What to Expect From a Well in Garfield County

How deep are wells around Garfield County?

How much water do wells make near Garfield County?

A 102-Foot Median Leaves Plenty of Room in the Bid

Among 7,198 wells reporting depth, the median is 102 feet, and the middle half runs from 53 to 190 feet. That range matters more to a buyer than the median alone: nearby records toward the deeper end call for a different drilling allowance than shallow neighboring completions. The 90th-percentile depth is 290 feet.

Ground conditions help explain the spread. Permits identify 135 Alluvial wells and 84 Williams Fork wells, while 11,611 fall under unnamed or fractured-bedrock aquifers. That broad label does not establish the formation beneath your parcel. Around Cattle Creek, Parachute or Battlement Mesa, compare nearby completion logs and terrain before asking a driller to commit to a depth estimate.

Garfield County Yield Reports Favor Useful Flow

The 2,234 reported pump yields have a median of 15.0 gpm, with the middle half between 10.0 and 15.0 gpm. Those reported rates are encouraging for household planning, but a permit-record yield is not a guarantee of sustained flow during daily use.

Low production still deserves attention: 1% of reported yields are under 1 gpm, and 9% fall in the 1–5 gpm band. A buyer looking at a low-yield well should ask about recovery, storage and pump controls rather than simply accepting that water comes from the tap. Request a current pumping and recovery test, and keep physical production separate from the uses legally allowed by the permit.

Water Levels Do Not Show a Steady Countywide Decline

Static water level means the depth to standing water before pumping, not the bottom of the well. Garfield County's 868 reported measurements have a median of 38 feet below ground; the middle half is 19–75 feet. A shallow standing level does not mean the well can be drilled only that deep.

The decade medians fluctuate: 30 feet in the 1960s, 53 in the 1980s, 30 in the 2000s and 39 in the 2020s. This series does not establish a steadily dropping water table. These are countywide groups of measurements, not repeated readings from an unchanged set of wells. For a particular property, seek dated measurements and compare static level, pumping level and recovery.

The Permit Record Is Busiest in the 1990s

Garfield County issued 2,951 permits in the 1990s, followed by 2,500 in the 2000s and 1,543 in the 2010s. The 2020s account for 852 permits, with the newest permit year listed as 2026. The current decade is incomplete, so its total is not directly comparable with a finished decade.

Shelton Drilling Corporation (Shelton, Wayne) leads the listed driller records with 3,432 entries. Collins Drilling Co (Collins, F. E. "Bodie") has 730. Another 852 appear under the label Authorized (Pe, Pg); treat that as a record label rather than a contractor recommendation. Domestic/household use accounts for 58% of records and monitoring for 25%, so not every mapped permit represents a residential supply well.

Budget Beyond the Drilled Hole in Garfield County

The local cost model uses $50–$75 per foot for mixed sedimentary and alluvial ground. At the 102-foot median depth, that puts the drilled hole at about $5,100–$7,600. A finished well with pump, tank, trenching and electrical is modeled at $11,100–$19,600.

Those figures are a budgeting baseline, not a parcel quote. A lot near El Jebel with straightforward access may present different construction demands than a constrained site outside No Name. Ask the bid to spell out casing, grout, development, testing and the connection to the house. Confirm what is included, what is billed by actual depth and what happens to the price if the planned completion does not produce enough water.

Check Water Quality and Failed-Well Risk Separately

The mapped environmental screen lists 691 PFAS sampling/contamination sites, 74 historic mine features and 13 EPA Superfund/cleanup sites within about 10 miles. These are screening flags—not proof that a particular Garfield County well is contaminated. A sampling location also does not, by itself, establish a detection.

Review nearby site records and arrange laboratory testing suited to the property's surroundings and intended drinking-water use. A yield test cannot establish water quality. Likewise, reported successful yields do not guarantee that a new bore will produce. Ask about nearby unsuccessful drilling, and settle the contract terms for an unproductive hole. Check wellhead condition, casing and grout records, and proposed septic placement before fixing the house footprint.

Before Buying in Silt, Rifle or Carbondale

Start with the actual parcel, not the county average. Pull its DWR permit, completion report and available test records, then compare neighboring wells in similar ground. A nearby well across a change in terrain may be a poor guide even when it looks close on the map.

Confirm that the permit authorizes your intended household, livestock or outdoor use; a productive well does not automatically authorize every use. New permits depend on location and water-law constraints, and augmentation may be required in over-appropriated basins. Before closing or designing a build, coordinate the well location with septic approval, equipment access, utility trenching and the house site. Make unresolved water supply and permit questions part of your purchase due diligence.

Well permits by decade near Garfield County

What a new well costs in Garfield County

How this is built: the median permitted depth here times the per-foot range for this ground, plus the normal system costs. A lot at the 75th-percentile depth (190 ft) would run roughly $15,500–$26,250. See the full Colorado well cost guide.

Environmental sites mapped within about 10 miles

Counts come from EPA, USGS and state datasets layered on the Colorado Well Finder map. A count is not a verdict on any one well; it tells you what to test for.

Buying land near Garfield County? Know what it costs to build before you buy the dirt.

A listing photo can't tell you whether a lot is a dream or a money pit. Two parcels near Garfield County can carry the same asking price while one needs an $80,000 driveway and a $45,000 engineered septic the other doesn't. The well numbers on this page are the start of that answer. A Tri-Lakes Site Feasibility Report is the rest of it: a licensed general contractor, excavator and septic installer reads the parcel the way we would if we were about to build on it, and puts the real cost in writing before your money is committed.

Spend a little to know. Or gamble a lot to guess. Realtors sell the view and inspectors look at houses that already exist. We're the people who'd build it, so we catch what quietly turns a "great deal" into a budget disaster: bad access, buried rock, steep grade, soil that won't pass for a normal septic, water that's a fortune to reach. And if the lot is good, you've already got a builder ready to do the work, driveway to drywall.

• Instant Online Report, $99 — type the address and get a buildability read on the spot: parcel, terrain and slope, soil and septic outlook. Cheap enough to run on every lot you're shopping.
• Desktop Report, $500 — a contractor's from-the-desk feasibility read: Regulation 43 and county code, GIS parcel data, terrain, flood and drainage, soil and septic viability, setbacks and buildable envelope, nearby well depths from our 591,000-well database, the likely driveway route, and a preliminary site-development cost breakdown.
• On-Site Report, $2,000 — everything above, then boots and a drone on the actual ground: house pad and septic zone located, access and winter conditions checked, rock and soil observed in person, a 15 to 20 page written opinion you can hand a lender or seller. Credited toward your project if you build with us.

Under contract, comparing parcels, or a realtor with a rural listing whose buyers keep asking "what will it cost to build here?" This is the due-diligence step almost everyone skips, and the one that saves the most.

Common questions about wells in Garfield County

Keep researching

Towns and areas in Garfield County

Neighboring counties