Drill a well or get water trucked?

[MooseRiverTrapper]

Looking for opinions here for household use.

Can haul a lot of water for household use for the price of well. Clean, treated water.

Friends have issues with the well water being hard on appliances (dishwashers,washing machines), smell, taste. Once you have a well drilled you have nearly unlimited water to use.

Thoughts?

[Cement Bench]

how deep are the weeks in your area

[MooseRiverTrapper]

Drilling reports are 100’. I think this location may be less.

[nimrod]

We have a cistern holed 2000 gal cost to fill is 160, no smell not a thing to do but use the water, 2 trucks a month, family use

[bonedogg]

100% dependent on the area's water quality. My one friend's wife's hair turned from blonde to orange from the rust in their water......
another house I have been to, the water stunk sooooo bad that he can't sell his house! smells like a sewer backed up

[Alberta bull hunter]

My Cistern is either 4200 or 4500 Gallon. Water truck brings 3000 gallon so i have it figured to where i can measure to make sure we take the full load, he charges 165 bucks per load no matter if you take it all or not. With 2 of us lasts roughly 2 months till we can fit a whole load again, i imagine with more in the family it would go alot faster.

[reddeerguy2015]

Family of four here. We use about 300 gallons a day. Farm/watering use included.

Good quality water. About 5 to 10 g/min well.

[boah]

Originally Posted by nimrod

We have a cistern holed 2000 gal cost to fill is 160, no smell not a thing to do but use the water, 2 trucks a month, family use

$320 x 12= $3840/ year.
Wouldn’t take long to pay for a well.

http://www.summersdrilling.com/wells.html

[saskbooknut]

It depends on the aquifer you will be drawing on.
Some areas have saline water, sulphurous stink, iron, etc.
Some wells yield limited volume, or are very deep costing big $$
Your area will dictate the odds of good sweet water from a well. Wells have operating costs as well as drilling costs.
Our range property is in an area that has saline layers under it, not far from a Potash mine. A welll would be a bad bet when all the neighbuors are trucking water to cisterns or having it delivered.

[ghfalls]

I’ve had a cistern before and there is zero chance I’d buy a house on a cistern. In my opinion, if the area I was looking to buy was full of poor water and poor wells , I’d buy elsewhere. If you already have property, there are options to make poor water better. An endless supply of free water is very valuable.

[liar]

had this same dilemma about 8 years ago . went with a well but i still question if it was the right choice . its a tough call . if there are others in the area that get water trucked in you may be able to get on a " milk run " where they top you up regularly at a reduced cost .
hauling water yourself can save $$$ but for 8 months of the year in this country it could be a real pia .
As far as an " endless " supply of water from a well , that is not always the case . i have seen wells slough in and get damaged beyond repair . i also know people who have drilled dry holes . do that once and the cistern would seem awful cheap .
My only advice would be " once you make your decision , own it and dont look back "

[orangerr]

Link to website that shows wells in Alberta Shows depths etc
http://groundwater.alberta.ca/WaterWells/d/

[MooseRiverTrapper]

Originally Posted by boah

$320 x 12= $3840/ year.
Wouldn’t take long to pay for a well.

http://www.summersdrilling.com/wells.html

That’s about 4 cubes per month. We currently are using 2 cubes monthly.

Great info guys. Thanks

[MooseRiverTrapper]

Great info thanks

[liar]

its been mentioned to check other wells in the area . this is good info but , at my last place , we had a well that flowed about 20 gpm . the neighbor , literally across the road , drilled a few ( 3 i believe) dry wells looking for water for his cattle . this was within a mile .
a co worker , years ago , drilled a dry hole and then got a well about 100 yds away .
that is the big risk with drilling a well . there are no guarantees

[MooseRiverTrapper]

Originally Posted by MooseRiverTrapper

That’s about 4 cubes per month. We currently are using 2 cubes monthly.

Great info guys. Thanks

Sorry 10 cubes monthly

[Trap30]

Had both:

Our previous property had a cistern. Good clean water but you learn to conserve it- no 20 minute showers. I hauled the water myself from a pump station about 3.5 miles away. My Sunday morning chore...started out with a 300g tank in the back of the truck, eventually moved up to a 1500g tank on a flat deck. Hauling it myself wasn't too bad except for when it was cold the valve would freeze shut before i made it home.... We were using about 6 cubes a month, I think we were paying $4 a cube from the County. That was for 4 of us and lots of horses.

Now at a different property in a different part of the Province we have a well that gives us 50g/minute but is in a shale bed, has a lot of silt, hard on appliances and has a sour smell to it...I spend 60 dollars every couple of months on filters to reduce the silt and smell..I probably should be changing them every month.

End result, monthly cost is about the same, bill vs filters and appliances vs. fuel...not counting my time 2-3 hours every couple of weeks. Not much can go wrong with your cistern, relatively low maintenance (they do need to be cleaned every couple of years) ..the above ground pump can go but that's easily replaceable/repairable. If I had to, I could always drop a pump down into the cistern and pump out of the top of the cistern. I did this once when the power was out for a few days, run a pump off of a genny to water the horses and packed water into the house for cooking and drinking...

As stated there are no guarantee's drilling a well and they can fail in many different ways and none of them are cheap or easy and you have no water until it's fixed.

