Well vs. Rural Water

[kmhiggin]

Heya,

My wife and I are building a house out in the country (N.E. KS) and are looking for some help deciding if we should go with the rural (city) water or have a well drilled instead. I'd ordinarily go straight for the rural water but they want $6,500 for the water meter, which doesn't include the 1/4 mile from the road to the house that I'll have to bury it.

I hear wells can be a hassle (too soft, too hard, bad pH, bacteria, pesticides, etc.) but how big of a headache are we talking? We do have a lot of farmers in the area...how real of a concern is pesticide/herbicide contamination?

Any advice is much appreciated!

 

[Mike Swearingen]

There are pros and cons to both systems of course. Currently, we have both.
We've lived on the waterfront (Albemarle Sound) of a farm in northeastern NC for more than 32 years.
We had no choice but to put down a shallow well at first. The farm is irrigated and double-cropped, mostly truck crops, with lots of chemicals used. There have been contamination issues from time to time, and we finally began drinking bottled water (by the gallon jugs), until county water became available.
We eventually hooked up to county water, but kept our well for watering the yard, washing vehicles, etc. (The county water is too expensive to water yards and gardens, especially in a dry seasons.)
Obviously, on a private well and pump, when you lose power, you lose water too. That's the primary advantage of being on public water, as we can lose power for days if there is a hurricane here for instance.
If it were me, I would go with a private well at first, considering the cost of hooking up to your public water. You can always go to it later if necessary, but you also will have a private well for backup and heavy uses.
I replaced our well and pump only a few months ago even though we're on county water. I also recently installed a new $2,200 water softener system. The county water is hard (as is our well water).
Mike

 

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[Masterpumpman]

I prefer my own well!

I suggest that you ask a couple drillers in your area what's the possibility of getting good safe water from a well in your area and what's the total cost?

It is my experience that community water systems aren't being maintained or up dated well. They just add more people and the price will only go up.

It's my feeling terrorist's won't poison a private well but a community well is an opportunity to kill a lot of people at one time. However I don't think terrorists will be going to NE Kansas anyway.

But what do I know. . . I'm a retired well driller.

 

[kmhiggin]

Thanks

Thanks to you both. I've heard about the water pressure issue when the power is out. This may sound naive, but has anyone ever installed a water tank in the attic??? It could work just like the municipal water tower, keeping the pressure up even during a power outage.

 

[Speedbump]

I would go for the well too. Of course, being a retired driller like Porky, I'm a little prejudice.

The water tank in the attic will give you about three pounds of pressure at your toes, so that probably won't work too well. Each foot is equal to .433 pounds.

I would be more concerned about Tornadoes than contaminated water the way you guys have been clobbered here recently. I have a daughter and two grandkids in Wichita and I'm always worried about them.

bob...

 

[estone]

I would do both.

We are in the country in Eastern CO. and our taps have went from $6-7,000 eight years ago to $15,000 now, not including the pipe to your home. When city water was first available 15 years ago they were $250! Your tap cost will udoubtedly go up. Water here in Colorado is like gold and I can't imagine it will be any different there.
The city water is much cleaner for home use and won't be as hard on your home.
We use our well for ouside watering(garden, lawn, trees) and it saves money in the long run. But unless you are planning to water alot outside the city water might be just fine for you.

Our city water(which is really well water from the city) is $48 for 6000 gal. We as a family of 4 reach or go over that every month, and are charged $1.75 for every 1000gal over (which we think is pretty good for now but it will go up). Last year we were at around 100,000 gallons in July. So our water bill was almost $200 for the month.

Also homes in the area are much more marketable if they have the dual system.

 

[Speedbump]

The city water is much cleaner for home use and won't be as hard on your home.

I wouldn't be so fast to make a statement like that. The chlorine in the city water makes it harder than well water without any chemicals. The well water may need a little cleaning up ascetically but it won't be as hard on your plumbing and other things as the chlorinated city water.

Well water must be a whole lot cheaper at the rates you just quoted. I can't believe how governments are ripping the public for these services. Just another tax under another name.

bob...

 

[Valveman]

Many cities get their water from wells that are in the same aquifer as individual wells. They just add chlorine to it and charge you 200 bucks a month for the same amount of water you could have pumped yourself for 10 bucks. With your own well, YOU can decide if it needs chlorine or not, because chlorine is TOXIC.

