Fall is here! With the mountains to the west capped with snow a couple of times these last couple of weeks and with only 8 days left this month, we are starting the last major survey loops of this survey season. The first will be to the north and west. We are picking up AB surveys on our way North in AB the next few days and then will head west to Fort. St. John, BC. From there we will be heading back through central BC thru Williams Lake, expecting to finish up the BC jobs in the south, at Oliver. When we get back to AB we will get caught up on the local surveys before heading out for what will be the last eastern loop into SK.
Its’ not that surveys come to an abrupt halt as we do continue to work into freeze up and beyond, but since we do not have the volume after these late season loops we end up starting to add mileage surcharges which depending on the location, can add 10-30 % to the cost of survey. It’s enough for some late booking clients choosing to wait till spring in hopes of avoiding at least part of those charges. Most often they do as spring always has enough bookings to take us to most areas in western Canada well able to group surveys for cost effective travel in most of SK, AB and BC. That said we will be upping our minimum survey prices next year.
Though surveys were down a little this year (the economy of course) we again had a remarkable season with drill behinds to date obtaining water for all our clients up to mid-summer. At that point we were hoping to bat a 100% this season. Nearly all our surveys were in tough to find water areas and turned out as well or better then we hoped. That was then. As of now even though every site that was drilled this season actually obtained water, to us we missed estimates on 2 high risk sites, one in August and one in September, as after drilling the volumes, though within the estimated range, were less than we expected and not really viable. We were expecting (or hoping for) the higher side of the estimated range. On all the rest of the drill behinds we were at or above the estimated range on acquired yield and with drill depths all above the maximum estimated depth to drill.
You will find client testimonials on this blog but feel free to call us for more, as most of our clients are excited to share their success. We can also provide names of water well drillers that know our work.
Enjoy the fall colors. It could get white soon.
