Lamin

We have just bought a house in NS and we were wondering when we have the quality test done on the well, if it was worth having the quantity test done at the same time?

The well has been drilled an additional 100ft in the last year and in the house disclosure the sellers have stated that there is enough quantity for a family of 4.

Obviously this type of inspection is all new to us, do you think we need to have it done or should we save the $400 we are being charged?

Thanks for any replies.

Aviator

Enough for a family of four tells you nothing. You need to know how many gallons per minute. What is the cost of not having enough water after you have purchased?

mandymoochops

I would have liked to have known what the flow rate was before buying the house.

Here's some reading http://inspectapedia.com/water/WellFlowRate.htm

R I C H

Yes, get a quality and quantity test done. To my mind they're essential prior to purchase, but better late than never I suppose. At least you'll know what issues you might have to contend with.

I'd want a minimum of 5g/per min capacity, and prefer 10+, so in dry/drought times there's some flow to cope with the family's needs.

heading-west

getting your well and septic tested is of huge importance, all of our canadian friends have advised us that we must get it done.
we recently used this guy for a septic test on a fairly old property that we were considering to buy.
http://www.awil.ca/
he found a problem with the septic system within 10 minutes and saved us a very expensive problem. (the septic was a hole in the ground with a lid on it! and no septic field) the home owners of course insisted that we wouldn't find any problems with it and thought we were wasting our money.
And they had to eat their words when the green dye that was used could be seen bubbling out of the top of the tank and was running towards the house!


He definately knows his stuff and we will use him again for sure

helcat12

I have read that you can put this into the clauses that take place when you are negotiating on a house in BC (not sure about other provinces) but considering the cost of septic and well drilling I would certainly get both tests done prior to any purchase.
I would have thought at least your Realtor would have advised you to do this.
Never mind - do it now and hope for no issues.

iaink

Pay for the flow rate test, and take your own water sample test to the public health office if you can, I wouldnt trust the realtor to do it for you. If the well sucks you are looking at a lot of potential expense, pay now to save paying later.

Funily enough the only time our water got a 0:0 reading (before we installed the UV system) was when the realtor did the test...

Naively we hadnt figured then that the agent acting on our behalf stood to get half the sales commission should the test be OK...

Having said that, our flow rate isnt great (~3gpm), we knew that when we bought and negotiated money off to cover a trickle tank if it was needed, but we have never yet run out of water...

heading-west

Yes, this was the condition that got us out of the situation.
I really hope the OP is having these tests done prior to purchase and as part of their conditions.

TrishP

Better $400 now than finding out you have an insufficient flow rate further down the road and having to pay several $K to have the well frac'ed! Can't really have a house without water!

Atlantic Xpat

ABSOLUTELY DO A FLOW TEST - or get the original well drilling record from local govt/municipality BEFORE completing on the house. If it is too late for this then pray you don't have a problem.

Min flow rate of 5-10gpm is good. I have 0.5 gpm which can be a problem. We have run out of water upon occasion. And as our family has increased from two to very recently four, that's a bad problem to have.

Solutions to a low flow rate well are all expensive. In short they are hydro-fracturing the well to open out the rock strata, installing an additional storage tank in the house, drilling it deeper or drilling a completely new well. If the vendor has drilled the well deeper then it would indicate to me that they had a problem & is a red flag.

Roughly speaking, a foot of well depth gives a gallon of water storage. Your actual amount of useable stored water will be between the static level of the water (unlikely to to the very brim of the well) and the pump which is going to be 20ft or so from the bottom. My well is 280ft deep, the pump is 20 ft up and the static level is around 60ft down so I have somewhere around 200 gallons of storage. That sounds like a lot but each shower is 20 gallons, each wash on a toploader is 50 gallons, front loader 25-35 gallons and so on. That's without washing the car/atv and watering the garden - something I rarely do at home.

This website http://www.wellmanager.com/ for a tank/well management system has quite a lot of info on the subject.

TrishP

Wow! That's a really low flow rate. I thought I had it bad with a 2gpm rate - household of 2 and the only time we have run dry was when topping up the pool, which we now have down to a fine art to ensure we don't run dry and have to keep running to the basement to re-pressurise the tank.
We were advised by the home/well inspector to consider having the well frac'ed, but run the risk in doing so of the aquifers becoming blocked in the process, resulting in the need for a whole new well to be dug.
So, we haven't bothered!

Piff Poff

On the subject of wells, how often do you have to shock them and should you get a 'man' in to do the shocking bit?

TrishP

We get water sample bottles from the City of Ottawa and Public Health tests the water for free. It hasn't happened, to date, but if e coli were to be found in the well, then it would need to be shocked. This involves opening the well cap and tipping a load of chlorine down the well, nothing more complicated than that. Obviously, best not to use the water for a while after doing so. We have a filtration/chlorination/softener system in the basement, so any wee nastied from the well are generally filtered out long before it reaches the tap.
Only problem we have is a bloody awful sulphur smell off the water, especially when the filters are backwashing on their night-time cycle.

Piff Poff

I had heard that shocking helps with the sulphur smell. Ours is barely noticeable now we have used the water a bit (the house stood empty for a few months before we bought it.

The next thought plan would be some filtration idea, thinking of a UV one.

R I C H

That's going to depend on the quality of the water supply. Never needed to do ours, but a neighbour swears by doing his yearly, just adding a chlorine solution down it, leaving it over night, then running all his faucets until the chlorine smell has run through.

I share my well with 3 other properties, all on 3-5 acre parcels. We capped the flow rate at 10gpm for each house - that's ample for all purposes, though nobody needs it for gardening/yard purposes as we have irrigation from the creek that is the boundary to each property. The well is 60ft deep.