The Well Went Dry.

How long will it take to refill?

A common question I get from people who think their well has gone dry is how long will it take to refill. Depending on why it went dry, the answer could be tomorrow, when the drought is over, or never. First, make sure that your well has gone dry. The  problem could be:

1. Equipment failure,
2. Well failure, or
3. Diminished aquifer

Check the equipment and power first. Then actually measure the water level (a well service company can do it with a sonic sounder gun or electric probe) recharge rate  in your well should be done before you spend money replacing equipment or thinking of drilling a new well. The recharge can be estimated by water level recoveryafter pumping. It is best to use the recovery yield rates to compare to the rates from previous recovery tests since the recovery yield rate tends to decrease logarithmically as the water level rises because the decreasing difference in head between the well and the adjacent aquifer. However, in fractured rock aquifers as seen around here, the water-level recovery is a straight line in the early period because most of the inflow is from discrete exposed fractures discharging freely above the water level. The well yield may be estimated from this straight-line portion of the graph.

In a well, a diminished water supply can be caused by drop in water level in the well due to drought or over pumping of the aquifer, or the well itself could be failing in several other ways. Even if an aquifer is sound a well may go dry due to encrustation of fractures in a bedrock well or collapse in a well drilled in sandy soils.

I have occasionally gotten a call from someone new to well ownership who watered their lawn and did several loads of laundry and found the limit of their well supply when their well ran out of water. (A top loading washing machine uses about 51 gallons of water and a front loader uses 27 gallons.) What is happening is the well recharge is often less than the pumping rate and they simply kept pumping the water stored within the well bore itself to make up the difference...until the water level falls below the pump. If the well still has a healthy recharge it will only be a matter of hours before it refills. The well bore hole will fill overnight with as much water as it can still produce.  Depending on how much storage your well has (how deep it is) and how much water the well can still produce (if it is stable) it may be adequate with water conservation and demand management.   

This low flow to the well can be caused by drop in water level in the well due to drought (temporary) or over pumping of the aquifer, or the well could be failing due to a buildup of dirt, sediment and gravel reducing the flow to the well (these problems may be fixable). There are times that the steel casing that lines the first 40-60 feet of a well does not extend deep enough and the well walls crumble over time filling the well with dirt and gravel. One or more of these factors could be the cause of a well going dry.

Private wells draw their water from groundwater. Geology, climate, weather, land use and many other factors determine the quantity of groundwater that is available. The water level in your well depends on a number of things, such as the depth of the well, the type (confined or unconfined) of aquifer the well draws from, the amount of pumping that occurs in this aquifer, and the amount of recharge occurring.

Within Prince William County Virginia there are several distinct geologic provinces that will have different groundwater characteristics. The northwestern part of Prince William County down the hill from Bull Run Mountain, consists of sedimentary rocks of the Culpeper Basin. The predominant rock types are conglomerates, sandstones, siltstones, shales, and argillaceous limestones. This geology tends to have moderate to excellent water-bearing potential because it is a fractured rock system with very little overburden. The highest reported yields in the county are from wells in this geology. In other parts of the county there are deep wells in the diabase that tend to have reliable lower yields.

The water level in a groundwater wells naturally fluctuates during the year. Groundwater levels tend to be highest in the early spring after winter snowmelt and spring rainfall when the groundwater is recharged. Groundwater levels begin to fall in May and typically continue to decline during summer as plants and trees use the available shallow groundwater to grow and streamflow draws water. Natural groundwater levels usually reach their lowest point in late September or October when fall rains begin to recharge the groundwater again. If an aquifer is being used up, then despite the seasonal cycles the water level will continue to decrease and ultimately impact the well’s ability to supply water.

If your water loss seems to be from failure of the well itself, the first step is to call a well driller and measure the water level and recharge rate of the well. That information will tell you what you are dealing with and what choices you have to fix the problem. For the next steps

Identify and Solve Problems with an Older Well

After a wet summer it has been an unusually dry fall. These are the perfect conditions to discover if your old well is failing. Unlike machinery wells failure can be a slow and gradual process, for a small household that thoughtfully conserves water an old well can be nursed through several dry spells before having to address the problem. Natural groundwater levels usually reach their lowest point in late September or October, but the oddly dry fall has resulted in declining water levels into November. The highest groundwater levels tend to be during March and April, but the unusually dry fall has produced a slew of failing wells around here. Remember, a mechanical component is much more likely to fail than the well itself. If your water supply has lost pressure, and seems to be drizzling out of your faucet your problem could simply be a loss of pressure in the pressure tank or damage to or a leak in the bladder in the pressure tank. If your water pulses as it comes out of the faucet, the most likely cause is short cycling of the pump, which could be caused by inadequate water supply or another faulty component in the pump system. However, there are times that the problem is the well and the water supply.

