I pay a certified water contractor $200 every time he collects and deliver the water sample to the lab, and $150 when he drops chlorine tablets to kill coliform. Is that too expensive? I’m considering switching to a general contractor to do the collection, delivery, and dropping chlorine tablets to save costs. Thoughts?
Have you called around to get bids? $200 doesn’t seem unreasonable for someone to drive to your park, collect the sample, then drop it off. I live in CA and labor (car mechanic) seems to run at least $125 an hour. An electrician service call is pretty expensive as well.
1 Like
Does the $200 include the testing? If not, then yes I’d say its expensive.
Unless, the commute is extended (greater than 1.5 hours total drive time), this seems high to me. Further, if all he is doing is transporting the specimen, I dont see how it matters to have someone “certified.” He’s not the one running the tests, or acting on any test outcomes. Therefore, a certified individual is likely overkill. At which point now, yes, you can hire a general handyman to do this. Going this route, comparing their rates to an electrician or plumber is certainly different (less).
1 Like
I think you are looking at this the wrong way. Not sure how often you test, but we test monthly. Our well operators come once per week for roughly $100 and the monthly fee is about $400 to $500.
The part you are missing is what do you do when your test coms up positive for coliform or E.coli and the health department is demanding immediate remediation, complying with boil order regulations, installing temporary mobile water trailer rigs, and potentially engineering and installing a chlorine injector and other technical equipment. Is your general contractor going to know how to handle that? What happens when you have an underground water leak that you cannot identify after hiring numerous leak detection contractors and plumbers? Is your general contractor going to do that. What happens when your general contractor who was not trained in how to handle proper chlorination mixing oversaturates the water and poisons the population.
The small $200 you pay for the sample is buying you are expert with insight into what to do when your well goes bad. I personally am a licensed well operator, but I still pay an outsider because I want that peace of mind knowing somebody is there to help when an emergency arises. I am surprised that your state does not require a licensed and certified person to operate your public water supply system.
$200 is cheap.
Just by coincidence after posting on this two days ago, I signed up for a continuing education course on Water Operator Chemical Feed Endorsement at my local community college. This education and the associated license and endorsements are mandatory if you are going to operate a water system and do things like treat the water. Unless your general contractor is taking continuing education to keep up with his Water Operator License and his Chemical Feed Endorsement, stay with the pro.
I did further research on this and found it is a misdemeanor to act in the capacity as a licensed water system operator in some states. This can be treated as a felony depending on the situation. For example it is a federal felony to tamper with a water system if you are not a licensed water operator. Keep your licensed guy and don’t go to the general contractor for this work.
Additionally, the testing is complicated. Bacteria monthly, Gross Alpha and Radium every 6 years, Lead, Copper, Cyanide, and PCB every 3 years, Nitrate and VOC every year. CCR reports are due every year. If you are positive, you may have to do additional monitoring for a defined period of time. This is just for one system. Each system has its own testing requirements.