Before you dial

How this works

This page covers the mechanics: who answers, what to have in front of you, what the visit involves, and where the money comes from. Most people reading this have no water right now and are not in the mood for a tour. If that is you, call. If you have five minutes, the rest of this makes the call go faster.

Have these five things ready

None of it is mandatory. All of it shortens the call, and two of the items occasionally end the call without anyone driving out, which is the best outcome available.

• Your town, and roughly where in it. The first thing any pump contractor in this county needs. Valley floor and foothill are two different jobs with two different price ranges, and Oroville itself straddles the line, so "Oroville" alone does not settle it. West of town and Kelly Ridge are not the same call.
• The symptom, stated plainly. Nothing at all, or weak, or spitting air, or running constantly, or clicking on and off every few seconds. Those point at completely different parts. "The pump is broken" throws away the useful information, because usually it is not the pump.
• Well depth, if you happen to know it. Most people do not, and that is fine. If you do, it decides what pipe goes on the truck, and a truck loaded correctly is a one day job instead of two. The FAQ explains where to dig up a completion report.
• Whether the breaker tripped. Go look before you call. It is a double-pole 240 volt breaker and it can sit tripped without looking tripped. If it tripped and reset and everything came back, say so, because that is a real clue. If it trips again immediately, leave it off and say that too, because it changes what they bring and how fast they come.
• Access notes. Gravel, distance, gates, grade, dogs. Where a truck can physically sit relative to your wellhead. Foothill parcels around here routinely have 400 feet of driveway and a wellhead nowhere near the house, and a contractor who knows that in advance brings the right rig instead of discovering it in your yard.

One more, if it applies: if you already have a quote and want a second opinion, have the number and what it covers handy. That is a legitimate reason to call and nobody will be offended by it.

Where the money comes from

The contractors compensate us for the referral. You pay this site nothing, and the referral adds nothing to your bill. The price you are quoted is the contractor's price, set by the contractor, and it would be the same number if you had found them in a phone book.

That arrangement has a bias in it and pretending otherwise would be insulting. We get paid when the phone rings, which creates a steady pull toward telling every visitor their pump is dead and they should call immediately.

The check on that is whether the pages actually resist it, so here is where to look. The repair page leads with the argument that most people calling about a well pump do not have a broken well pump, and it walks through the cheap causes first, including the ones you can check yourself for free. That is advice that talks people out of calls. The cost page prints the actual ranges, including the low ones, instead of hiding behind "call for pricing", which means you can decide whether a quote is fair before you ever dial. And more than one page here says outright that a new pump cannot fix a well that has dropped below it, which is the most expensive sale available in this trade and the one we tell you to refuse.

The self-interested reason all of that is true: a referral service that pushes bad calls at contractors does not last a year. The contractors stop picking up, and then there is nothing to sell. Useful information and a working business happen to point the same way here.

What does not happen: your number does not go on a list, does not get sold, and does not get sprayed at five companies who all ring you back at dinner. It goes to a contractor.

The number, and the recording announcement

The number on this site is a tracking number. It rings through to a licensed pump contractor working Butte County, and the tracking is simply how that contractor knows the call came from here rather than from somewhere else. There is no call center in the middle and no script.

Calls may be recorded for that purpose. California requires all parties to consent to a recorded call, so if yours is being recorded you will hear an announcement before the conversation starts, and you are free to hang up at that point. Saying it here rather than burying it in a footer seems like the minimum.

Because you reach an actual contractor rather than a receptionist, two things follow. You can ask a real question about your well and get a real answer. And they might be at the bottom of somebody's driveway with a hoist running when you call. If it goes to voicemail, leave the symptom and your town, and expect a call back.

What the visit looks like

The contractor starts at the house, not at the wellhead. That order matters and it is the tell for someone who knows the trade.

Everything cheap lives above ground: the pressure gauge, the tank and its air charge, the pressure switch, the breaker, the control box if there is one. Those get checked first, and a real share of calls end right there with a $150 to $350 switch or a tank conversation instead of a pump. A diagnosis and service call runs $95 to $185 in this county and is generally credited toward the work if you go ahead.

If the fault is downhole, the pump has to come up, and that is the moment the job changes size. What should happen next is that they stop, tell you what they think is down there, and tell you what pulling it costs before anything moves. Pulling a 400 foot well is not something that should appear on an invoice as a surprise. If a pull is happening, expect an afternoon on a shallow valley well and most of a day on a deep foothill well, plus a possible return trip if a part has to come from somewhere.

Diagnose first, then quote

This is the one standard worth holding any contractor to, including the ones we refer.

A well system has essentially one symptom and about eight causes. The house tells you the water stopped. It cannot tell you whether a motor burned out at 380 feet or whether a small switch on the pump house wall stopped closing. The gap between those two answers is thousands of dollars.

So a firm price offered over the phone, before anyone has looked at anything, is not a quote. It is a guess with a margin built in to cover the worst case, or an opening number that gets revised once they are standing in your yard. You can get a range on the phone, which is what the cost page is for. You cannot get a real number, because nobody knows what is in your well until it comes out of the ground.

If someone quotes a full pump replacement from your driveway without testing the switch, the tank, and the power, that is a decision that has already been made about your money. You are allowed to say no, ask what they tested, or get a second opinion. Anyone good will walk you through the reasoning without being asked twice.

What you will not find here

No reviews, no testimonials, no team photos, no address, no year we were founded. Every one of those would have to be invented, because this is a referral service and not a company with a yard and a crew. The about page goes into why that trade seemed worth making.