Well Pump Repair & Replacement in Palm Beach County

What pump repair and replacement costs

Rough numbers so you can tell whether a quote is sane:

Pressure switch or pressure tank: a switch is a small repair; a replacement pressure tank typically runs $450 to $900 installed depending on size. A waterlogged tank is the single most common cause of low pressure and short-cycling, and replacing it often solves what looks like a pump problem.

Control box or capacitor (common after a lightning season): usually $250 to $600.

Submersible pump replacement: typically $1,400 to $3,200 installed, including pulling the old pump, new pump and motor, wire, and any drop pipe that has to be replaced on the way out. Depth is the main driver — a pump at 140 feet costs more to set than one at 70.

Jet pump replacement (above-ground, on shallower wells): generally $900 to $1,800.

What should make you suspicious is a company that arrives at a no-water call and quotes a full pump replacement without ever checking the breaker, the pressure switch or the tank pre-charge. We check those first, every time, and a meaningful share of our no-water calls end as a small repair.

How to tell a pump problem from a well problem

They are not the same thing, and the difference is thousands of dollars. A quick field guide:

Likely the pump or equipment: no water with a tripped breaker or humming control box; pressure that builds then collapses immediately; the pump running constantly and never reaching cut-out; short-cycling every few seconds; water pressure that is bad all the time regardless of season.

Likely the well itself: pressure and volume are fine in October and terrible in April; the pump runs a while, then delivers air and then water again; sand in your aerators and toilet tanks; the problem gets worse the longer you run irrigation. Those point to the water level dropping to the pump intake, or a failed screen — both are well problems, and see well drilling for what replacement involves.

We test for both before quoting. Selling a homeowner a new pump for what is actually a shallow, worn-out well is the most expensive mistake in this trade, and it does not fix the water.

The pressure tank nobody thinks about

If you take one thing from this page: your pressure tank is the part that kills pumps. Inside it is a bladder holding an air charge. When that bladder fails, the tank fills with water, and the pump then starts and stops every few seconds instead of every few minutes. Motors are not damaged by running — they are damaged by starting. Short-cycling can take years off a pump in a single season.

The tell is easy: tap the side of the tank. The top should sound hollow and the bottom solid. If it sounds full all the way up, or the pump cycles rapidly when you run a single tap, the tank is done.

We check tank pre-charge on every service call, and we replace the tank whenever we install a new pump. Putting a brand new pump on the tank that destroyed the last one is how you end up doing this again in three years.

Iron and sulfur are a pump problem too

Well water in the western communities carries dissolved iron, and iron does two things to your equipment. It abrades pump impellers, and it feeds iron bacteria — a slimy buildup that coats the well screen, the drop pipe and the inside of your pressure tank, restricting flow until it looks exactly like a failing pump.

So when we are out for a pump problem on a well with heavy iron, we tell you the honest version: replacing the pump fixes today's symptom, but if nothing changes upstream you will be back here. Proper iron filtration and periodic well disinfection protect the equipment you just paid for, and they stop the orange staining on your fixtures and laundry at the same time.

That is the advantage of using one company for the well, the pump and the treatment: nobody gets to blame the other guy's equipment.