A well that is going dry may produce water that looks muddy or here in Virginia with so much red clay it may look rusty. The water flow might sputter as air comes through the line instead of water as the pump draws air. If you have water first thing in the morning and again when you get home from work, but the supply seems to run out especially after doing a load of laundry or taking a shower. Then you may have a groundwater problem. According to Marcus Haynes of the PW Health District the effective yield from a well can fall 40-50% or more over 20-30 years, so a low yielding well ( a well that recharged at under 5 gallons a minute at completion) might have an effective life of only 25 years. Over time sediment and mineral scale build up inside the well closing the fractures that allow water to flow into the borehole.

To avoid be penny wise and pound foolish the first thing you need to do is figure out what is going on with your well. Do not call a plumber. A plumber is not trained to ascertain what is wrong with your well and the first thing that must be determined is if the problem is with the well or the mechanical components. Make sure that the service provider is licensed to service wells in Virginia (not all states require well drillers and well repair companies to be licensed). In Virginia a well driller should have at least a Class B contractor license and the service provider must be Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, DPOR, certified Well Water Providers. Since 1992 private drinking water well construction has been regulated in Virginia and well drillers have to be licensed. In many other places well drilling and water wells are still not regulated.

You can waste a lot of money if you do not understand what is going on with your well and implement the wrong repairs. You will need to spend money to test the well, test the well equipment and test the water quality. When you have a private well you pay for your water in the maintenance of your well and pump system. To isolate the problem with your water supply both your well and pump system need to be tested and examined. It costs about $200-$300 to have a well driller to do a flow test on your well and determine the water level. The flow test will tell you how quickly a well is recharging essentially telling you if your well has water and how much. You also need to know the condition of your pump and pressure tank which will cost about $200 to have those checked. The pump should be checked for amp load, grounding, and line voltage, and the pressure tank checked for psi, a functioning pressure switch (check the contacts for corrosion), and checked for leaks. Call the County Health Department to get a copy of your well completion report that will tell you how deep your well is, how old, the location of the water recharge zones and flow rate at completion. Ask the well specialist about the geology in your immediate location to know what can be done to restore the flow. Finally, you should test your water quality. At a minimum test of your water for iron, manganese, nitrate, lead, arsenic, fluoride, sulfate, pH, total dissolved solids, hardness, sodium, copper, total coliform bacteria and E. Coli bacteria, appearance, taste and anything else of local concern. Virginia holds a series of subsidized water testing clinics at various locations throughout the year at a cost of $49 privately this analysis could cost $100-$200. To identify the problem with your well and water supply will cost $500-$700.

At this point you should know what is wrong with your well, but the best way to fix your well is not always black and white. If the problem is the well, you have more options than just drilling a new well. Generally speaking, a new well costs $12,000-$20,000 plus other costs for piping to the house, a new pump and pressure tank. However, drilling a new well is not always the best answer. Cleaning a well or hydrofracking a well may restore the flow to a usable rate, but this can only be accomplished in bedrock. Hydrofracking can cost $3,000-$4,000, cleaning is cheaper.

Hydrofracturing, commonly referred to as hydrofracking, is a well development process that injects water under high pressure through the well into the bedrock formation. This process is intended to flush and remove fine particles and rock fragments from existing bedrock fractures and/or increase the size and extent of existing fractures, to increase the flow of water to the well. This technique can be used for older wells and can be very successful in parts of the Piedmont and other bedrock rock formations, but the improvement may not last beyond a few months. In diabase geology hydrofracking may do nothing and in siltstone it is unpredictable what may happen to the fractured system. I could not find statistics on long term failure rates for hydrofracking (only the impressions and experience of the VA DEH and USGS), but hydrofracking could work at least for a period of time- whether that time is months or years cannot be predicted. It is a good first step in trying to restore a well with a viable aquifer, and that is structurally sound.

There are times that the water table has fallen and lowering the pump or re-drilling a well might restore the well to a lower aquifer. Lowering the pump is the cheapest fix, for several hundred dollars you might be able to restore water to your home. However, there is generally only about 50 feet below the initial pump level to the bottom of the well. With the right equipment, an existing well can be re-drilled to a lower aquifer. Re-drilling a well can cost $10,000-$20,000 depending how deep you have to go to hit a viable aquifer, and not every well hits water. Not every well driller has the expertise and equipment to hydrofrack or re-drill wells, and locally based well drillers are familiar with the geology of a region. Well drilling equipment is expensive to move great distances- if your hire an out-of-town well driller, chances are they will subcontract the actual drilling anyway. Stay local when hiring well drillers.

