Step 1 — Access and site assessment
Nothing happens on a parcel until a drill rig and an excavator can reach the spot where the work goes. Rig access matters more than a postal address, and on remote land it is often the first line item nobody budgeted for. The site assessment fixes four decisions that are expensive to revisit.
- Where the house pad goes, which sets every distance that follows.
- Where the well and the septic system can go, given the separation distances the septic site evaluation will impose.
- Where the array goes — southern exposure, ground-mount room, and how far the conductors have to run back to the house.
- What the ground is. Rock, caliche, or dirt changes the trenching line item more than any equipment choice on the job.
That last one is not theoretical. The water system we built in Torrance County in July 2026 ran roughly 520 linear feet of trench through rocky ground at a minimum depth of 30 inches. Trenching is billed by the day at $1,300 as of August 2026, so the distance between the well head and the house is a real budget input, decided at the site assessment.
Step 2 — Water, before anything else you build
Water goes first among the three systems because it is the one that can change the plan. A well that comes in deeper than expected, or yields less than hoped, changes the pump, the storage, and the electrical load — and can change where the house sits. Every other decision on the parcel is easier to make after the well is a known quantity.
Drilling is performed by a licensed New Mexico well driller working as our subcontractor, with the project managed end to end by us; we do not hold a drilling license and do not claim one. Because depth is unknown until the bit is in the ground, we quote a base depth and publish the rate past it — beyond 200 feet, drilling is billed at $75 per foot as of August 2026 — rather than quoting one number and revising it once the rig is on site.
The complete Torrance County water package gives a fair picture of the scope: a 200-foot well with 6-inch steel casing, an RPS 800 helical-rotor solar pump on a dedicated 1,200 W array with an MPPT boost controller, a generator auto-switch, two 2,500-gallon NSF-61 cisterns, and a 1.5-inch NSF-61 HDPE line back to the house. About $55,000 as of August 2026, on 70% deposit and 30% at completion. The design reasoning behind each of those pieces is in our solar well pumps guide.
Step 3 — Septic
Septic follows the site evaluation and precedes the house pad going in for good. It runs on its own approval track — soil and site evaluation, a permit issued against a specific design and location, then an inspection before the system is covered — and it constrains the site plan through the separation distances it requires between the system, the well, and the structure.
Settle it early. Moving a septic design on paper is paperwork; moving a finished well because the septic ended up where the well should have gone is a second well. Because the septic trench and the water trench are dug by the same machine on the same mobilization, an early septic decision also collapses two excavator trips into one.
Step 4 — Power
Solar goes last of the three, and it goes last for a good reason: it is sized to loads, and the loads are not final until the well pump and the house are defined. A pump load guessed at in advance is a design revision waiting to happen.
Two paths, both real. The self-install path is a packaged kit: 6.6 kW with 16 kWh of storage at $12,255, 13.2 kW with 32 kWh at $22,559, and 19.8 kW with 48 kWh at $34,255, all as of August 2026. The full-install path is quote-driven, and the reference point from our 2026 work is a 14.4 kW ground-mount build in central New Mexico completed between mid-June and mid-July 2026 for about $62,500 — battery and inverter package, panels, ground-mount racking, and concrete. On that job, equipment was roughly two-thirds of the installed cost, with labor and site work making up the balance.
One design note that pays for itself: on most properties we put the well pump on its own array rather than on the house system. The Torrance pump runs from a dedicated 1,200 W array through a boost controller, so a heavy watering day never draws down the house battery and a cloudy week never makes you choose between water and lights.
What one contractor for all three is actually worth
The honest version is that single-contractor coordination saves less on line-item price than it saves on schedule and rework. Three things drive that.
| Scheduling | Approvals and inspections gate buried work. One party holding the calendar means the trench is open when the inspector arrives, not the week after. |
|---|---|
| Shared trenching | One excavator mobilization for the septic run, the water line, and the conductors — planned in a single pass where code separations allow, at $1,300 per day as of August 2026. |
| Single responsibility | When the pump, the array, and the water line are all ours, there is no seam for a problem to fall into and nobody to point at. |
The rework case is the one owners feel most. A trench dug for a water line and backfilled before anyone thought about the pump conductors is a second mobilization and a second inspection. That is not an exotic failure; it is the normal result of three contractors each optimizing their own scope.
A budget frame, dated
| Complete solar well and water system (Torrance County) | About $55,000 |
|---|---|
| 14.4 kW ground-mount off-grid build (central NM) | About $62,500 |
| Well drilling beyond 200 ft | $75 per foot |
| Trenching | $1,300 per day |
| DIY kit — 6.6 kW / 16 kWh | $12,255 |
| DIY kit — 13.2 kW / 32 kWh | $22,559 |
| DIY kit — 19.8 kW / 48 kWh | $34,255 |
These are real project and catalog figures, not averages, and they are dated so you can see how current they are. Your parcel will differ on depth, distance, and ground conditions — the three variables that move an off-grid budget most.
The checklist
- Confirm access for a drill rig and an excavator, and the county requirements that apply to the parcel.
- Walk the site: house pad, array location, well and septic siting, and the ground between them.
- Septic site evaluation early — its separation distances set what is possible everywhere else.
- Drill the well; get depth, casing, water level, and tested yield in writing from the licensed driller.
- Size storage and pump from the tested yield and daily demand, not from the catalog.
- Plan the trench route once — water line, pump conductors, and house feeders in one pass where code separations allow.
- Size the solar system against the finished load list, pump included.
- Schedule inspections before anything gets backfilled or covered — see our permitting and inspections guide.
- Collect the records: driller log, inspection sign-offs, equipment documentation, and warranties.