Well pump repair and replacement in the Wichita area

Most of Wichita drinks city water, but a lot of homes on the edges of the metro do not. Acreages west toward Goddard and Cheney, farmhouses north around Maize, Valley Center and Sedgwick, rural lots off the county roads near Derby, Mulvane, Andover and Augusta, and plenty of in-town houses that keep a lawn well all depend on a pump sitting down a steel or plastic casing. When that pump stops, the faucets go dry, the toilets won't refill and the livestock tank sits empty. This site lays out how well pump problems usually play out here and puts your request in front of a well and pump contractor who works your part of the county.

Find your situation

The ground under Wichita

North and west of the city, many household wells draw from the Equus Beds, a layer of unconsolidated sand, gravel, silt and clay that the Kansas Geological Survey maps across parts of Sedgwick, Harvey, Reno, McPherson and Rice counties. The City of Wichita pulls from the same aquifer for its own supply, alongside Cheney Reservoir. Elsewhere the water is harder to come by: Sedgwick County's code office notes that groundwater is plentiful and easy to reach in some parts of the county and difficult to find in others. That spread is why one neighbour's well can be shallow and trouble-free while the next one over needs a deeper setting, a different pump or more patience with sand and minerals. The groundwater guide goes into the Equus Beds, the Burrton chloride plume and what to test for.

What a pump call usually covers

• Electrical checks first. Breaker, pressure switch contacts, control box (on three-wire submersibles) and the voltage reaching the motor.
• The pressure tank. A waterlogged tank or a bad air charge makes a healthy pump look sick. See pressure tanks.
• Pulling the pump when the problem is down the hole: a failed motor, a split drop pipe, a stuck check valve or a worn-out pump end.
• Chlorinating afterwards. Sedgwick County's well code requires the well and system to be chlorinated whenever a pump or pump column is removed or replaced.

Who is allowed to work on a Kansas well

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment licenses water well contractors, who must pass a written exam, renew every year and file a WWC-5 record for each well they build, rebuild or plug. Kansas does not have a separate license just for pump work yet; a 2026 bill to create one, HB 2424, cleared a House committee in January but shows no further action. Inside Wichita, city rules let a plumber work on a pump but not alter the casing or the well seal. In the county, anything that changes the casing has to be done by a Kansas-licensed driller. Ask whoever comes out which category they fall in.

Before you call

It speeds things up if you know roughly how deep the well is, whether the pump is down in the well or sitting on the basement floor, how old it is, and what the pressure gauge on the tank reads. If the well was drilled after 1975, K-State Extension notes that a well log with its depth and water level may be on file with the county or state. If you don't know any of that, call anyway. The contractor will work it out on site.

Questions people ask

Do you fix well pumps yourselves?

No. This site is a referral service. Your call or form goes to an independent, local well and pump contractor, who quotes and does the job.

Which towns does this cover?

Wichita and the rural ring around it: Derby, Haysville, Maize, Goddard, Andover, Park City, Valley Center, Bel Aire, Mulvane, Cheney, Clearwater, Colwich and nearby Harvey and Butler County towns.

Does replacing a pump need a county permit?

Not in the county's unincorporated areas. Sedgwick County's code office lists pump replacement and chlorination as work that needs no permit; building, rebuilding or plugging a well does.