If the well testing you performed tells you the well is still reliably producing water in the neighborhood of 0.5 gallons, there are ways to deal with it. First is water conservation and the second is to increase water storage within the system. Water conservation involves changing water–use behavior such as taking shorter showers, but usually involves installing water saving devices like a front-loading washer (saves over 20 gallons of water for each load- about half), low flush toilets, flow restricting faucets and shower heads. Installing water saving appliances can reduce household water use by up to 30%. Disconnect any water treatment systems that consume water. Water softening systems typically use 25 gallons in the 10 minute for each backwash cycle. Reverse osmosis systems use a lot of water. They recover only 5%-15% of the water entering the system. The remainder is discharged as waste water. A reverse osmosis system delivering 5 gallons of treated water per day may discharge 40 to 90 gallons of waste water per day to the septic system. Also, check for plumbing leaks. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency one out of every 10 homes has a leak that is wasting at least 90 gallons of water per day.

Water conservation may solve the problem of a 4 gallon a minute well, but increasing water storage can make a reliable 0.5 gallon a minute well viable for a modern household. An intermediate storage system can either be the well itself if deep enough or a storage tank, reservoir or cistern that can be installed between the well and pressure tank. The reservoir or storage serves as the primary source of supply for the pressure tank supplying peak demand. Ideally, the storage tank or cistern should be able to hold at least a day’s water supply and be regulated by a float switch or water level sensor. A 0.5 gallon a minute well can pump 720 gallons per day more than adequate for a household, you just need to capture it. The rule of thumb is to size a storage tank or cistern at 100 gallons per person in the household. Every two feet of well below the static water level holds almost 12 gallons so that 120 feet of well below the static water level will hold 720 gallons. It is important to use disinfection if you have a cistern.

What to Do About Maintaining and Fixing Your Well

Here in Prince William County information on all private wells drilled in the county after 1977 are in the files of the Prince William County Health District. Other counties should have similar records, though they may not go back as far. Virginia adopted statewide regulations on well construction in 1992 which conformed fairly closely to the PW County regulations and require filing of information on the well. The “Water Well Completion Report” can tell you the age of the well, the depth of the well and casing, the approximate water zones and the yield at completion.

While many wells will last decades, it is reported that 20 years is the average age of well failure that is well failure, not pump failure. Well casings are subject to corrosion, pitting and perforation. According to Marcus Haynes of the PW Health District the effective yield from a well can fall 40-50% or more over 20-30 years, so a low yielding well might have an effective life of only 25 years. The mechanical components of a well; however, are usually the first to fail and some components fail much sooner. Some kind of equipment failure usually occurs in the first 10-20 years.

The essential components of a modern drilled well system are: a submersible pump, a check valve (and additional valve every 100 feet), a pitless adaptor, a well cap, electrical wiring including a control box, pressure switch, and interior water delivery system. There are additional fittings and cut-off switches for system protection, but the above are the basics. To keep the home supplied with water the system and well must remain operational.

To ensure water reaches the tap, the well system within the house must also function. The components within the basement provide consistent water pressure at the fixtures. The pump moves water to the basement water pressure tank, inside the tank is an air bladder that becomes compressed as water is pumped in. The pressure tank moves the water through the house pipes so that the pump does not have to run every time you open a faucet. The pressure tank maintains the water pressure between 40-60 psi. After the pressure drops to 40 psi, the switch turns on the pump and the pressure in the tank increases. Each component can break or fail.

Submersible pumps used in modern drilled wells are more efficient than older style jet pumps and should last longer, but silt, sand, algae and excessive mineral content can impact their life. There really is not good data on equipment life in private well market, most of the data is from light industrial and community systems and the life of the single family home pump is extrapolated from that and equipment tests. A submersible pump operating in low-sediment water may have a 15 year life while the same pump in high sediment water and without adequate sediment and check valve protection may fail in 5 or 6 years. About 10% of the pumps in my neighborhood have failed in the first 8 years and another 10% have had component failure requiring a repair in that time.

