Private Well

[Mark J]

Here's a deep question, do any of you have any personal experience with, or knowledge about, private wells as a source for household water?  

My wife and I live in suburban Chicago and are considering making an offer on a house in a suburb a bit farther out from the city.  The house is connected to the municipal sewer, but water is from a private well on the property.  I know some towns have municipal supply that is obtained from a public well, but this is a private well.  We have always had Lake Michigan water, so I know nothing of wells.  

Does the well require any maintenance?  
Can it run dry?  What do you do if it does?
Do I have to have the water tested?  And what do you do if doesn't pass?
Something else I should know?

By the way I have tasted the water.  It's not a Michigan Cocktail, but it wasn't bad.  

[Coop]

Not able to answer any of those questions but have a couple of suggestions:

I would ask the current owner how deep the well is, how long it has been there and how old the pump is. I would then quiz the neighbors the same and ask if they have had any problems. 

[Tom King]

I've lived the vast majority of my life on a well, and my Dad was in the well digging business.

Shallow well, or deep well?  as in bored in dirt, or drilled in rock?

Yes, you can get the water tested.  Not sure about how it works up there, but check with the County Health Department first.  They may do it, or can send it off.

Also, what type of pump?  Jet pump, or submersible pump?

My 106 year old Mother has lived her life on well water, and still has all her teeth and never had a cavity, after 106 years of no chlorinated water.

The well itself should not require any maintenance, but then again you're a long ways from here, so ask the Health Department when you ask them about testing.

Wells can run dry for various reasons, but I've never know one to.  We have LOTS of water in the ground, and running out all around us.  Holding your ear to the top of our deep well, it sounds like a river running down there.

[BonPacific]

On 9/10/2022 at 5:04 PM, Mark J said:

 

We're on a shared well (just two houses currently, originally served four houses) at the new house.

Your county/township should have some sort of record on the well, including a permit for drilling it assuming it's not unbelievably old. You can also check with the title agency, as they may have copies.

Wells can run dry, but it's usually only an issue if there's been a ton of growth locally that lowers the water table, and the well was drilled shallow originally. Around my area it's more often saltwater intrusion, but that's not a problem near you.

You can get a flow test (and one should be done when selling/buying) to see how the well is currently performing. They don't usually dry up overnight so as long as the flow is good you should be fine.

Health testing should be done regularly, but some places don't require it on non-shared wells, so you'll have to check local requirements. The seller should have done a test when selling either way, and if not you could request one or make it a contingency.

Maintenance is generally pretty low, but you'll want to get the pump and holding tanks inspected to make sure they're in fine shape. If it has a filter system that will need regular replacing. The taste may or may not be an issue for you even if safe. If it's on a generator that will require maintenance.

[Coop]

@BonPacific and @Tom King, my family had a place in the country with a well for years and the water was very hard. A bar of soap would last an exceptionally long time. Is a water softener something Mark should be made aware of? 

[Just Bob]

2 hours ago, Mark J said:

Here's a deep question, do any of you have any personal experience with, or knowledge about, private wells as a source for household water?  

My wife and I live in suburban Chicago and are considering making an offer on a house in a suburb a bit farther out from the city.  The house is connected to the municipal sewer, but water is from a private well on the property.  I know some towns have municipal supply that is obtained from a public well, but this is a private well.  We have always had Lake Michigan water, so I know nothing of wells.  

Does the well require any maintenance?  
Can it run dry?  What do you do if it does?
Do I have to have the water tested?  And what do you do if doesn't pass?
Something else I should know?

By the way I have tasted the water.  It's not a Michigan Cocktail, but it wasn't bad.  

Our water is from a well.  I assume that there are different types of well systems, so this is just about ours.  

It has been an active well for about 20 yrs. The only maintenance we have had to do was replace the pressure tank .  Plumbing is simple, it was a little awkward because the space around the tank is tight.  The pressure tank, fuse box, and exposed plumbing are in a separate out building.  The well head (with the pump) is about 50' away from the building.  The plumbing in the building is exposed and does freeze, I keep a heat lamp in the building that solves that problem.

Our well water happens to be a natural artesian well and the source is 98' down.  That info was supplied by county when we bought the place.  We were required to have the water tested prior to purchase.  The lab that does the test supplies the container we supplied the water and they issue a report to the county.  Testing offers great peace of mind, I have it tested every  10yrs.  Costs a little over $250.00.  I don't think you would be able to buy the place if the tests failed.  

I have toyed with the idea of putting is a filtration system, but they are very pricey.  There is a little sentiment that collects in both the pressure tank and water heater.  I flush the water heater once a year, but there is no way to flush the pressure tank.  

I have researched replacing the pump, it doesn't look hard to do, but I won't know for sure until I have to do the job.  There have been rumors, that the state wants to go all california and force us to put a meter on our system.  I won't say here how I am going to react, if that happens.  I doubt it will because we live in an agricultural county, that supplies most of the fresh produce and milk to the state.  But you never say never.

[wtnhighlander]

I grew up in a home with a well, and it always had good water, although the flow wasn't substantial. Worst thing about the well is that when electricity fails, so does the water. In the early 1970s, there was a winter storm that left us without heat, light, or running water for nearly 3 weeks. We stayed at my maternal grandparent's house nearby, as they had a propane furnace. Still on a well, though, so we resorted to hauling buckets of water from a spring on the property, just like the 'good old days'.  My paternal grandmother still had a functioning bucket well at here place, a great convenience in such a situation. HER mother's home, abandoned since great-grandma passed in 1972, didn't even have indoor plumbing. Just an augered bucket well and an outhouse.

