Australia to Texas: Drilling the Well

Reader Contribution by Jim Christie
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As we continue to get ready to build on the property in Texas while still mostly living in Australia, we needed basic electrical access and water. While we plan to do a large amount of solar for power generation, we though having access to grid power (both for backup and for selling back) would be a good idea. We found that we had only one choice — a local power cooperative — and contacted them. After a few phone calls and emails, we arranged to have power put onto our land at what we thought (and still think) is a pretty steep price for pulling the power essentially from the main road a few hundred feet onto our property. We can get about half of the money back when we build the house and occupy it full time, but it was still expensive and turned out to be the only thing we could afford to do last year.

This year, we’re going to do a lot more and the first thing we needed was a well. There was a lot of conversation about whether we should drill an approximate 8-inch hole or a 12-inch hole as there is a fair difference in the price. We opted for the latter after some conversation with friends here in Australia who are in the irrigation business. The theory is that you have more flexibility as to the size of the pump you put in with a larger hole.

The driller we contacted and retained was a local operator (as you can probably tell by the equipment). 

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