High sediment and mineral content of the groundwater acts as an abrasive and can wear out the pump bearings and other moving parts, causing the pump to fail prematurely. The check valves protects the water pump from loss of prime and having to work as hard each time the pump is activated. A failure of a check valve can result in premature failure of the pump. So, if a problem with the check valve is identified the pump could be repaired before it fails prematurely. A loss of water or a failed pressure switch both result in no water when you turn on a tap. Any change in your water should be looked into, not ignored.

If you have a well, maintaining water to your home is your job. Understanding your well, and water system is important. First of all you should know your system. You should have a copy of you well completion report to know the basics of your well. Also, after five years and every couple of years after that you should have a well maintenance inspection. According to a poll conducted by the National Groundwater Association 80% of respondents had never had a well maintenance inspection and truthfully if you called a service provider they probably would not know what you were asking for. It seems that the expected behavior is to wait until your pump or well do not work and then spend possibly days without water while you call around to find someone to get your water back on. The first time you think about your well (after the initial bacteria test when you bought your house) should not be when the well stops working.

In the past couple of years the Virginia Rural Household Water Quality Program has been working with well drillers and licensed well professionals do develop an affordable and effective well inspection service. It is still in the works, but the basics of such an inspection are:

1. A flow test to determine system output, along with a check of the water level before and during pumping. This can cost several hundred dollars, but is important before purchasing a home especially when a well is over 20 years old. 
2. A pump motor performance (check amp load, grounding, and line voltage). 
3. Check pressure tank psi, pressure switch contact, and check for leaks. 
4. Inspect the well equipment to assure that it is sanitary and meets local code requirements, the well cap is still secure and the exposed well pipe is still sound. 
5. Test of your water for iron, manganese, nitrate, lead, arsenic, fluoride, sulfate, pH, total dissolved solids, hardness, sodium, copper, total coliform bacteria and E. Coli bacteria, appearance, taste and anything else of local concern.

In general, never call a plumber for a well problem. You need to make sure that the service provider is licensed to service wells in Virginia (not all states require well drillers and well repair companies to be licensed). In Virginia a well driller should have at least a Class B contractor license and the service provider must be Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, DPOR, certified Well Water Providers. According to state regulations in Virginia (§ 54.1-1129. Necessity for licensure): “Beginning July 1, 2007, no individual shall engage in the drilling, installation, maintenance, or repair of water well or water well system unless a certified water well systems provider is onsite at all times.” Most plumbers are not certified as Water Well Providers (though I am sure that there are a couple out there)- ask. Identify one or two licensed Well Water Providers and check their references before your well fails. Having your well serviced might just be a good way to do that.

My Well Has Stopped Working- What To Do

One day you turn on the faucet and nothing happens. If you have a private drinking water well you will have to determine how to get your water back “on.” There are a number of reasons why a well might suddenly stop producing water, but basically they all break down into equipment failure, depletion of the aquifer or other groundwater problems and failing well design and construction. There is one other possibility-that your pipes have frozen. (See February 19, 2015 article).

Equipment problems are not only the easiest to identify and fix, they are more common than groundwater problems (which were covered in a previous post) or well design and construction issues.First check the power to the well and check to see if you have a short. If your well stopped working right after a thunder storm, check to see if the well was struck by lightning. This is fairly common in the south. If there is a short in the pump system it will blow the circuit and if there was a power surge as the pump was turning on a circuit could have blown. So turn off and on the pump’s circuit breakers or change the fuses. Pumps generally have two circuits tied together because an immersion pump draws a lot of power (240 volts). Make sure both circuits are on- a small water drizzle is one sign of a 240 volt pump getting only 120 volts.If the pump keeps turning off and it is not because of dry well, then there might be a short.

Intermittent episodes of severe water pressure loss or even no water is usually a sign of a problem with the water supply. If you have water first thing in the morning and again when you get home from work, but the supply seems to run out especially when doing laundry or taking a shower, then you may have a groundwater problem. Sudden failure or failure after a power outage is probably a mechanical problem with components of the system.  The first step in identifying the cause of a water failure is to check the equipment. The essential components of a modern drilled well system are: a submersible pump, a check valve (and additional valve every 100 feet), a pitless adaptor, a well cap, electrical wiring including a control box, pressure switch, and interior water delivery system. There are additional fittings and cut-off switches for system protection, but the above are the basics. To keep the home supplied with water each component in the system and well must remain operational.

