Atlantic Xpat

I'm feeling a little unwell...........

AX Towers has it's own deep drilled (320ft) well. Since moving in back in Feb 04 we've found that when we have visitors or other additional reason for increased water use that we often run out of water. Well, ( ) it turns out that we have a low flow or low yield of 1/2 gallon per minute. This, combined with the storage capacity of the well itself means that we have around 300 gallons when all's well. Under increased load we exhaust this and it doesn't get a chance to fully replenish. Last week we had 4 adults in the house and ran dry on 3 occasions!

This does not bode well for the future plans of little AX's and associated increase in water consumption. (To say nothing of the issue of having a 3 bed 4 toilet house which can only sustain two adults). So it looks as though we are going to have to do something about it.

Our options appear to be drilling the well deeper, hydrofracturing (a process where high pressure water is injected to try and open the rock strata) or some kind of storage tank system fitted in the basement. All appear to be expensive! Anyone faced similar problems and have advice? Particularly w.r.t. hydrofracturing or water management systems such as this http://www.wellmanager.com/wellmanager.htm

Bit of advice to prospective purchasers of a house with a well. You will most likely have to get a water test (for nastys such as bacteria etc) as part of the mortgage/legal process. Be sure also to get the well record (usually available from the provincial dept of environment) and understand how deep it is and the flow rate. Profit from my experience!

AX

iaink

Our flow rate is also pitifull (but not as bad as yours), about 1.5 gpm.

We got $4k off the list price of the well to account for retrofitting a trickle tank system if necessary. So far its not been. We tried to drill a bit deeper (which descales the well at the same time), but it wasnt notably better after as most of our fill is from near the top of the well anyway.

Trickle tank seems the most cost effective and sure fire way to fix the problem (unless your rate decreases to zero due to lime formation or something), either a 500 gal in the basement, or a larger tank buried in the yard.

Everything else is a major expense with no real guarantee of fixing the issue.

Many mortgage companies will not even issue a mortgage if the true flow rate is less than 4gpm, but some just want a 0/0 on the potability test, which any realtor can arrange with the help of a Clorox dump down the well on the morning of a test...so its largely meaningless anyway. Since moving in was have now got a full UV/ charcoal filtration system , in addition to a softener, and the probability of the need for a tank system to cope with a future life with two teenage girls in the house. Still...no water rate charges eh!


The "wellmanager" just looks like a fancier all in one trickle tank / pressure pump / regulator type system to me....am I missing something?

Souvenir

Just about $5k per year in deodorant.

iaink

Our water smells a hell of a lot better than the local city water.

dbd33

Well water often doesn't though. When the OH stays at the farm she takes water from the barn well into the house so as to avoid using the foul smelling water from the house well. As we've trudged around looking for "Guardianista Acres" I've been smelling the water and, I suppose, in a third of places the water at the sink was a bit off.

Souvenir

I'm sure. But at that flow rate, your dilemma in the morning must be: "coffee, bog or shower?". You can't do all three.

iaink

Sure we can. Just not a good idea to leave the lawn sprinkler running for more than half an hour.


Of course, Ive no idea how it smells before its gone through $2000 worth of filtering and treatment I wouldnt risk a domestic well water supply without at least a certain level of protection, even if the current occupant does. They have been exposed to whatever is in the water for years and built up some immunity!

Calgal

Sorry I can't offer much in the way of advice on your problem, but I do feel for you. I can only reiterate what you've said. Buying a rural property is quite different from a city one, and when we started looking at rural homes, we quickly learned that the water supply is the single most important factor. Water quality and flow rate must come first. As we were told, without good water you have nothing more than an expensive cabin. I would imagine your only option would be some kind of holding tank as has been suggested.

Our well water is first filtered to remove grit and sediment, then it's dechlorinated, then softened through a light industrial softener due to the hardness being extremely high; then the drinking water goes through distillation. As a result, it is THE safest drinking water you can get; and I wouldn't have it any other way. We never have to worry about "boil your water warnings" 'cos ours always is!

It's worth noting that regular home inspections usually don't cover wells and septics (niether does new home warranty here), and you need a specialist to look at those.

Our problems so far, have been with the 'other end' of things (literally...lol), the septic system. Even on a brand new house (as ours was), it pays to get things checked out - we were unaware then, and it cost us dearly ($15k), in the form of a whole new field and mega pump (even though it was 'inspected' and passed as per the safety/building codes!!! So it should have been fine anyway )

At least we got the water part right, but unfortunately for us, had to learn the hard way with septic systems.

dbd33

Septic systems are an issue in cities as well. When ours failed we had to hook up to the city sewer, at some enormous cost.

Atlantic Xpat

Harumph.

OK so have come to the conclusion that since pump is correctly positioned and working well (must avoid that pun in future) that it's simply the low flow that means we don't have enough. So looking into Hydrofracturing the local drilling / hydrofracturing bloke starts muttering darkly about the guy who drilled the well in the first place and insists I have a water quality test before he even looks at it. Duly do that and get nice letter from the public health lab telling me my water is 'substandard' with 48 total colliforms per 100ml but no 'fecal' coliforms. So the bad news is that my water isn't pure, the good news is that it's not going to kill me overnight.

Anyway, the next step is to shock chlorinate the well. The hope being that it was the very act of pulling the pump and hose out of the well that caused some contamination. (Must stop the dog relieving himself on the wellhead!). According to the leaflet from the govt plus a bit of web research this is going to involve a gallon or so of Javex and having no water for a day. Hopefully this'll do the trick regarding water quality and then leave me to contemplate which route we use to find more water / capacity. Research so far has led me to being resigned at spending $3k+ whatever happens.

Once again. If you are buying a house with a well. Be aware of all this! I wasn't and whilst I don't regret (yet) buying this house I wish I had known this stuff when negotiating the deal!

AX

dbd33

I wouldn't hold out great hope for the shock treatment. The OH's sister does this fortnightly so, at least in their case, it's not much of an answer.

iaink

Have you considered fitting a UV filtration system in case of future quality problems. Probably be about $500, although we got a softener at the same time so that the glass tube furring up did not affect the UV efficiency.

Then again, there are cows in the fields behind out house and our well fills mostly from the top. 40/0 was a good reading for us! We were up in the hundreds after a few rainy days when we put the UV in. Reads 0/0 all the time now. Checking periodiclly is a really good idea if you are on a well anyway. Dont know about there, but here its a free service through the local Health Unit.


Good luck with it all