To ensure your water is safe to drink you should test your water at least annually.The water should be tested for safety and quality- iron, manganese, nitrate, lead, arsenic, fluoride, sulfate, pH, total dissolved solids, hardness, sodium, copper, total coliform bacteria and E. coli bacteria, and anything else of local concern. If you have water treatment equipment, the water should be tested both before and after any treatment to verify that the equipment is working properly.
Annual well maintenance starts with regular well inspections. Begin by walking out and looking at your well. The well should have a sanitary, sealed well cap, firmly seated and bolted to prevent contamination from insects from entering the well. Next make sure the soil is packed so that it slopes away from your well to prevent surface water from pooling around the casing, which can allow storm water to seep into your well. Sooner or later all well grouting will fail (even if you never hit the well with your lawn tractor) and sloping the soil helps to keep the surface water away from the well casing. Look to see if your well casing is rusted through, if you have an old steel casing, it will happen someday. To extend the life of well with a failing casing or grout, you can line a well casing with a slightly narrower pipe-once. Both wells and the mechanical components of a well have a limited life. Someday the well components and well its self will have to be replaced- plan and budget for it because you cannot live without a water supply.
While many wells will last decades, over time the amount of water a well yields can decrease. That can be caused by the water table falling due to extended drought, increased use or building in the recharge area. Mineral encrustation and reducing bacteria buildup can cause plugging of holes in the well screen or the filling of openings in the geologic formation itself. According to Penn State Extension the fall in well yield over time can be caused by changes in the water well itself. These changes can include:
A pump or even the well may be worn out by pumping water high in sand or gravel, corrosion from corrosive water (low pH), incrustation of the well by minerals, biofouling of the well by microbial oxidation and precipitation of iron, manganese or sulfur, or by a failure or breakdown in the pumping equipment. Often these problems are interrelated. Water treatment systems to address corrosive water or minerals are often installed to protect plumbing and improve water quality in the house. Nothing is done to protect the well equipment from corrosion or keep it operational.
The essential components of a modern drilled well system are: a submersible pump, a check valve (with an additional valve every 100 feet), a pitless adaptor to bring the water to the house below the frost line, a sanitary sealed well cap to keep out vermin and bugs, electrical wiring including a control box, pressure switch, a pressure tank to literally push the water throughout the house and an interior water delivery system known as your plumbing. There are additional fittings and cut-off switches for system protection, but those are the basics. To keep the home supplied with water each mechanical component in the system and well must remain operational and sooner or later they should all be replaced.
The well has a casing (a metal or plastic liner) that may extend the length of the well, or at least to the bedrock and then have some sort of slotted casing, screen or “sock” around the pump impeller to keep debris, sand and sediment out of the system. Over time these can become damaged by corrosive water, fouled by “iron bacteria” or clogged by sand or clay fines all of which can destroy your well’s mechanical equipment. A newer well may have a sediment problem.
When you drill a well, mud and borehole cuttings can partially plug the well. This material must be removed to allow water to freely enter the well during well development. All wells have sediment, but if the well has not been fully and properly developed the well will often produce excess amounts of sediment or have a low water production yield. Though not every well drilled has the potential to provide enough water for a household, poor choices in well completion design can render even a good well a poor producing well and result in a very short life for the mechanical equipment.
Immersion pumps are designed to have a median run time of about 25,000 hours (if the pump was run straight out). That never happens, well pumps turn on an off frequently throughout the day, My back of the envelope calculation is that an typical immersion pump should last a median of 14-17 years of residential operation depending on how your household operates. My well pump is about over 15 years old. It has always been my intention to replace my pump, the wiring, the pressure tank and pressure switch before they fail, but it is devilishly hard to pick the right time to do that. Now is the time to identify a contractor and pick the replacement equipment. Identifying who to call if you have a well problem is something all well owners should do before they have a problem.
Annual well maintenance starts with regular well inspections. Begin by walking out and looking at your well. The well should have a sanitary, sealed well cap, firmly seated and bolted to prevent contamination from insects from entering the well. Next make sure the soil is packed so that it slopes away from your well to prevent surface water from pooling around the casing, which can allow storm water to seep into your well. Sooner or later all well grouting will fail (even if you never hit the well with your lawn tractor) and sloping the soil helps to keep the surface water away from the well casing. Look to see if your well casing is rusted through, if you have an old steel casing, it will happen someday. To extend the life of well with a failing casing or grout, you can line a well casing with a slightly narrower pipe-once. Both wells and the mechanical components of a well have a limited life. Someday the well components and well its self will have to be replaced- plan and budget for it because you cannot live without a water supply.
