Repair or Replace Your Well Pump?
A pump repair can be money well spent or money thrown down the well. Four questions decide which, and you can answer most of them before anyone drives out.
The four questions
- How old is the pump? Jet pumps typically last 10 to 15 years, submersibles 15 to 25, with wide swings for water quality and cycling. A repair on a pump inside its expected life usually makes sense. A repair on one past it buys you a service call now and a replacement later anyway. The install date is often on the pressure tank, the control box, or your well record.
- Is this the first symptom or the third? One failed pressure switch is a repair. Fading pressure plus sediment plus a climbing electric bill is a pump telling you its plans.
- What does the diagnosis say? Plenty of "dead pumps" turn out to be a cheap switch, a waterlogged pressure tank, or a wiring fault. The cheap causes get ruled out first by any honest pro. That is the whole reason to diagnose before quoting.
- What is the spread between the two quotes? Pulling a submersible is labor whether it goes back down or a new one does. When the pump is already out of the well and old, the price gap between repairing and replacing narrows, and replacement often wins. Ask for both numbers side by side. The cost guide shows the ranges.
Two Martin County wrinkles
Efficiency is real money on a deep well. A submersible runs on roughly half the electricity of a jet pump. If an aging above-ground jet is dying on a well deep enough to justify a submersible, the switch can return $100 to $300 a year in power alone. Have the pro run that math for your well before you re-buy the old setup.
Water quality shortens the clock. Sandy or iron-heavy wells, common in this county, wear pumps early. If yours is one of them, weight the age question harder toward replacement, and ask about intake screens and setting depth while the well is open. The local well guide explains why.