The House has a Well-what you should know

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. If you are buying a home 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, and there is adequate water to supply the home for the foreseeable future. A mistake could impact your health, the value of your home or require you to spend thousands of dollars to solve the problem.

If you are contemplating buying a home with a well, 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. Those strategies are how you survive a mistake or a failing well or groundwater system. 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.

The list below is a quick and dirty guide to try and keep you out of trouble. Do not call me a give me story about how the well at the house you love should be okay and ask me to agree with you. These are the most basic items to ensure a safe and lasting water supply, and you will love that house a whole lot less if does not have adequate water to do laundry and take a shower in the summer.

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. The well cap should be a sanitary sealed cap.
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. The geology is likely to undermine the well eventually.
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. Test the water before any water treatment in the house.
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. 
11. Check the dates on the labels for any well equipment in the basement.

Virginia Tech Extension 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. Usually, they will just email it to you if you ask.

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. Filters need to be replaced regularly (and that is not free).

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. There are others, but that is the one I always use. Buying a package reduces the cost though the drawback is these packages are performed at a lower sensitivity level. 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 manmade contaminants may be an indication of a bigger problem. If you find traces of hydrocarbons or solvents do not take it on, walk away.

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 that was built to the current standards, and many wells do not last more than 30-40 years. Geology matters in how a well ages. Check water level and yield in an old well. Yield tends to diminish over time in drilled bedrock and fractured rock wells. Groundwater aquifers are also being widely overdrawn and recharge is being diminished by land use change. It is entirely possible that the aquifer feeding the well is failing. This has occurred in Waterford, Virginia and areas of King George’s county to name just two.

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. Never buy a house with a dug well they are too shallow and are too easily contaminated in our modern world.

In Virginia the well completion report tells you how old the well is, how deep the well was drilled, where water was found and what the well yield was at completion. The well should have a stabilized yield greater than 6 gallons a minute to serve a modern home over time, because well yield typically falls over time. If you are buying a bedrock well older than 20 years, but still built after 1992 hire a well driller to check the water level and yield. Make sure they test the well yield not the pump rate. (Filling a bucket using your pump without accounting for the drawdown of the static column of water only measures the pump rate. The well driller’s rule of thumb is to run the water 4 hours testing flow every 15 minutes using an appropriate sized pump.) It is worth the time and expense to know that the well is still producing enough water.

There are a number of things that should be true in construction of all wells. The well cap should fit tightly on the top of the well casing, be vented, and have a screen to prevent insects from getting in the well. A sanitary well cap is the best option for protecting your well. The well cap should be at least 12 inches above grade, or higher if in an area that is prone to flooding, to ensure that the well cap is never covered by flood water. The area between the casing and the borehole, called the annulus, should be grouted (filled with bentonite and/or concrete) that will not allow any surface water around the well to go down the well bore or along the casing carrying surface contamination into the groundwater.