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I would also begin to wonder if this is something systemic with the area. In the greater Sedona area, water can be hit or miss.
There are some areas outside of the Sedona area that look like great opportunities until you find out that their aquifer is drying up and water will no longer be available.
That’s what I was kind of getting at here. I’m hearing this more and more around here. How do you protect yourself even on a “turn key”, do you just lose half of your investment when the water runs out and can’t be brought back?
No I think you gamble and drill another well or go deeper and pay the price.
And what happens when the gamble doesn’t pay off?
I think you will eventually hit water just may have to pay more and go deeper in that area. I don’t think the gamble is whether or not you will hit water. The gamble is in how deep you have to go and how much is that gonna cost. But I would definitely be talking with the well drillers as they have a pretty good idea about most areas they drill in where the water is and the typical depths they have to go. My comments are only concerning the southeast don’t know anything about out west.
I spent many years in the water industry here. Wells are notoriously tricky here in the mountains; because everything is solid bedrock you're never really drilling into underground aquifers/lakes - you're trying to hit seams where enough cross to keep your casing full of water. This is not easy to do at all and a lot of drillers just rely on experience and local knowledge about the likelihood of hitting a good seam. About 10 years ago we drilled two wells at a treatment plant about 75 yards apart. The first one produced over 200 GPM at 600 feet. The second one produced less than a gallon a minute at 1300 feet - essentially a dry hole. Add to that the fact that mountain geology is always changing - as the earth shifts the rock cracks in different ways, and wells can dry up in an instant as water finds a different seam with the new cracks.
Best thing they can try to do first is fracture the existing well - sometimes you can open the seams up wider and that solves your problem. If not, unless you have a decent sized property, drilling a new one is probably a waste of time and this place will have to truck in water or create a large cistern system.
200 gpm! That is insane. Never heard of having that much flow. The 1 gpm could work though although not what you want. The reality is at that depth with a 6 inch pipe you have a lot of water storage.
You are right about how finicky they can be. My neighbor gets like 32gpm at 200 fr and I get 2.5 at 515ft at my home. They told me not great but you have the storage at that depth. I didn’t know whether or not to believe them or not but I have had that well for over 20 years now with no problems running out of water. Fortunately. It’s still always a gamble though.
