Ophir, Colorado Well Depth, Yield and Drilling Costs

How deep are wells around Ophir?

How much water do wells make near Ophir?

Ophir well depth follows the fractured mountain ground

Ophir wells are drilled primarily into unnamed fractured-bedrock aquifers. That makes depth depend on where fractures occur, not just on the lot’s elevation or distance from town. Of the wells with reported depths, the median is 140 feet. The middle half falls between 80 and 244 feet, while the 90th percentile reaches 330 feet. The deepest recorded well is 625 feet.

The depth mix gives a practical bidding range: 32% are under 100 feet, 49% are between 100 and 300 feet, and 19% are between 300 and 600 feet. A driller pricing a new well should carry an allowance for a deeper hole if nearby logs show weak or inconsistent fractures. Wells close together can still differ substantially in both depth and production.

What Ophir wells usually produce

Among the 104 permitted wells reporting pump yield, the median is 10.0 gallons per minute. The middle half produces between 6.0 and 20.0 gallons per minute. That is a solid local result for ordinary household use, but the record does not mean every new well will match it.

Nearly half of reported wells, 49%, fall between 5 and 15 gallons per minute, and 36% report more than 15 gallons per minute. Low production is present but uncommon in the records: 2% are under 1 gallon per minute and 13% are between 1 and 5 gallons per minute. Ask for a pump test and storage strategy, especially if the home will have high demand or limited backup water.

Ophir water levels do not show a clear long-term trend

Only 24 wells report a static water level, so the water-level sample is much smaller than the depth and permit records. The median depth to static water is 38 feet, with the middle half between 18 and 106 feet. Those figures help a driller think about pump setting and casing, but they are not a parcel-specific prediction.

The permit history does not establish that Ophir’s water table is falling or rising. A dependable trend would require comparable measurements collected over time, and the available records do not provide enough of that information. Have a local driller inspect nearby well logs and measure an existing well after it has rested. Also confirm casing, grout, pump depth, and protection from surface drainage before relying on a water-level estimate.

Ophir’s permit history and the drillers in the records

Colorado DWR records contain 410 permitted wells within the mapped area, with 191 recorded as constructed. Permit activity was highest in the 1990s, with 110 permits, followed by 71 in the 1980s and 62 in the 2000s. There are 48 permits from the 2010s and 19 from the 2020s. The newest permit year in the records is 2024.

The most frequently listed drillers are Bill Kissner Drilling Inc (Kissner, Bill F.) with 98 records, Mccracken Well Drilling Inc (Mccracken, Alan E.) with 31, and Valley Drilling Co. (Stoy, Kenneth) with 30. These names show who appears most often in the records, not who is available today or best for your lot. Verify current licensing, insurance, schedule, and references before hiring.

What a new Ophir well may cost

The cost model for Ophir assumes fractured mountain bedrock, including granite and gneiss. Drilling is modeled at $65 to $100 per foot. At the local median depth of 140 feet, the drilled hole works out to about $9,100 to $14,000.

A finished well costs more than the drilled hole. Including the pump, pressure tank, trenching, and electrical, the model puts a completed well at about $15,100 to $26,000 at the median depth. A 330-foot or deeper hole can push the total higher, while a shallower hole may not be cheaper if access, casing, difficult rock, or electrical work is complicated. Get a written bid that separates drilling, casing and grout, pump equipment, testing, trenching, and connection to the house.

Ophir risks to check before closing or building

Water quality deserves a site-specific review. The mapped area around Ophir includes 9 PFAS sampling or contamination sites, 4,133 historic mine features, and 18 EPA Superfund or cleanup sites. These mapped features do not by themselves prove that a property’s well water is unsafe. They do mean you should test an existing well, review nearby mining history, and ask what laboratory panel fits the parcel.

Low yield and dry holes remain possible in fractured rock even when the area median looks favorable. Check nearby well logs for depth, yield, water level, casing, and aquifer description. Septic setbacks, access for a drill rig, winter conditions, trench routes, and the building footprint also matter. A parcel that can support a well may still need a careful septic and site-development plan.

A practical Ophir lot-buying plan

Start with the exact parcel, then compare neighboring permits rather than relying only on the area median. Focus on wells in the same slope, drainage, and bedrock setting. The nearby records include Mountain Village, Telluride, and Silverton, but those places should be used for broader regional context, not treated as substitutes for logs next to the property. Sawpit, Ouray, and Placerville are also mapped nearby, with different local conditions.

Before buying, make the contract contingent on a well and water-rights review, and budget for a professional site evaluation. Confirm the DWR permit status and allowed use. Domestic and household wells make up 58% of the local use mix, while irrigation accounts for 8%; an existing permit may not support the use you want. If you plan a new home, coordinate drilling, septic, access, electrical, and final grading before committing to the building location.

Well permits by decade near Ophir

What a new well costs in Ophir, CO

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 (244 ft) would run roughly $21,860–$36,400. 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 Ophir? 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 Ophir 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 Ophir

Keep researching

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All wells in San Miguel County — county-wide depth, yield and cost figures.

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