The components within the basement provide consistent water pressure at the fixtures in the house and the electrical switch that turns on the pump. The pump moves water to the basement water pressure tank, inside the tank is an air bladder that becomes compressed as water is pumped into the tank. The pressure in the tank moves the water through the house pipes so that the pump does not have to run every time you open a faucet. The pressure tank typically maintains the water pressure between 40-60 psi. After the pressure drops below 40 psi, the electrical switch turns on the pump and the pressure in the tank increases. Any failure in any component or loss of electricity can cause a well to suddenly stop producing water when a faucet is turned on.

If you have power (and I assume you do if you are reading this), the most common cause is a failure of the pump, but first remember to check your circuit breakers to make sure that the problem is not electrical. Next check the pressure gauge on your pressure tank, read it. If it is not showing a pressure of 30-50 psi or 40-60 psi (slightly left of center) that could be your problem. The electrical switch at the pressure tank (grey box) is a fairly common cause of failure in the pump/private well water system; so check the switch to make sure it is working. Manually closing the pressure control switch should turn the pump on. Close the switch, if when you do this the pump does not turn on the problem is the pump. If the pump can not be heard to turn on when you manually turn on the pressure control switch, that is your problem. The pump is the piece of equipment subject to the most wear and tear and most likely to fail. When the pressure in the pressure tank falls to 35-40 psi the switch at the pressure tank turns on the pump.

There are two types of pumps; a jet pump and a submersible pump. Most modern drilled wells are built with a submersible pump so that the ground water is not exposed to potential contaminants before it reaches your home. In older pump installations and dug wells, above ground jet pumps were often used, which potentially allowed the introduction of contaminants at the surface concrete well cap. A drilled well generally has a 6 inch diameter pipe sticking out of the lawn somewhere. A dug well is wide enough for a man to fit down into the well so that the well could be dug. Dug wells tend to have concrete lids or other large lid that can sometimes be confused with multiple septic tank systems. Dug wells are more susceptible to contamination and tend to be older. The pump for a dug well is sometimes in a pit next to the well or it will be located in the basement.  Jet pumps are easier to check since they are not in the well and you can pretty much see if they are running. A submersible pump in a drilled well can be checked for power and the pressure switch can be checked with a volt meter and the pump can be heard operating. The safety switch and control box for the pump should be in the basement on the wall near your pressure switch. If you needed me to tell you these things now would be a good time to call the well driller to come out and diagnose the problem. Well drilling companies can generally replace, pumps and pressure tanks and other well components. Things like a leaky valve at the bottom of the well can result in a pump losing it prime after a power failure.  In addition, they can diagnose an improper well design. Private well construction was not regulated in Virginia until the 1992 and is still not regulated in many places including Pennsylvania. I have seen some funky well designs as a VAMWON private well volunteer. An electrical problem will require an electrician, but component replacement can be done by the well drilling company. In Virginia a license is necessary to work on a well as a certified water well provider. Plumbers generally do not have this certification. Do not call a plumber for a well problem.

The submersible pump is a long cylindrical unit that fits within the 6 inch diameter well casing. The bottom portion consists of the sealed pump motor connected to a series of impellers separated by a diffuser that drives the water up the pipe to the plumbing system through the pitless adaptor and a pipe that runs from the well beneath the ground to the basement. Submersible pumps should last 15 years or more, but silt, sand, algae and excessive mineral content can impact their life. A submersible pump operating high sediment water may fail in 5 or 6 years (and several have in my neighborhood). The sediment and mineral content in groundwater acts as an abrasive that wears out the pump bearings and other moving parts and causes the pump to fail prematurely. Often old wells produce less sediment than new wells and a replacement pump may last longer. Any impact to the well (hitting the well pipe with a car or truck), or a bit of gravel broken loose from the formation can cause the pump to wrack, hit the sides of the well and fail. As a well owner you might want to consider a planned replacement of system components rather than waiting for system failure.

If you can hear the pump turn on, yet no water is delivered to the house the problem might be a failure of the pipe leading from the well to the house. If like me your pipe runs under a portion of the driveway, this turns out to be a fairly expensive, but simple fix-excavating the pipe and replacing it. If the horizontal well piping between well and building does not slope continually upwards or if it has a high spot, an air lock can form in the piping. If you need help with a well problem, the Wellcare® Hotline is staffed by the Water Systems Council (WSC), the only non-profit organization solely focused on private wells and small well-based drinking water systems. The Hotline operates Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time, and can be reached at 888-395-1033.

Also, if you are in Virginia you can call or email the Virginia Master Well Owner’s Network for help. My name and email are near the bottom of the list with the volunteers and I am happy to help if I can.  http://www.wellwater.bse.vt.edu/contact_mwo_table.php