The Rules for Buying a Home with a Well

Virginia is a "buyer beware" state. Any well or groundwater problems not detected by the buyer during the sale process become the  buyer's problem upon closing the sale. There is no legal recourse back to the seller. These are the rules for buying house with a well to help you to avoid properties that are potential big problems before you close on a house.

1. The house must have 2-3 acres of land.
2. There must be a well completion report on file with the county health department that shows:
1. The well stabilized yield should be greater than or equal to 6 gallons/minute
2. The well should be drilled and more than 100 feet below grade (deep)
3. The well should be a 6 inch diameter pipe with a bolted cap sticking at least a foot out of the ground
4. Do not buy a home with a shared well
5. The well was drilled after April 1, 1992 (under the current regulations).
6. The well head must be at least 100 feet from the nearest edge of the septic drainfield and at least 50 feet from the nearest corner of the house.
7. Health Department records show regular septic pump outs at least every 5 years. Annual inspections for alternative septic systems should be on file.
8. Don’t buy a house with a well in Karst terrain.
9. Test the well water for all the primary and secondary contaminants regulated under the safe drinking water act as well as pesticides. At the very least test the well water for Total coliform, E. coli, nitrate, lead, iron, pH, hardness, and residual chlorine.
1. Don’t buy a house with a well that found E. Coli is present in the water or nitrate at more than three times background levels (of 2mg/L).
2. Don’t buy a house that found lead present in a flushed sample.
3. The well water must have a pH > 6.0
10. Draw a glass of water from the cold tap in a bathroom sink and taste it. Don't buy a house with water you don't like. 

You need to make sure that the well is constructed properly and that the groundwater that is drawn into the home is safe to drink. Though there are many treatment options to fix contaminated water, you might not want to buy problematic water and some water problems can create a cascade of issues, so I have eliminated them. If you are buying a house, you need to make sure that you will have an adequate and safe water supply. This is not the same thing as strategies to live with diminished well yield or fixing your existing water quality problems. This is your one chance to make sure the water supply to the home is acceptable before you buy the home. There is no recourse after you buy the home.

Virginia Tech recommends that buyers should engage a licensed well contractor to assess the well and any treatment. As part of the assessment, the home buyer should obtain a copy and review with the licensed well professional the "Water Well Completion Report" and the septic system (or AOSS) repair/permit history and the history of septic tank pump-outs. This information is on file at the local health department. 

If you see more equipment than a blue pressure tank in the basement you need to know what water treatment equipment is being used, why it was installed and if it is working properly. It is not always obvious what a particular piece of equipment is just by looking at it because manufacturers tend to use the same casing style for all their products. You will need to test the water before the treatment equipment and after the equipment and determine if you can or want to live with the findings. There is a limit to the life cycle of any equipment and wells themselves. How old the equipment is can determine how effective it is and how long it will continue working.

For purchase I would recommend a broad stroke water test that looks at all the primary and secondary contaminants regulated under the safe drinking water act as well as pesticides. These kinds of tests exist. An example is the WaterCheck Deluxe plus pesticides test kit from National Testing Laboratories which is an EPA certified laboratory would work. There are others. Buying a package reduces the cost though the drawback is these packages are performed at a lower sensitivity level and WaterCheck was the most economical test I found. All the packages compare their results to the  US EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act limits for the primary and secondary contaminants. Since there are no regulation for private well water, that is a reasonable standard to compare the water test results to. Be alert to anything that should not be in groundwater. The presence of low levels of man made contaminants may be an indication of a bigger problem.

There are no national standards for construction of private water wells, thought in recent decades more and more states have developed standards at least for construction. Wells are typically managed and regulated by the State or Local Health Districts, state departments of the environment or ecology. You need to know what the regulations are in your local area and when they were implemented. In Virginia the regulations went into effect in 1992. You want a well built to the current standards, but the truth is that the well may not last more than 30-40 years. Geology matters in how a well ages. Check water level and yield in an old well yield diminishes over time.

Most states require a permit to drill a well and well drillers to be licensed. Make sure you know what that means in your location. In Virginia that is a decent standard, but in Pennsylvania anyone with $60 can get a well driller license, there are no minimum training or knowledge required there. There are still a few locations where a shallow dug well does not require a permit or license. Know these things when you go looking for a house with a well.