Something's wrong with your water. Start here.
Most water problems on rural properties trace back to a handful of causes — a worn pump, a waterlogged pressure tank, a failing check valve, or something happening in the well itself. This page points you to the right symptom, explains what's likely going on, and tells you honestly what it will probably take to fix it. No guessing, no upselling.
- National Ground Water Association
- Colorado Water Well Contractors Association
- Bonded & insured
- Free estimates and project quotes
What you're dealing with
Your water system tells you things. Here's how to read it.
Rural water systems degrade gradually, then fail all at once. The symptoms below are the ones we hear about most — and most of them have a clear explanation.
Find your symptom
Pick what you're seeing or noticing
Each page below explains the likely causes in order — cheapest first — so you know what you're probably dealing with before anyone sets foot on your property.
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Low water pressure
Weak flow at every tap, or just certain ones? The answer changes the diagnosis considerably. This page walks through pressure tank, pump, and line causes in order of cost.
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The pump clicks on and off
Short-cycling is hard on motors and almost always means one specific thing: the pressure tank has lost its air charge. This page explains why and what fixing it involves.
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No water at all
Complete loss of water can be a tripped breaker, a failed pump, a dry well, or a broken line. This page helps you rule out the simplest causes before assuming the worst.
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Cloudy, rusty, or smelly water
Water quality symptoms — cloudy, brown, rotten-egg smell, metallic taste — each have their own cause and their own fix. Find your specific symptom in the list below and go from there.
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A wet spot in the yard
A soggy patch that wasn't there before often means a buried water line is leaking. This page covers how we find the break and what repair looks like.
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The breaker keeps tripping on the pump
A pump that trips its breaker repeatedly is telling you something — often a failing motor, a wiring problem, or a pump working too hard against low well yield. This page covers what to check first.
Water Works Plus works on everything from your well to the outside wall of your building — we don't touch interior plumbing, fixtures, water heaters, or drains, and we don't drill wells.
How a diagnosis works
What happens between your call and a fixed system
Every job starts the same way: figure out what's actually wrong before touching anything. Here's how that typically goes.
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You describe what you're seeing
When you call, we ask about symptoms — not just 'low pressure' but when it happens, how long it's been building, and whether anything changed recently. That conversation alone rules out a lot of causes. There's no charge for this.
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We check the simplest things first
Breaker status, pressure gauge reading, tank pre-charge — these take minutes and cost nothing to check. If one of them is the problem, that's the whole job. This is the cheapest possible outcome and the one we hope for.
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Pressure tank and pump evaluation
If the easy checks don't explain it, we test the tank and the pump. A waterlogged tank is a fraction of the cost of a pump replacement. Knowing which one is the problem before ordering anything matters.
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Well and line inspection
If the pump and tank are fine, the problem is either in the well or in the line between the well and the building. Both are findable. This is also where we'd tell you honestly if the well needs a driller — we don't drill, so we have no reason to tell you otherwise.
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Repair or replacement, with a clear explanation
Once we know the cause, we give you a straight account of what fixing it involves before any work starts. No surprise line items. Labor and materials carry a 1-year warranty; equipment we install carries a 5-year warranty as an authorized dealer.
When you're ready to talk through what you're seeing, we're at (719) 859-1148.
- 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
Sometimes, yes. If your pressure gauge reads zero and the breaker is tripped, that's a clear starting point. If the pump runs but pressure is low, the tank is the first suspect. The symptom pages go through this kind of reasoning step by step so you're not going in blind.
Tap the tank with your knuckle — a healthy tank sounds hollow about halfway up. If it sounds solid all the way to the top, the bladder is gone and it's waterlogged. That's a tank problem, not a pump problem, and it's the cheaper fix of the two.
Pump motors, pressure tanks, and check valves all have service lives. Twenty years is a long run for a pump. It doesn't mean everything fails at once, but it does mean components are worth evaluating rather than assuming the well itself is the problem.
No. We have no rig and we don't drill. That's actually useful to you — when we say you don't need a new well, there's no financial reason for us to say otherwise. If you do need one drilled, we'll tell you that plainly and point you to someone who does it.
Interior plumbing, fixtures, and water heaters are outside our scope. If that's where the problem is, we'll tell you straight and you'll need a licensed plumber. We'd rather refer you out than have you pay us for a diagnosis that leads nowhere.
We cover seven counties in southern Colorado, up to 75 miles from Weston. If you're not sure whether you're in range, call — (719) 859-1148 — and we'll tell you in about 30 seconds.
Estimates and project quotes are free. We'll tell you what we find and what fixing it involves before any work is authorized.
Rusty or brown water after heavy use often points to sediment disturbance in the well or corrosion in an older pipe or tank, not necessarily a failing well. The rusty water symptom page goes through the likely causes in order, starting with the least costly.
If your situation isn't covered here, call (719) 859-1148 — answered 24 hours Monday through Saturday. Call (719) 859-1148
Before you call
Four things worth noting down
You don't need to have answers — but if you have these, the first conversation goes faster and we can often narrow things down before anyone drives out.
- What the pressure gauge reads. The gauge is usually on the pipe near the pressure tank. Zero, 20 psi, 40 psi — whatever it says, that number tells us a lot right away.
- Whether the pump breaker has tripped. Check the breaker panel for a breaker labeled 'well pump' or 'pump.' If it's tripped, note whether it trips again after you reset it.
- How long the symptom has been building. A problem that appeared overnight is different from one that's been getting worse for three months. Both are fixable, but the cause is often different.
- Whether anything changed right before it started. A power outage, a hard freeze, unusually high water use, or recent work on the property — any of these can point directly to the cause.
If you don't have any of this, that's fine — we'll work through it together.
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.