Two party shared well:

[BScott]

Terry Love Help!

Two party shared well:

Pay for own pumped water.

Share property line well with two lines. One line existing neighbor and other to my Shop. Currently, the old arrangement was 50/50 share of energy, expense, maintenance, and replacement. Estimate neighbor usage based on 4 member family home on two acres with 10K sq. ft. green lawn and watering an extensive windbreak shelter belt, usage 80K to 100K gallons water. My one acre has a 4K sq. ft. work shop with a 1,000 gallon fresh water tank inside, a gravel packed 1/2 acre parking lot and Buffalo grass, usage 12K to 20K gallons water. Local Well Company bid $10,000 for dedicated well. I need a fair cost water and expense/maintenance/replacement of any well components. The Electric Cooperative Engineer suggested to install a personal analog electric meter to track the energy use and a plumber to install a water meter on each line. You explained well pump cycling in another article, my fresh water tank resolves the smaller amounts of water pump cycling on the well. I understand that you advise folks to share 50/50 on a well.


What would you do ?

 

[Craigpump]

That's easy. Drill my own well.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

You will want a lawyer to handle the easements and agreement. Agreements can start friendly, but that can change.

For electricity fees, allocating by gallons seems fair. What rate to value the electricity at... average of whole bill, marginal rate on increased electricity? Usually the electricity is a small amount.

Repairs, maintenance ,upgrades, etc. I would think maybe proportional to use, but with a 4000 gallon per month minimum in the calculation. That would be based on having water available has good value, even if one user only uses 1000 gallons per month.

Who decides who to hire for work? What provision is available to buy the other's interest in the well? Do you want new equipment or not -- who decides? Is it worth paying for emergency service or is a few days outage OK to save money? Any value placed on work not contracted out? Who performs sanitizing, and who determines the schedule (expect the well to be out of service for about a day). Who lays out the money? Is there interest accrued, and at what rate?

I am not a pro. I am just throwing out some thoughts.

 

[Boycedrilling]

How often do you and your wife agree on how to spend money? Now how often do you think you and your neighbor will agree on how to spend money? Shared wells are a bad, bad idea.

The only way a multiparty well works long term is for the parties to pay a monthly fee, based on usage. Funds are expended by the operator, preferably who is a third party.

 

[BScott]

You will want a lawyer to handle the easements and agreement. Agreements can start friendly, but that can change.

For electricity fees, allocating by gallons seems fair. What rate to value the electricity at... average of whole bill, marginal rate on increased electricity? Usually the electricity is a small amount.

Repairs, maintenance ,upgrades, etc. I would think maybe proportional to use, but with a 4000 gallon per month minimum in the calculation. That would be based on having water available has good value, even if one user only uses 1000 gallons per month.

Who decides who to hire for work? What provision is available to buy the other's interest in the well? Do you want new equipment or not -- who decides? Is it worth paying for emergency service or is a few days outage OK to save money? Any value placed on work not contracted out? Who performs sanitizing, and who determines the schedule (expect the well to be out of service for about a day). Who lays out the money? Is there interest accrued, and at what rate?

I am not a pro. I am just throwing out some thoughts.

 

[BScott]

Howdy Reach4, like your thoughts!
Think about this:
The family with the two acres is using between 80 - 100 thousand gallons per year. I place a water meter on my line only, one reading end of year. I contacted our small town municiples in our county and have their cost per 1,000 gallons. We come to a mutual agreement $/1,000 gallons. Place agreement in Shared Water Well Contract, then pay the neighbor end of of year for an estimated 10 - 20 thousand gallons, simple!

What say you ?

 

[Valveman]

It sounds good on paper. As long as someone doesn't get angry at the other guy it will work. I have seen where the small water user got blamed for pumps being destroyed. The other guy could claim you have a leak or use your 20,000 gallons at a rate of 1 GPM, which caused the pump to cycle to death. Make sure to have a good contract in case the other guys dies or sells the place.