Residential Roots to High-Capacity Drilling

Ten years ago, Water Technologies of SW Florida was founded by Robert Howard, a water-well driller with 40 years of experience, and his son-in-law Jacob Pruette. Their focus started on smaller residential wells that could easily be accomplished with their three rigs, including two DM250s. But as their scope started to expand, their needs for a rig also changed.

“The DM450 is a larger rig and we’re focusing more on large commercial and agriculture. That’s the reason we purchased it: to accommodate for the deeper agriculture wells,” Pruette said.

Features That Deliver in the Field

The DM450 doesn’t just handle bigger wells — it makes them easier:

• Carousel: “The larger capacity carousel and the helper controls where you can reload the carousel while you’re drilling helps us a lot.”

• Chassis: “One of the main things that we’ve found that we enjoy is the Western Star chassis. It’s a lot beefier and a lot stronger, so that’s been a huge improvement over the previous years.”

• Air Compressor: “It has a two-stage air compressor so we can use it on the lower stage for residential wells and the second stage for larger, deep commercial wells.”

• Top Head: “The two speed top head makes it really nice whenever you’re in harder rock, and slow it in rockier, gummier clays.”

Although it was purchased for larger wells, the DM450 has proven to be invaluable and flexible for multiple job sites.

“The DM450 drills every day. If it’s not drilling a commercial or agricultural well, it’s drilling residential wells,” Pruette said. “We love the rig, we’re extremely happy with it. We’re already thinking about purchasing our next one.”