IMO..The perfect system is both...have a well that fills a cistern on a float or other shut off system. You always have a few thousand gallons in reserve that is fill-able/use-able if necessary.

If your building new, and decide on a cistern, I would put it in the basement,not underground. Cleaner, easier and you don't have to heat another building in the winter.

My ,02 cents

Trap30

[pikeslayer22]

Well

[nimrod]

This, if I was to do this again, we do have ours in the house, so no extra cost to heat.

IMO..The perfect system is both...have a well that fills a cistern on a float or other shut off system. You always have a few thousand gallons in reserve that is fill-able/use-able if necessary.

If your building new, and decide on a cistern, I would put it in the basement,not underground. Cleaner, easier and you don't have to heat another building in the winter.

My ,02 cents

Trap30

[JeanCretien]

We have a well. If I was doing it again, I’d get a well.
Big iron drilling is expensive but they were very good to deal with and very informative before you sign the contact.


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[AndrewM]

Depends on the ground water quality. Grab a sample from a neighbor and get it tested. See if it is drinkable or not. Pending on your location you may be able to load water yourself at a fill station in a neighboring town.

[tirebob]

Originally Posted by AndrewM

Depends on the ground water quality. Grab a sample from a neighbor and get it tested. See if it is drinkable or not. Pending on your location you may be able to load water yourself at a fill station in a neighboring town.

I am on a well at about 280ft deep and it pumps into a cistern in the basement which we pull from. We have never had a supply issue in the 2 years we have been there and the water is clear and cean with no smell or variation on this throughout the year. Clean, constant and consistent.

Now my neighbour who is just across the road from us has a well at the same depth and it is just as clean and fresh but he says when he is watering his lawn it sometimes runs out of pressure and he has to let it build back up for a bit.

At my sisters house in BC, she has terrible water from her well. Stinky and so hard on equipment they spend crazy amounts of money just upkeeping everything, but her next door neighbour maybe 500 feet away has beautiful clear water coming from their well.

My point is that your neighbours water may not always be a good indicator. You never know if they are into a different aquaphor or not.

[AndrewM]

Originally Posted by tirebob

I am on a well at about 280ft deep and it pumps into a cistern in the basement which we pull from. We have never had a supply issue in the 2 years we have been there and the water is clear and cean with no smell or variation on this throughout the year. Clean, constant and consistent.

Now my neighbour who is just across the road from us has a well at the same depth and it is just as clean and fresh but he says when he is watering his lawn it sometimes runs out of pressure and he has to let it build back up for a bit.

At my sisters house in BC, she has terrible water from her well. Stinky and so hard on equipment they spend crazy amounts of money just upkeeping everything, but her next door neighbour maybe 500 feet away has beautiful clear water coming from their well.

My point is that your neighbours water may not always be a good indicator. You never know if they are into a different aquaphor or not.

Yes but without a sample that is all you have for an option. The sample is to check if it is drinkable or not. Service provided for free at local hospitals. Risk escalates if no neighbours have a good well.

Depending on where you are in the province should dictate what formation the water will be coming from. Some areas are more predictable than others.
With that said when I was on an acreage by Cochrane, I had two wells in two different formations and both weren't very good but both were safe to drink. I used to fill up water for my hot tub in Cochrane and it cost like $2 to get a tote full to fill the tub.

[BlackHeart]

Cost of delivery and water will always go up up up.

I made the mistake 20years ago of looking at the price of a well vs the delivery cost and it made no sense to drill.........$65 per 3000 delivery vs 7-8K for a well.

Now forward 20 years. Delivery is $170 and will still keep increasing in price.

Even hauling it myself......5 years ago it was $1 per 100 gallons.....now its $1 per 46 gallons (and only because Clearwater is fighting with the county and not passing the full cost on to us)......if the county has its way, it will $1 per 1 gallon eventually.

So even hauling it yourself is not a great option.

There is the independence/prepper concept to consider.....if society had a major melt down, water would be a big issue for most who depend on public utilities. Heck a major ice rain storm that shuts down electricity for a few months would also shut down your water supply. On your own, you could survive with a generator to run your well pump.

If you drill a good well and it is well built, it should be an asset for a long time to come.

[bloopbloob]

I have no idea what is a better option for you. I will throw in my two nickles about hauling water. We have a massive reverse osmosis system at work. It was destroyed by freezing. Outsourced RO water, brought it in by trucks, daily for almost 2 months. Total dissolved solids (TDS) is acceptable to our standard at 40ppm or less. What we were getting was 20ppm at the source, but the transport tanks were so dirty that it was hitting 400-800ppm at delivery. I check our water every day with a digital TDS tester. Our system was usually only 10 ppm. Not really an answer to your question, but something to think about.

[roper1]

Blackheart's got the goods!

[Big Grey Wolf]

I have had wells and cistern. Haul water once per month with 1100 gallon tank, Total cost around $20/month for city water, would never go back to well unless lived in BC.

[Sundancefisher]

https://www.watercache.com/rainwater

[Buckhead]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

https://www.watercache.com/rainwater

That's a viable option and like a system that we had on the farm years ago.
It has to be set up properly and proper filters. You would not believe the crud that comes off your roof when it rains. Bugs, bird droppings, cat litter, all kinds of nasties.