Private well water in Yavapai County

Yes, for repairs and emergencies under $1,000.

Call or text 928-228-5770, Monday to Saturday, 7am to 7pm; a priority call gets a same-day visit when Neil is free. Whole-house systems wait for the contractor licenses (what the licenses change).

Neil does not drill wells or work down inside them.

We do service the pump and pressure tank when they sit above ground.

That means a jet pump beside the well or in the pump house, the pressure tank, the pressure switch, gauges, valves and the piping you can reach — and treating the water, which is one of our specialties. A new or deeper well, casing repair, or a submersible pump down in the well is a job for a licensed well driller or pump installer. ADWR’s list of licensed drillers is linked from its Well Drilling in Arizona page. How to tell which pump you have.

Yes — through a certified lab, not a meter: SimpleLab’s 53-parameter panel, $185, which you order direct and we read with you free.

Wells here carry arsenic, iron, manganese, nitrate and bacteria in combinations that change from one property to the next. The EPA limit for arsenic is 10 micrograms per liter and some county wells exceed it substantially. Nobody can tell you what is in your well without testing it, and a handheld meter cannot measure arsenic at all.

Every year at minimum — and in Yavapai County, make arsenic part of that yearly test.

EPA and CDC advise testing a private well at least once a year for bacteria, nitrates, total dissolved solids and pH. Here, add arsenic and a basic mineral panel, and test again any time you notice a taste, color or odor change, or after well-pump service. A peer-reviewed analysis of 33,099 Arizona samples found 43.6% of Yavapai County samples above the EPA arsenic limit (Jones et al., 2020), and contamination can develop over time as the water table drops. For a brand-new well, the Arizona Department of Health Services recommends testing for arsenic, fluoride, lead, nitrates, total coliform bacteria, total dissolved solids and uranium, then coliform and nitrates every year and arsenic, fluoride and uranium every five years (as ADWR passes it on). The $185 panel covers all seven.

No, unless that was within the last year for bacteria and arsenic, and three years for the rest of the chemistry.

A well is a hole in the ground with a seal and a pump, and all three age. Test after any work on the well, after heavy monsoon runoff, and whenever taste, smell or color changes.

Not without testing. Many Yavapai County wells are perfectly safe; many are not.

Arsenic, uranium and bacteria are colorless, odorless and tasteless — you cannot tell by looking. The $185 SimpleLab panel we recommend screens for arsenic, lead, uranium, coliform bacteria, nitrates, hardness, iron and more in a single sample. You order it directly from the lab. Test before you assume.

Often — but measure it first.

ADEQ’s study of 58 wells across the Prescott Active Management Area found 31 hard or very hard, averaging about 12 grains per gallon — well above the U.S. Geological Survey’s 7 gpg “hard” line — but 27 were soft or only moderately hard. Hard well water leaves scale on fixtures and in appliances, and it costs a gas water heater efficiency (in the tests Pacific Northwest National Laboratory reviewed, the effect on electric tanks was negligible). The free check at your estimate reads your hardness in a few minutes, and the next question covers whether a softener pays for itself.

That depends on your water heater, not your water.

At the 4 to 10 grains per gallon the local utilities report — or the 12 or so ADEQ found on an average Prescott-area well — scale costs a gas water heater efficiency; in the tests Pacific Northwest National Laboratory reviewed, the effect on electric tank heaters was negligible. Whether that justifies a softener is a straightforward arithmetic question about what those appliances cost, and it is a conversation worth having before you spend anything.

Iron is a nuisance, not a health risk; manganese can be both.

EPA’s guidelines for them — 0.3 mg/L (0.3 ppm) of iron and 0.05 mg/L (0.05 ppm) of manganese — are secondary standards for taste, color and staining, and EPA says these are not considered a risk to health at those levels. Manganese also has health guidance: the Minnesota Department of Health says a safe level is 100 micrograms per liter (0.1 ppm) or less for babies who drink tap water or formula made with it, and 300 (0.3 ppm) or less for everyone else, because long-term high levels may affect memory, attention and motor skills. SimpleLab’s $185 panel measures both, and Neil reads it with you, free.

Small amounts — up to about 2 ppm of dissolved (ferrous) iron.

Above that, iron fouls the resin and shortens softener life dramatically, so a Yavapai County well with more than 2 ppm needs a dedicated iron-removal stage ahead of the softener — which is what the Panther Package pairs. The lab panel reports your iron, and we size from that number.

Test for coliform first.

If it is found, the source is found and fixed, then the water is tested again; until a retest is clean, do not drink it: use bottled water or another safe source (CDC; the next question has the details).