Other cities use surface water and may filter it a little before adding chlorine. However, they don't filter out very much, as you can still get contaminates such as pharmaceutical drugs, nitrates, pesticides, etc.. Deep well water without chlorine is still the safest source as far as I am concerned.

 

[estone]

Our water is pretty hard and can be a constant issue for plumbing. It eats water softners, and alternatives to water softners are costly. Not to mention our high nitrate levels.
So I realize some areas have very good well water and city water might actually be worse once treated with chlorine. And I hate to taste chlorine.

I should speak only to our area. In our area city water is preferable for home use and well water is better for outside use.

 

[Gary Slusser]

Our water is pretty hard and can be a constant issue for plumbing. It eats water softners, and alternatives to water softners are costly. Not to mention our high nitrate levels.
So I realize some areas have very good well water and city water might actually be worse once treated with chlorine. And I hate to taste chlorine.

I should speak only to our area. In our area city water is preferable for home use and well water is better for outside use.

LOL NO water "eats water softeners"!!! What are you talking about?

And there is no such thing as an "alternative", or substitute, for a water softener. So again, what are you talking about?

You and others that mistakenly think that "city" water is better than private well water need more information. I have sold water treatment equipment in all 48 US States and a couple Canadian provinces and can tell you that hard water is everywhere and it's a rare 'city' water that isn't hard (more than 4 gpg) and some is much harder than many wells.

Man has lived for thousands of years and prospered on well water. And like everything else, the government would love to control 'us' so they are against wells and for 'city' water; it centralizes the record keeping and makes regulation much easier. They sell the concept by saying "we just wanna help you". And like sheep being lead to slaughter, millions of us blindly follow.

Nitrate is easily removed with a top dressed softener or anion softener. More nitrate problems are more abundant in 'city' water because of the high numbers of population, than in private wells. I have tested thousands of private and commercial wells and always tested for Nitrates, Nitrites, Coliform bacteria etc. etc.. How about MTBE and arsenic in city water? Chlorine disinfection byproducts etc. etc.? From my experience, well water is much safer than city water, but the water companies and the government would never admit that.

 

[estone]

Sorry,
I was more speaking about going to a mechanical system rather than the standard chemical water softeners, and I suppose the magnetic softners would be an alternative, which I suppose don't have much of a track record?
maybe you don't agree?:
www.water-treatment.org.uk/water_softeners.html
"For hard water treatment you may wish to use a magnetic water conditioner as they are signficantly less expensive alternative to water softeners. Although some people claim they don't work, there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence, and some scientific research, to suggest they are equally as effective as water softeners in treating hard water."

Our city water I'm told it between 3-8gpg, its mountain water. And personally I like the taste of the mountain water. Our well water is over 14gpg. and can cause alot of scaling even with a softner and antiscaler.
I would rather pay for the mountain water in the house than maintain the system to treat my well water. I guess it is convenience.
If the city water was crappier I'd probably just have my well.

Thanks for the info on Nitrates, I will check that out.

As for our N.E. Kansas homeowner, he may want to stick with the well?

 

[Speedbump]

For hard water treatment you may wish to use a magnetic water conditioner as they are signficantly less expensive alternative to water softeners. Although some people claim they don't work, there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence, and some scientific research, to suggest they are equally as effective as water softeners in treating hard water.

Show me the proof that these things work. They are a joke and anyone who wastes their money on one, has just been fleeced.

Water softeners take out all the hardness, not just some of it.

bob...

 

[Gary Slusser]

Sorry,
I was more speaking about going to a mechanical system rather than the standard chemical water softeners, and I suppose the magnetic softners would be an alternative, which I suppose don't have much of a track record?
maybe you don't agree?:

No, because they don't work.

Our city water I'm told it between 3-8gpg, its mountain water. And personally I like the taste of the mountain water. Our well water is over 14gpg. and can cause alot of scaling even with a softner and antiscaler.

I would rather pay for the mountain water in the house than maintain the system to treat my well water. I guess it is convenience.
If the city water was crappier I'd probably just have my well.

You'll spend more on city water than to treat your well water but, your city water is hard anyway, and magnets and the electronic thingies do not work.

If you have or had a softener that wasn't giving you 0 gpg soft water, it was not working right or it was undersized for the family and number of bathrooms and the type of fixtures in them. A correctly sized softener would solve your problem.