Water Well Drilling in Palm Beach County

What a new well costs in Palm Beach County

For a standard residential potable well in the western communities — 4-inch casing, drilled to the Surficial Aquifer, with a new submersible pump, pressure tank and wiring — budget roughly $6,500 to $12,000. The spread is real, and it comes down to four things: total depth, how much casing has to be set and grouted, the pump horsepower your depth and pressure demand require, and how far the well sits from the house and the electrical panel.

An irrigation-only well is cheaper, often $4,500 to $8,000, because it does not need potable-grade construction, sanitary sealing to the same standard, or drinking-water treatment on the back end. If your only goal is to stop paying utility rates to irrigate a large lot, this is usually the fastest payback in the western communities.

Two costs people forget. First, permitting and water testing — modest, but not zero, and non-negotiable. Second, treatment. Raw well water out here is almost never ready to drink: iron, hydrogen sulfide and hardness are the norm. Plan on a treatment system after the well, typically $2,500 to $5,500 depending on your test results. We would rather tell you that up front than have you discover it the week after the rig leaves. See well water filtration for what that side involves.

We do not quote a well without seeing the property. Anyone who does is guessing at your depth and will "discover" the difference mid-job.

How deep does a well need to be here?

In the western Palm Beach County communities most residential potable wells land between 80 and 160 feet. Irrigation wells are often shallower, sometimes 40 to 80 feet, because the water only needs to be wet, not clean.

Depth is not a preference, it is dictated by geology. We drill until we hit a sand formation that will actually yield water at the rate your household needs, then set casing past the unstable and shallow-contaminated layers above it. Going deeper than necessary wastes your money; stopping short gives you a well that runs sandy or drops out in May when the water table is at its lowest.

This is the single biggest reason old wells fail out here. A well drilled shallow in 1978 in The Acreage may have been fine for decades, then stopped keeping up once the neighborhood filled in and dry-season drawdown got deeper. If your well produces air, spits sand, or loses pressure only in spring, depth is usually the culprit — and that is a diagnosis we make before recommending a replacement.

Permits, setbacks and the rules that actually apply

You cannot legally drill a water well in Palm Beach County without a water well construction permit issued before work begins. The county's Environmental Resources Management department administers it under the state's water well construction rules, and the well has to be constructed by a licensed water well contractor. We handle the filing as part of the job.

The rules that most often change where a well can go are the setbacks: a potable well has to sit a required distance from septic tanks and drainfields, property lines, and any potential contamination source on the lot. On a one-acre Acreage parcel with a septic system and a drainfield already in place, that can leave a surprisingly small window of legal, drillable ground. We work that out during the site visit, before you have paid for anything.

Abandoning an old well has rules too, and they are not optional — an unused well is a direct pipe into the aquifer that supplies your drinking water. See well abandonment.

One more practical note: a rig needs access. If the only route to the drill site is between a pool cage and a fence, we need to know that before the truck is on your street, not after.

How long the whole thing takes

The drilling itself is usually one to two days for a residential well. Setting the pump, tank and wiring is typically another day. So the physical work is a matter of days, not weeks.

The schedule is driven by permitting, not drilling. Expect a few weeks from signed proposal to water at the tap in a normal case, most of it waiting on the permit. Emergency situations — a dead well and a family with no water — we prioritize, and in the meantime we can often get a temporary supply arrangement working while the paperwork moves.

After the well is in, we pull a water sample. Iron, sulfide and hardness results determine what treatment you need, and we size that system off your actual numbers rather than a template. If you would rather see the water quality picture for your specific community first, start with water quality testing.