• Above ground: CreekWell shock-chlorinates storage tanks, pressure tanks, softeners, brine tanks and filters. The University of Arizona’s well owner’s toolkit notes that water heaters, softeners, filters and pressure tanks may need disinfecting along with the well.
• The well itself: the same toolkit says to have a licensed water well driller or pump installer shock it, and warns that chlorine can dissolve arsenic out of the aquifer, so test again afterwards.
• A new well: it should already have been disinfected by its driller before the rig left (A.A.C. R12-15-814).
• Once the water tests clean: an ultraviolet unit leaves no taste or odor and runs whenever water flows — the Serval Package, $1,875 installed, a reference price until the contractor licenses are issued. Its UV is not certified to NSF/ANSI 55 Class A, the grade Ohio’s health department says water with harmful germs in it calls for, so it is a barrier for safe water, not a fix for a contaminated well.
• Timed chlorine: the other option for ongoing protection. The toolkit says continuous chlorination should be professionally sized, because it usually needs a holding tank for contact time and a booster pump, and that chlorinated water should be tested for disinfection byproducts, with a carbon filter after it if needed.

Your local health or environmental department can help you understand the results.

Do not drink it: until the source is found and fixed and a retest is clean, use bottled water or another safe source (CDC).

CDC says boiling kills germs in water, and for a well with germs in it points to its boil-water advisory guidance (CDC):

• Drinking and cooking: bottled water, or water brought to a full rolling boil for 1 minute (3 minutes above 6,500 feet) and cooled. Boiling does not remove chemicals: it leaves arsenic in and concentrates nitrate.
• Brushing teeth, ice and baby formula: boiled or bottled water; ready-to-use formula if possible.
• Bathing and showering: be careful not to swallow any water; a sponge bath for babies and young children.
• Dishes: a dishwasher with a sanitizing cycle, or a final rinse of at least 150°F; by hand, wash and rinse in hot water, then soak the dishes for a minute in a weak bleach solution (CDC’s page gives the mix).
• Laundry and handwashing: laundry as usual; in many cases, tap water and soap for hands.
• Pets: bottled water, or boiled water that has cooled.

Then the source is found and fixed, as above, and the water tested again. Your local health department can help you read the results, and Neil reads them with you, free.

Yes — nitrate is a concern for drinking and food, not for bathing, showering or washing.

EPA says nitrate “is only a concern for ingestion (eating and drinking). It is not absorbed through your skin.” The Oregon Health Authority spells out the rest for water over 10 mg/L:

• Bathing, swimming and showering: safe as long as you avoid swallowing the water. Supervise children under six months old when they are bathing or brushing teeth, so they do not swallow it.
• Dishes, clothing, bedding and linens: the water can be used to wash them.
• Drinking, food and baby formula: EPA says not to mix well water containing more than 10 mg/L of nitrate with infant formula or food, and the Oregon Health Authority says not to use it to wash, prepare or cook food for infants under six months old. Boiling does not remove nitrate and can raise it.
• Animals: nitrate affects young animals the way it affects human infants, and they should not drink water with more than 10 mg/L of it.

EPA’s 10 mg/L limit is measured as nitrogen; the table above gives the figure for a report that uses NO3. The CDC says reverse osmosis can reduce nitrate, and the $185 panel measures it; Neil reads it with you, free.

Not the well itself — that is the driller’s job.

Stop drinking the water, call your driller, and have it tested: the smell could be fuel or iron bacteria.

Arizona makes the driller disinfect a new drinking-water well before the rig leaves (A.A.C. R12-15-814), bans petroleum-based drilling fluids, and requires the driller to remove everything put into the well during construction (A.A.C. R12-15-811(F)). CDC says water contaminated with fuel “will not be made safe by boiling or disinfection.” An oily or petroleum smell can also come from iron bacteria, which drilling can introduce (Minnesota Department of Health); shock chlorination by the driller is the usual fix for those, though the University of Arizona warns it can dissolve arsenic from the rock around a well, so test again afterwards. A VOC test tells fuel from bacteria — SimpleLab’s VOC Water Test is $139 — and see what to do about a new well.

From $1,799 for hardness alone to $6,475 for the complete package; arsenic treatment adds $4,750.

Every price is a flat rate from the countywide book, and the configuration depends on what your water test shows: a hardness-only well starts at $1,799 (the Bobcat Package), or $2,590 for the Tiger 48 softener with carbon; sediment or iron packages with a softener run $3,075–$3,400 (the Sand Cat Package, the Panther Package); the complete package — sediment, iron, softener and UV — is $6,475 flat (the Cougar Package); and arsenic treatment adds $4,750 (the Jaguar Package). Every system is sized from your lab results, not from a generic package list. The whole-house systems are reference prices until the contractor licenses are issued.