u/SpartanBuff

TL;DR: I am in search of a well specialist who specializes in accurately finding underground water veins on residential property. Preferably using some kind of ground penetrating radar or other appropriate technology to accurately locate water and dig a well.

Long backstory: we built a house in a rural area just outside the Dayton area in 2013 and installed a new well at the time of construction. When the well was installed, its production was mid to low, so we mitigated this issue by installing a cistern that the well could trickle into. The well feeds the cistern and then the cistern feeds the house. All was fine until spring 2024, when we started noticing the well wasn’t keeping up with demand, so we had our well driller out to address it. He pulled our pump and cleaned it, and then rehabbed the well by using his rig to clean the well perforations. (Lots of iron in the water in our area.) The well seemed ok until spring 2025, when it pretty much quit producing all together. All the well hardware checks out, pump, pressure switch etc. It just isn’t producing water anymore. We have been surviving since spring 2025 by having water deliveries every ~12 days by a local company who brings 2000 gallons of water by truck and then fills the cistern for our household use. I’d like to address this issue in a more permanent manner by having a new well installed but the area we live in is notorious for very sporadic underground water veins. We have some neighbors who have no water like us, but other neighbors have plenty of water. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I have talked to several local well drillers and they all say we might as well throw a lawn dart to mark the spot for a new well because it’s just a crap shoot on finding water. And we would have to pay a well driller to dig a well whether they hit water or not. I refuse to believe that in the year of our lord 2026 there is not some kind of technology that can be used to locate underground water to make digging a well a more accurate process than throwing a lawn dart.

Does anyone have any recommendations or advice for me? Anyone else experience this and still able to get a new well that produces enough for your household? Am I dreaming and I just need to accept my fate and live with water deliveries forever? I welcome your thoughts.