Richardson Well Drilling Co

This will be the first time I have reviewed a business. My experience with these guys was bad enough that I'd be doing a disservice to other potential customers if I didn't speak up.

I hired Richardson to drill a well for me for an estimated $11,600 for just the drilling and casing to an estimated depth of 96'. Like others have said, communication sucked and the timeline kept slipping, but to me that is sort of the nature of the game these days.
Anyways, they finally got started, and quickly called to say they hadn't found any water after drilling to 96' and wanted authorization to go another 40'. Mind you, the deepest well within probably a mile of my place is 101' (My place is across the street from a lake). So later they call and say they ended up at 135ft, which took this from a 11.5k proposition to somewhere around 16k. That seemed consistent with my luck these days, so I paid them in full, intending to move on. When I made it out to take a look at the well, instead of putting the typical $40 cap over the casing, they did an incredibly bad job welding several rings of well pipe and some plate over the top of the well. There are several holes, which allow contaminants into the aquafer. Seemed strange why they didn't just put a normal cap over it.

They then sent me a well report, and I in turn submitted the report to the County. The County rejected the report, citing insufficient drawdown and recharge data. Richardson said too bad, this is the same as all the reports we do. Said If I paid them another $2k, they would fill the report out for me. I spoke with another driller, neighbors who had recently had wells drilled, and a representative from the County Health Dept. All agree that this is at best poor business practice. WAC 173-160-141 spells out what constitutes a complete well report. What they provided me is lacking information, does not satisfy the County or DOE requirements, and is essentially useless for all intents and purposes.

I had planned (and still plan to) install the pump, etc. myself. I gave Richardson an opportunity to make this right by performing the required drawdown test after I get the pump installed. They were only willing to perform this service (verify 400 gallons/day production, record static water level recovery... should take at most a couple hr) if I paid them an additional $2k.

So, there is my first Google review. I don't feel great about it, but these guys flat out suck to deal with and did not provide what I paid for. I would highly encourage you to find someone else to do your well work.

Great company.

They won't answer the phone, they won't return messages. Waste of time.