While many wells will last decades, over time the amount of water a well yields can decrease. That can be caused by the water table falling due to extended drought, increased use or building in the recharge area. Mineral encrustation and reducing bacteria buildup can cause plugging of holes in the well screen or the filling of openings in the geologic formation itself. According to Penn State Extension the fall in well yield over time can be caused by changes in the water well itself. These changes can include:
- Encrustation by mineral deposits
- Bio-fouling by the growth of microorganisms
- Physical plugging of groundwater aquifer by sediment
- Well screen or casing corrosion
- Pump damage
A pump or even the well may be worn out by pumping water high in sand or gravel, corrosion from corrosive water (low pH), incrustation of the well by minerals, biofouling of the well by microbial oxidation and precipitation of iron, manganese or sulfur, or by a failure or breakdown in the pumping equipment. Often these problems are interrelated. Water treatment systems to address corrosive water or minerals are often installed to protect plumbing and improve water quality in the house. Nothing is done to protect the well equipment from corrosion or keep it operational.
The essential components of a modern drilled well system are: a submersible pump, a check valve (with an additional valve every 100 feet), a pitless adaptor to bring the water to the house below the frost line, a sanitary sealed well cap to keep out vermin and bugs, electrical wiring including a control box, pressure switch, a pressure tank to literally push the water throughout the house and an interior water delivery system known as your plumbing. There are additional fittings and cut-off switches for system protection, but those are the basics. To keep the home supplied with water each mechanical component in the system and well must remain operational and sooner or later they should all be replaced.
The well has a casing (a metal or plastic liner) that may extend the length of the well, or at least to the bedrock and then have some sort of slotted casing, screen or “sock” around the pump impeller to keep debris, sand and sediment out of the system. Over time these can become damaged by corrosive water, fouled by “iron bacteria” or clogged by sand or clay fines all of which can destroy your well’s mechanical equipment. A newer well may have a sediment problem.
When you drill a well, mud and borehole cuttings can partially plug the well. This material must be removed to allow water to freely enter the well during well development. All wells have sediment, but if the well has not been fully and properly developed the well will often produce excess amounts of sediment or have a low water production yield. Though not every well drilled has the potential to provide enough water for a household, poor choices in well completion design can render even a good well a poor producing well and result in a very short life for the mechanical equipment.
Immersion pumps are designed to have a median run time of about 25,000 hours (if the pump was run straight out). That never happens, well pumps turn on an off frequently throughout the day, My back of the envelope calculation is that an typical immersion pump should last a median of 14-17 years of residential operation depending on how your household operates. My well pump is about over 15 years old. It has always been my intention to replace my pump, the wiring, the pressure tank and pressure switch before they fail, but it is devilishly hard to pick the right time to do that. Now is the time to identify a contractor and pick the replacement equipment. Identifying who to call if you have a well problem is something all well owners should do before they have a problem.
The first step is to get a list well contractors where you live who are licensed to operate in in your state. In Virginia, there have been well regulations in place since 1992 and well contractors are required to have a license from the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation (DPOR) as a water well system provider. You should get two or three proposals to compare (pricing does vary significantly) ask your neighbors who they use, check online comments and reviews. I found the yelp reviews to be most helpful for me. Call the licensed contractors and ask about availability-when your well fails you do not want to wait a week or more for an appointment. Also, make sure that the well contractor has the proper equipment to pull your existing pump vertically.
Once you have selected your well contractors you need to call them for a proposal which should include equipment specifications, labor and costs. It might be a good idea to replace the pump, pressure tank and electrical at the same time, I am a big believer in this, but you should discuss this with your selected contractors. Do you want to install a 2-wire or 3-wire model pump? What size and capacity pump do you need? Do you need or want a variable speed pump? Variable speed pumps have been reported in some places to have reliability problems. What size pressure tank do you need? Are you going to replace the electrical wiring? These are all questions you want the well contractor to answer and options you want to price out while you still have water in your house. Not all well contractors will have the same answers, you will then need to decide what you want. By going through this exercise you will be prepared to deal with both mechanical and well issues when they happen.
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