Get a Well Inspection Before Buying a House With Well Water
If you want to buy a new home that has a drilled water well on the property as the primary source of water, an inspection of the well is important. You need to know if the well is in working condition and that it will supply enough clean water for you and your family.
Flow Testing the Well
The first test that most well companies or inspectors will perform is a flow test. The flow test will determine how much water is available and how fast the well can recover from extended use.
Water Flow
The initial measurement that the well inspector will take is a flow rate of the water coming out of the well. To determine how many gallons per minute the well can provide consistently, the inspector will allow the water to flow for about fifteen minutes and record the rate in gallons. The process is repeated every fifteen minutes for an hour then the numbers are evaluated to see if there were any periods when the flow was lower.
A drop in the flow on the backside of the testing period could indicate a small reserve of water in the well. However, if the flow comes back up at the start of the next cycle, it is a good indication that the well has a rapid recovery time. The amount of water required for your well depends greatly on your water usage but an average number used in the well water industry is eighty to one hundred gallons of water per person on a daily basis.
Power and Ground
While the flow test is running, the inspector can check the power usage on the pump and the quality of the ground on the system. If the pump is drawing more amperage than it is rated for, it is very likely going to fail in the near future.
Water Quality Testing
If the well has plenty of water and the pressure is good, then you need to test the quality of that water. A full water test run by a lab will look for bacteria and contaminants in the well that would make the well dangerous to use.
Chemical Contaminants
If your new home is located in an agricultural area, you must have the water tested for pesticides and other chemicals that could get into the well either from runoff or contamination of the aquifer underground.
Animal Contaminants
If a small animal gets into the well, they could fall in and die there, contaminating the well with bacteria and feces. The result would likely be abandoning the wheel and drilling a new one which can be expensive.
Mineral Contaminants
Another concern is the level of heavy metals or minerals in the water. Iron, lead, or other metals can contaminate the water if there is a lot of these minerals in the ground around the well. You can treat the water, but that does not remove everything. The results of the water test will help you determine what type of filter system you need or if you can treat the water at all.
Visual Inspection and Testing
A visual inspection of the condition of the well can give the inspector a good idea of the overall condition of the well. A small camera is lowered into the well and the casing and walls checked from the top to the bottom. These cameras must be able to function in water and often use fiber optics.
At Bruce MacKay Pump & Well Service, Inc., we offer well inspection services to help determine if there is anything wrong with the well on your future property. We will give you a full report that indicates any problem we found and can work with you to correct the problem if you decide to move forward with your home purchase.