Just six months after our first child was born, we purchased a homestead in North Idaho. Knowing how important water is, we carefully checked out the water source (a spring), and measured the flow a number of times through the summer before signing on the dotted line. Although it wasn’t a “gusher”, it would provide enough water for our household needs and irrigation of a garden and orchard. Several years later, we experienced a series of dry summers, culminating in an incredibly hot and dry year. Needless to say, this seriously impacted our spring’s output—as in, 12 minutes to produce 1 gallon of water! That’s only 120 gallons a day for a family of 4 plus irrigation in the heat of the summer. With sad hearts, we had to abandon our garden for the 3rd year in a row due to insufficient water.
Frustrated, we contemplated selling our beloved homestead and moving. But that depressing thought motivated us to look into drilling a well. We had not seriously considered this so far due to two issues:
1-Most of the wells in our area are either completely dry or have a very poor yield
2-Cost. As in $15-30k.
Those two factors combined set the stage for a bad scenario, as we knew that if we saved up the money to drill, we would have only one shot. And if that well turned out to be dry or nearly dry, we would have blown tens of thousands of dollars and would still have to move. You see, well drillers don’t drill for free just because you didn’t hit the water. You might get a discount on the second well (possibly?) but you are still out all that money and either has to take another shot in the dark or call it quits.
We considered having a “dowser” (aka witcher) do their thing to try and find water, but we couldn’t wrap our brains around that. The hang-ups for us were:
1-There is zero scientific basis for dowsing
2-Two people could do exactly the same thing and get completely different results. It happened to me!
3-Many respected drillers report that wells located with a dowser hit the water with a similar frequency as wells that were drilled in a random location (i.e. the easiest place to park the drilling rig)
Because of the above reasons, we were not willing to risk our one $30k shot at getting water (and staying on our much-loved homestead) on something as un-scientific as dowsing.
A number of times we expressed disbelief that “we can send a man to the moon and a shuttle to Mars, but there’s no way to know if there is water 300 feet under the ground??? This is ridiculous!!” Come to find out, there is a way!
After researching for some time, I finally found what I was looking for. Repeatable, scientific technology is used in the oil and gas industry where wells are much more expensive and investors have the incentive to pay for an expensive survey before drilling. The technology works just as well for finding water and is beginning to catch on in the domestic water well industry and become more affordable. We were sold! Sign us up!
A survey showed that all the likely drilling spots (the ones where a drilling rig could easily park) turned out to be dry or almost dry—down to 1,500 feet below ground. But in an unexpected location a little ways from our home, an aquifer was located where we could actually hit the water. Greatly relieved, we got on the waiting list for a well-driller. And the rest is history! A business was born…to bring this opportunity to anyone in the Northwest who needs to know if there is groundwater potential on their property. There’s no need to risk $30k on a shot in the dark anymore! Know before you drill, with Northwest Well Finder.