Water system trouble in Alamosa County? Here's what's usually going on.
Alamosa County sits at the heart of the San Luis Valley — high desert, thin soils over volcanic rock, and a water table that behaves differently than almost anywhere else in Colorado. We've worked this basin long enough to know what fails here and why. If your water's been acting up, this page walks through the likely causes and what comes next.
- National Ground Water Association
- Colorado Water Well Contractors Association
- Bonded & insured
- Free estimates and project quotes
What's going wrong
The symptoms San Luis Valley property owners call about most
The Rio Grande Basin has its own geology and its own water quirks. These are the problems we hear about most often from Alamosa County properties.
What we do here
Supply-side water service across Alamosa County
Everything from the well itself to where the line enters your building — wells, pumps, tanks, lines, cisterns, filtration, septic, and excavation. Links go to the full service pages.
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Well pumps and motors
Submersible and jet pump service, pull-and-inspect, replacement, and wiring. The Valley's sandy aquifer layers can shorten pump life, so we size replacements to match actual draw conditions at your site.
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Pressure tanks
Bladder tank replacement, air charge restoration, and tank sizing. A correctly sized tank is the single cheapest way to stop a pump from burning itself out early — and it's usually the first thing we check.
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Water lines
Supply line repair, rerouting, and freeze-damage repair from wellhead to building. In Alamosa County's climate, burial depth matters — we install to local frost-depth standards.
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Cisterns and water delivery
Storage tank installation and our own delivery truck for properties where a well isn't practical or is between repairs. We know the rural roads out here — delivery isn't a long wait.
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Filtration and water treatment
Iron, sulfur, sediment, and arsenic filtration sized to what your water test actually shows. We don't sell a system until we know what's in your water.
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Septic systems
Septic installation, repair, and inspection for rural parcels. The clay-heavy soils in parts of the Valley affect perc rates and system design — we account for that in the layout.
We work from the well to the building envelope only — interior plumbing, fixtures, water heaters, drains, and well drilling are outside what we do.
How a service call works
From your first call to a working system
Here's the sequence, and roughly where the cost lands at each step — cheapest options first.
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Free estimate
You call — (719) 859-1148, answered 24 hours Monday through Saturday — and describe what you're seeing. We ask the questions that help us show up prepared. There's no charge for a project quote.
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On-site diagnosis
We run pressure tests, check the tank, pull amp readings on the pump, and look at the wellhead. Most of the time the problem is clear within the first hour. We tell you what we found in plain terms before any work starts.
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Adjust or recharge the pressure tank
If the tank just needs its air charge restored, that's the least expensive outcome on this list — a fraction of what a pump replacement costs. We check this before we go further.
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Replace the pressure tank or pump
Tanks go before pumps in most cases, and replacing a tank costs considerably less than pulling a pump. If the pump does need to come out, we stock common submersible sizes and carry an authorized-dealer warranty — five years on equipment.
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Line, cistern, or filtration work
If the pump and tank are sound and the problem is upstream or downstream of them — a broken line, inadequate storage, or a water quality issue — we scope that separately so you're not paying for guesses.
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Final check and one-year warranty
We run the system through a full cycle before we leave. All labor and materials carry a one-year warranty; equipment carries a five-year warranty through the manufacturer.
When you're ready to sort it out, we're at (719) 859-1148 — free estimate, no pressure.
- Free estimates — we quote after we diagnose
- One year on labor and materials
- Colorado License #1447
Why the cheap answer is safe to give
We can afford to tell you it is the cheap part
Not because we are nicer than the next outfit. Because of how this business is built — and all three of these are checkable.
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No rig to keep busy
A drilling rig is the most expensive thing a water contractor can own, and it has to stay working to pay for itself. We do not own one. A new well is not on our list of answers, because we could not drill it if we wanted to.
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We are a dealer, not a manufacturer
Authorized dealer — that is where the five-year equipment warranty comes from. We do not build pumps and we do not carry a quota on them. A pump we talk you out of costs us nothing.
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A wrong diagnosis comes back to us
One year on labor and materials means we are the ones who drive back out if the fix does not hold. Guessing expensive is not only dishonest here — it is expensive for us.
None of that is a claim about our character. You do not have to take our word for any of it — the license, the association memberships and the warranty terms are all verifiable, and they are the same on paper as they are on this page.
Questions we get asked
Before you call
No — we don't drill. We have no rig and we're not in the drilling business. That means when we look at your well, we have no financial reason to tell you it needs to be replaced rather than repaired. If drilling is genuinely what you need, we'll tell you that and refer you to a licensed driller.
Alamosa is well within our service area — we cover seven counties in southern Colorado, up to 75 miles from Weston. We're out this way regularly.
The Rio Grande Basin carries elevated minerals in some areas — iron, sulfur, and in scattered locations, arsenic at concentrations worth knowing about. A water test tells you what's actually there before you buy any equipment. We don't recommend a filtration system until we've seen the test results.
Almost always the tank first. A failed bladder or a lost air charge causes exactly that symptom and costs a fraction of what a pump replacement does. We check the tank before we look at anything else.
Yes. A lot of the rural parcels in the Valley are used seasonally. We can schedule a visit, diagnose what happened over the off-season, and get it sorted before you arrive. Having someone on-site isn't required for the estimate visit.
Alamosa County sits in the Rio Grande Basin, which has its own permit structure and water-use rules through the Colorado Division of Water Resources. The details are on our Rio Grande Basin rules page — linked below.
It depends on the cause. If the pump is set too high and pulling air, we can reseat it. If the aquifer itself is dropping seasonally, a cistern with a slow-fill setup can bridge the gap. What we won't do is tell you to drill a new well if another option is cheaper — that's not our business.
Both. We install and repair septic systems in addition to water supply work. The clay soil in parts of the Valley affects how systems are designed, so the site conditions matter — we look at those during the estimate.
If your situation isn't covered above, call (719) 859-1148 — someone answers 24 hours Monday through Saturday. Call (719) 859-1148
Before we arrive
What helps us diagnose faster
You don't need to have the answers — but if you can gather these before we show up, the estimate goes faster.
- Note when it started. Even a rough timeline — 'it's been this way since the last cold snap' or 'it got worse over the summer' — points toward the likely cause before we've touched anything.
- Write down what you're seeing at the tap. Low pressure, no water, sputtering, discoloration, smell — describe it in your own words. The symptom pattern often tells us whether to look at the pump, the tank, or the line first.
- Find the pressure gauge if there is one. If you have a gauge near the pressure tank, a photo of the reading when the pump kicks on and when it shuts off tells us a lot. If you don't have one, that's fine — we bring our own.
- Locate your well records if you have them. The original driller's log shows depth, casing size, and static water level. It's not required, but it helps us pick the right replacement pump without guessing at the specs.
If you can't find any of this, don't worry — we've worked in the Valley long enough to diagnose from what we find on-site.
Tell us what the water is doing.
We’ll tell you what it usually turns out to be, what it will take to confirm it, and what it costs — before we touch anything.
Call (719) 859-1148Answering 24 hours a day, Monday through Saturday
- Colorado License #1447 · bonded and insured
- One year on labor and materials, five on equipment
- Free estimates and project quotes — we quote after we diagnose
- NGWA and Colorado Water Well Contractors Association
Or have us call you back
If you are on bad signal or would rather not talk right now.