile stresses) that can deform or crack casing materials. Damaged casing can reduce the well’s integrity and make it difficult or impossible to install pumping equipment. It may also be difficult to remove equipment for well maintenance or equipment repair if the well casing is not installed properly. It is important to calculate this downward pressure when designing the casing schedule. Most casing manufacturers pro...

In our area of Southern California wells average in depth of 500 ft or so. Some wells are shallower and some are deeper. The depth of your well is a highly debated item among drillers, property owners, neighbors and those amongst us in the industry. The truth is that your well will be as deep as you need it to be. Confusing you ask? Well drilling in Southern California is diverse. There is a large variance in the underground formation dictating the depth and type of drilling you will need to complete a well on your property. It is important to do a significant amount of research on these items when generating your quote for drilling. A driller who spends time researching this information should be able to provide you with a good idea of well depths around your property, the average production, the type of drilling needed based on the formation and the proper casing design to complete a well. All of these items tie into your total cost and depending on your budget you may agree or disag...

Every year at Heritage Well Service we meet with well over a hundred households in the Southern California area with respect to their well drilling and pump installation needs. And because so many folks know our thoughts and feelings on all things related to wells from this website, they often ask us, "Who are some of the other contractors and competitors in the area?" Never one to shy away from being blatantly honest about the competition, here is a list of some of the companies that have a solid footing in the Southern California area: LO Lynch Quality Wells and Pumps – LO Lynch specializes in well drilling projects of all sizes and large pump installation. They have been serving their community since 1945 hailing from San Jacinto and servicing all of Southern California. Stehly Brother’s Drilling Inc.- Having been in business since 1994, Stehly Brothers specializes in air-hammer drilling in the San Diego area. The company also installs water well pumps and storage tank sys...

First of all, the answer is yes, a permit is required for your drilling project. In California, by state law only a licensed C-57 contractor can pull a well drilling permit. We have shared in a few articles before and will share again, each respective county has different rules and requirements to permitting a well so its best to check with your local office for rules and regulations regarding your well project. We focus on drilling wells in North Eastern San Diego County, Riverside and San-Bernardino Counties. Here is a quick breakdown of major rules in each county, refer to the county websites referenced for the full list of regulations regarding drilling a water well.  San Diego County: Setbacks from Property Line: None Setbacks from Sewer Lines: Setbacks from Manhole Cover: Setbacks from Septic Tank and Leach Field: 100 ft Sanitary Seal installation: Minimum of 20 ft, residential projects sealed with bentonite chips or concrete slurry Concrete Slab: Minimum 2’x2’x4” slab requir...

Site selection is a critical step in drilling a water well for any size project. The first thing to take under consideration are any county requirements for setbacks from your property lines, septic tanks/leach fields, existing wells and structures. Each county has a different set of rules that govern their jurisdiction on what these are, we recommend you start with these requirements prior to having anyone to your site to help determine your drill site. After you have looked at county rules and requirements the next step is to determine where a well could be placed that is not obtrusive to your project plans yet can still be accessed once the home and/or property development is completed. A well will always need to be accessible for service in the future. This means keeping roads open and brush away from the completed well.  After you have looked at this item you will next want to weigh access to electricity. Your well after it is completed will need to have a submersible pump ins...

The equipment used to drill a residential water well is very large and obtrusive when it’s brought to your property. For reference a water well drilling rig is about the size of a semi-truck and trailer. The rig itself is about 40 ft long and 8.5’ wide. Along with the rig are several pieces of support equipment that are necessary in the installation of your well. When we move our rig and equipment on site we also need a place next to the drill site for our stem trailer, support truck(s) that fuel and provide equipment for the rig, a water truck and a mud machine that is trailer mounted. We like to tell our clients that we need a minimum 70’x40’ spot to drill your well with the well site in the middle of the pad. Follow a link for a site set-up sheet here .  A water well drilling rig is a large unit mounted on the back of a big horsepower semi truck (like what hauls material down the highway). The rig itself weighs around 70K pounds and is a specially designed piece of machinery tha...