My parents later built a new house a few miles away, and the well there was very rich in iron, requiring them to flush out the pipes annually, and use a water softening system to reduce the orange staining and sulfurous odor. The water wasn't unhealthy, just unpleasant. They were happy when municipal water became available.

[Tom King]

Ground water varies depending on lots of things, including hardness, minerals in it, acidity, taste because of those, and I expect a long list of other things.

Ours is ever so slightly acidic, which will cause pinholes in copper pipes after several decades.  It tastes as good as any bottled water though, and none of us ever get cavities, or even have to get our teeth cleaned.  I haven't been to a Dentist in decades, and that was when I was away at college.  My Mother says it's the Fountain of Youth water.

Ours is a drilled well in Granite, but the house I grew up in, and the one my Mother grew up in had bored shallow wells.  My Dad bored wells rather than drilled deep wells.  There are a Lot of bored wells once you get away from the river a few miles.  Granite is close underground along the river that the lake is on.

[JohnG]

We’ve been on a private well for 2yrs now and love it. Luckily our property hadn’t been used for farming or cattle in a long time before the well was drilled, so the it wasn’t contaminated. Your local health department will have a recommended testing cycle, what to test for and how often. Ours is annual for a couple things, then a broader test every 5yrs. 

There should be a well tag attached to the well head with info about it, if the county doesn’t have the info on record. 

We haven’t had any issues with ours, and haven’t had to worry about losing pressure. Only other consideration is what to do in power outages if they are common in the area- no power to the pump, no water. 

 

[Tom King]

I really like submersible pumps.  No prime to lose.  The pump goes at the bottom of the well.

Currently, we are using a Grundfos all stainless steel constant pressure pump system.  It's controlled by a circuit board computer that keeps the pressure constant, and you can change the pressure if you want to by the push of a button.

I have a pulley on a chain that I can hold over the well with the front end loader, and pull the pump with my truck.  It can be pulled by hand, but it takes three people.  I can do it like this by myself.  This pump hasn't needed to be pulled since I put it in, but I can if I need to.  

Not necessarily from this company, but this is the system I replaced the 30 year old Goulds pump that quit about a dozen years ago with.

https://rainwaterequipment.com/5sqe-constant-pressure-pump-system-5-gpm-39-psi-to-195-psi/

We had the first controller unit to quit while it was still under warranty.  I bought another one to use while they were replacing the bad one, so I have a backup.

 

[Mark J]

Thanks for all the posts and information.  

The house is new construction (just completed) on a previously vacant parcel in a residential area.  So I assume that the well and all its components are also new.  Just the same, getting an inspection/flow test or some documentation from the installer seems prudent.   Check!, on getting the water tested, too.  
I have no idea what type of well it is, how deep, or what kind of  pump.  The well cap is small and kind of "snow man" shaped, so if I had to guess it's a drilled type, and hopefully a submersible pump, but important things to find out from the seller/inspector.  

I think that Illinois Department Public Health may have jurisdiction, but the village has a water department, so I'll start there.  Turns out a lot of the village is supplied by Lake Michigan, so it would be interesting to understand why this part of the village is not.  What I've read so far for this area recommends annual inspections and water quality testing.  

Not sure if a water softener is going to be needed.  The water tastes fine, but I don't know about the hardness.  I also understand that there are various filters  (e.g. reverse osmosis, charcoal, etc.) that can be installed, but I have yet to do research on that.  On a positive note, I now know that the blue thing in the basement is the pressure tank.  Not really happy to realize that no power = no water, so a backup power source needs to be considered.  

I appreciate hearing of your experiences.  It's helpful because in all my life I've never spent a moment wondering where my next drop of water was coming from or whether it would be safe to drink.

[Tom King]

Hopefully it's better than any you've ever had.  I wouldn't trade ours for any city water.

[BonPacific]

One point to add, depending on the size of the pressure tank(s) and usage your water may still flow for days after the power goes out. According to the neighbors who share our well it takes about 4 days before they have to run the generator. But the pressure tanks are oversized for just two houses. It may be more cost effective if you're worried to just add an extra tank rather than bother with a generator.

@Tom King  You lucked out with your well water. I don't know anyone locally that loves their well water.
Or it might just be that every town/city I've lived in has excellent municipal water.

Our well is slightly hard, and ends up tasting very "stale" while other folks not far away had very metallic well water. We just use a basic cartridge filter in the fridge for drinking water, and it doesn't affect cooking/cleaning.

[curlyoak]

On 9/10/2022 at 8:04 PM, Mark J said:

Do I have to have the water tested?  And what do you do if doesn't pass?

Yes, test the water. If it fails calculate the cost of a remedy. With the cost is the property still worth it?

[Tom King]

I would imagine, since it's a fairly new well, that the well digger would have had to have it tested before the county would have allowed anything built there.  I know nothing of any state other than the one I live in though.

[Mark J]

I guess the question is what do you do if 5 or 10 years down the road the well, or the water source itself, becomes contaminated.  That doesn't appear to be a common problem, but still a "what if".

[wtnhighlander]

Contamination is a risk, anywhere. Plenty of larger cities have no serious water treatment facilities, because the water source was always good, until it wasn't.