13/12/2025
I saw this post the other day and I’ll tag the original person once I find it again but this is something Forest and I talk about often.
The cost to run our businesses and maintain our equipment isnt for the faint if heart. While the original post references ID (where we are also licensed as well as OR) we find the same issues in WA.
Dear Idaho,
On Low Bids, Valuing Our Industry, & Why We’ll Never Be the Cheapest
We’re blessed to work with many long-term builders who weigh relationship, character, consistency, and quality into their decisions—not just the lowest number on a spreadsheet. Those relationships are why we’re still here.
For the builders who only chase the low bid—we almost never win. And that’s okay. We aren’t the cheapest, and we don’t want to be. Cheap jobs mean more jobs and more jobs mean more risk, more maintenance, more stress.
As you know, water well drilling (particularly in Idaho) is an extremely specialized, expensive, frustrating, and dangerous trade. It requires precision while working in conditions you literally cannot see. Every well is different. Drill rigs require constant maintenance, they’re expensive to purchase, hard to source, and parts are costly to replace. You can’t just go rent one from CAT…. This is not a cheap business to operate correctly—especially if you care about doing things right.
Well drillers deserve to build empires—legacies for their families—not live paycheck to paycheck while being beaten down on price. We don’t roll up with a rented van and a hammer (well—not that kind of hammer anyway 😉). We mobilize serious equipment onto job sites where mobilization, setup, and takedown are often treated like nothing—when in reality, a lot of times it can take the most time.
Do you understand how specialized our trade is? There are far fewer licensed water well drillers in the United States than almost any other mainstream trade. There are exponentially more licensed electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, and general contractors than there are licensed drillers. Our industry is rare. Highly regulated. Highly specialized. And yet—somehow—we’re still expected to race each other to the bottom on price.
This needs to change.
We don’t just “drill hole.” We manage complex subsurface conditions, including lithological formation logging, groundwater hydraulics, high-pressure systems, borehole stability, aquifer protection, and environmental compliance—while operating heavy equipment under extreme liability and real, daily safety risks. Mistakes are costly.
But the biggest reason our company will never be the cheapest?
Those are my boys out there. This work is high-risk, physically demanding, and mentally exhausting. They deserve to be protected, paid well, and respected. They deserve better than some random investor—who’s never stepped foot in muddy boots a day in his life—deciding what their skill, danger, and sacrifice are “worth.” They deserve better than an industry with a scarcity mindset that drives the price down.
I believe more drillers need to start valuing this industry like the specialized, critical, rare trade that it truly is. The industry deserves better. If we don’t protect the value of what we do, no one else will. Stop competing for the bottom. Instead, collaborate and race to the top. There’s room for us all up there.
