No water on a well property has a short diagnostic list, and two items on it cost nothing. Run these before anyone rolls a truck:
1. The breaker. Find the well pump’s circuit in your panel. Tripped? Reset it once. If it trips again, stop — that’s a real electrical or pump fault, and repeated resets risk the motor. 2. The pressure switch. At the pressure tank, the small gray box: if its contacts are visibly burned or the tank gauge reads zero and nothing clicks, the switch (a modest part) may be the whole story. 3. Then call. Everything past this point — pulling the pump, testing the motor, checking the pitless adapter and drop pipe — is professional work with professional equipment.
Submersible pumps typically serve 10–15 years (harder if the well runs sediment or the pump short-cycles). Pressure tanks lose their air charge and waterlog — the classic cause of rapid on-off cycling that then kills pumps early. Pressure switches and controls fail cheap and often. A pro’s diagnosis sorts a $40 switch from a $2,500 pump replacement before anyone guesses expensively.
A pump at year 5 with a control fault gets repaired. A pump at year 14 that’s pulling high amps gets replaced — paying to reinstall a motor at the end of its life is the expensive kind of thrift. A waterlogged tank gets replaced alongside whichever pump decision you make, because it’s what shortened the pump’s life in the first place. Ask for the reasoning behind whichever recommendation you get; good pros show their work.
Kentucky’s well-driller certification (401 KAR 6:320) covers drilling and well alteration — and state law explicitly treats pump and piping replacement as separate from that certification. There’s no dedicated state pump-installer credential. So for pump work, the credentials that matter are experience, insurance, and standing behind the work — ask your contractor about their licensing, and expect a straight answer. The pros we refer give one.
We’re a local referral service. Call or send the form and we’ll connect you with a Kentucky-certified water well driller or a well pump professional serving Central Kentucky — for an emergency, an estimate, or a straight answer. No charge to you for the referral.
Lexington Well Drilling — Connecting Central Kentucky homeowners with Kentucky-certified water well drillers and well pump professionals.
Serving the rural fringe of Lexington and Fayette County plus Bourbon, Clark, Madison, Jessamine, Woodford, Scott, Franklin, Mercer, and Garrard counties.
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Information on this site is general guidance about water wells in Central Kentucky, not an assessment of your property. Lexington Well Drilling is a referral service and does not itself drill wells, service pumps, or test water.