Hi and thanks to everyone who does such a wonderful job helping and sharing information in this wonderful forum!
I am in the process of buying a home with a well and no public water available. We really love the property but we took a water sample from the well and it came back positive for coliforms, >200.5 MPN/100-ML, NO E coli.
I am trying to figure out what is the next move I should make. I have limited details right now but here is what I have.
I don't know much about the well yet but did talk to a man who said he drilled most of the wells in that area and remembers the property. He said most of the wells in that area are around 180 ft deep. He said to drill a new well would probably run around 4K with a a new pump. The well was drilled somewhere around 1999 so it is around 20 years old. It has a 6" steel casing and a single drop 1"1/4" cap with 4 bolts to tighten the seal. It has a 26 gallon pressure tank that looks like it was installed in the last few years.
I have done a lot of reading on wells since we took the sample and will have to go back to the property to get more details. When the pump turns off and on you can see the pipe jump on top of the well cap. Perhaps it is not tight? The wiring is far from meeting any code and I did not check to see if the whole is sealed where the wire enters into the cap. Some of the splices are open wire nuts and no support connector in the pressure switch so where the cable enters into the cap may not have a connector either.
The guy who drilled the well said that he has never been called back out there and doubts the well was ever maintained. That may be true because the owner financed the land and it has sold 4 times in the last 20 years with only one person staying 9 years. The last owner had a water softener and peroxide injector added along with with two other tanks that I do not know what they do.
I spoke with the company that installed the equipment and here are some of their test results. Oddly they said they did not test for bacteria!
I do not know if this is after or before the system.
TDS=441
Hardness=32
Iron=1.5ppm
Heavy Metals= 20
The lay of the land.. 5 acres rural residential with most people having 5 to 10 acres spread out. all woods with trees about 50 year old and is just a few miles from a national forest. There is a small creek that runs across the land between the well and the house. The soil has a lot of shell rock in it. From the road the driveway slopes down hill about 225' to the well from the road. Going on down the hill from the well about 150' is where the creek crosses the driveway. That creek boarders the well on 2 sides but is abut 150' from the well on both sides. From the creek the driveway starts back up hill about 175 feet to the septic tank where the ground levels out briefly. So it is about 325' from the well to the septic tank. both being up on a hill with the creek in the middle.
I mentioned the lay of the land in case the contamination could be from the spring and to give you a bit more details?
So the well guy says to shock the well and re test it and he would almost guarantee that would fix it.
The filter company said not to worry about the water because the filter system will handle any problems!
They said the peroxide solution would handle it or I could also let them install a UV light for $1,400!
Their filter system runs about $800 a year for chemicals and service they said! I want to work on cutting that down..
So what are my options?
I am fairly confidant working with the well as we had a piece of land with a well on it in the past when I was younger.
Should I have a company come out and run a camera down in the well or just shock it and see how it goes?
The guy that drilled the well said he probably does not have the records so we don't actually know how deep it is. He does not have a camera either.
What to do?
Thanks
Charrie
I am in the process of buying a home with a well and no public water available. We really love the property but we took a water sample from the well and it came back positive for coliforms, >200.5 MPN/100-ML, NO E coli.
I am trying to figure out what is the next move I should make. I have limited details right now but here is what I have.
I don't know much about the well yet but did talk to a man who said he drilled most of the wells in that area and remembers the property. He said most of the wells in that area are around 180 ft deep. He said to drill a new well would probably run around 4K with a a new pump. The well was drilled somewhere around 1999 so it is around 20 years old. It has a 6" steel casing and a single drop 1"1/4" cap with 4 bolts to tighten the seal. It has a 26 gallon pressure tank that looks like it was installed in the last few years.
I have done a lot of reading on wells since we took the sample and will have to go back to the property to get more details. When the pump turns off and on you can see the pipe jump on top of the well cap. Perhaps it is not tight? The wiring is far from meeting any code and I did not check to see if the whole is sealed where the wire enters into the cap. Some of the splices are open wire nuts and no support connector in the pressure switch so where the cable enters into the cap may not have a connector either.
The guy who drilled the well said that he has never been called back out there and doubts the well was ever maintained. That may be true because the owner financed the land and it has sold 4 times in the last 20 years with only one person staying 9 years. The last owner had a water softener and peroxide injector added along with with two other tanks that I do not know what they do.
I spoke with the company that installed the equipment and here are some of their test results. Oddly they said they did not test for bacteria!
I do not know if this is after or before the system.
TDS=441
Hardness=32
Iron=1.5ppm
Heavy Metals= 20
The lay of the land.. 5 acres rural residential with most people having 5 to 10 acres spread out. all woods with trees about 50 year old and is just a few miles from a national forest. There is a small creek that runs across the land between the well and the house. The soil has a lot of shell rock in it. From the road the driveway slopes down hill about 225' to the well from the road. Going on down the hill from the well about 150' is where the creek crosses the driveway. That creek boarders the well on 2 sides but is abut 150' from the well on both sides. From the creek the driveway starts back up hill about 175 feet to the septic tank where the ground levels out briefly. So it is about 325' from the well to the septic tank. both being up on a hill with the creek in the middle.
I mentioned the lay of the land in case the contamination could be from the spring and to give you a bit more details?
So the well guy says to shock the well and re test it and he would almost guarantee that would fix it.
The filter company said not to worry about the water because the filter system will handle any problems!
They said the peroxide solution would handle it or I could also let them install a UV light for $1,400!
Their filter system runs about $800 a year for chemicals and service they said! I want to work on cutting that down..
So what are my options?
I am fairly confidant working with the well as we had a piece of land with a well on it in the past when I was younger.
Should I have a company come out and run a camera down in the well or just shock it and see how it goes?
The guy that drilled the well said he probably does not have the records so we don't actually know how deep it is. He does not have a camera either.
What to do?
Thanks
Charrie