For those of you with a well

[DiamondJubilee]

@Bluey - my husband asked if they were rushing but they said they were not and this is how they always do their jobs. So ?

We also order our water filter from our water guy as we also have a reverse osmosis system to wash trucks etc and we order the filters (UV as well) through him.

The company is hours north of us and did not sound like they will come back out. Very unhelpful. The workers were staying in a hotel that night as it was too long of a drive for them after they did our well. They travel far and do so many of them a day so I’m not sure why we are the only ones with a problem?

[endlessclimb]

Lots of people who have lawn care as their #1 hobby will get a well drilled just for irrigation. With a permit, the city doesn’t care, as the sewers that catch any run off are either 1) dedicated or 2) combined sewer overflows. They aren’t “city water return” lines or anything.

For example - this guy almost certainly has a well dedicated to irrigation:

@DiamondJubilee I’m sorry for all your problems. I hope it clears up shortly, and you guys never run out of water ever again.

[DiamondJubilee]

@endlessclimb - Thank you, me too!

We dont water our lawn and it looks like the picture above

My husband is grass and lawn cutting crazy and we cut about 4 acres. He likes his lines as well and cuts the 4 acre pasture field a few times a year as well. Though not in the crazy lines like he does the rest of our property. He cuts about 2 to 3 times a week, and of course we can’t water it.

The gravel patch you see there is not dead grass but is purposely put there as this is our dressage field and we put the letters on the 8 gravel patches he made. There are also little orange markers in the grass where our white dressage fencing goes.

[endlessclimb]

It’s less about what the lawn looks like, and more about what the surrounding properties look like. The picture I posted does have an irrigation system on separate well.

[Bonnie2]

Beautiful!

[Weezer]

We have a well only. The water is great. We don’t water the grass when the weather is really dry because I don’t want to risk running the well dry for grass. During the winter I always keep the troughs full so we have lots of water if the power goes out. If a storm is in the forecast, I fill the tub so we have lots of water. We did this for over ten years before buying a generator.

When I was a teenager I once forgot to turn off the hose at my parents house and I drained the well. By the next day it had naturally filled up.

I have concerns about being on a well.

[DMK]

Ahem… Second most dehydrated child. I know I must have had that award growing up in SFL in the 70s and 80s. Especially the 70s since they house was on a well also, surrounded by orange groves and everglades.

But the barn I lease in north Atlanta is on a well and it is about the best water ever, it must be a really deep well because it’s also really cold.

[ReSomething]

We lived on a well that had high iron, for years my plates had an orange haze on the backs, moved to city water, moved again to city water and a district with decrepit aging pipes. Our water was off more often than when we had the well at that place, for sure. We did have a creek that dried up in August usually, and a very slow spring, I kept about 8 gallons of bottled drinking water on hand at all times. The water at both places had a taste to it, not as bad as my grandmas positively sulfurous water was to start with but not good.

The place with the well had funky pipes and at 0500 in the morning when it was frosty my pipes would freeze up, no water when the power was out, actually what would happen is there were four houses on that well higher up the hill and they’d lose pressure and be draining down towards my house so I could get by as their pipes emptied out for a day or so. They used to have tank houses there, where the house water was pumped to the second floor tank of a fairly large building and could gravity feed for a considerable time. My FIL’s ranch has a great big tank that becomes totally useless as it is lower than the house, he has solar which is OK, but not during snow, overcast.

PTSD probably comes from running the well dry, I know that our crappy city water used to cut off in the daytime with no warning so there went am showers, the carpet cleaning guy, laundry, you name it, it sucked.

[yaya]

I’m on a well, and the iron in the water EATS copper pipes and brass fittings. Had a pipe break under the slab several years ago, requiring rerouting the water to my water-source heat pump.

Then last week, ANOTHER pipe broke under the slab, this time the outflow from the AC. Had to tear out the tub to get to it, and each repair caused more of the pipe to leak, so ANOTHER reroute job, and I’m waiting for them to finish re-installing my tub.

(Why do these breaks always happen in the middle of the night?)

The main water supply to my house has a filter on it (the water to the AC does not), so hopefully not as high a mineral level, but now I’m living in fear that the main pipe for the house water is going to go at any minute.

[Cowgirl]

I have a well. Four years ago, I replaced the well pump with a bigger one and a new pressure tank and I get great pressure. I have a whole house filter and it works so well that I can have a continuous hot water heater. I have my well water tested annually and it has been great–top 95%. Sprinklers for the back yard work fine. I have a bunch of water containers in case of power outages and we usually know if a big storm is coming.

Water quality can change though. There is so much development going on around me though, that I worry that I water reserves can’t support it.

[MsM]

When I bought my house (in town) it already had city water and sewers and the previous owner paid off the assessment. It still had a well that was now hooked up to the outside spigot. It has worked well that I can water plants with well water.
I am not even sure exactly where the well is (know approximately) as the top is long since buried. There is a tank and well pump in my basement. They are probably original to the 1960 house. The tank became “waterlogged” once and the plumber showed me how to fix it (and marveled over the relics) The pump is a bit noisy and provides erratic water pressure, but good enough for the hose. I turn off the cricuit breaker when not using to keep it from cycling. Will have to see if it is worthwhile to new stuff in when it dies or just hook up to city…

City water is nice and I especially like sewers - septic issues are the worst!

[ReSomething]

Don’t worry, trees love to clog sewer pipes too, usually right as you are trying to wash up after a big festive meal. So much fun snaking out a drain after a big Turkey dinner, NOT.

[DiamondJubilee]

Well (ha ha) the saga continues here. We have lots of water now but the water is still brown and full of silt. We had a well company come and they said the fracking has ruined our well. As it is a screened well (we had no idea) fracking cannot be done to a screened well as it can ruin it and basically make it unusable. Fracking can happen on a bedrock well, just not a screened well.

I have been trucking 100L of water a day from our town for the past week to water the horses. We have a camper that we filled at a local campground and can use that to shower with and do dishes.

The well company can come out next week to drill us a new well. They are also brining us a water truck and will remove our current pump from our now destroyed well and will put it in the truck so we can use water in the house and the barn. This well company also fracks but would never frack a screened well. They did mention this to us yesterday as we have had the company out a few years ago to acid wash our well out but it never worked (they did mention that it may not work, so they were honest about it).

We are by no means well professionals (my husband know a lot, but not about wells and he admits it) but I would have hoped a company that has been fracking for 32 years and does 400 wells a year would have known this as they must have come across a screened well at some point. They are totally aware of our issue and just say that they guaranteed water and are not a well company. So they did their job, whether is useable or not, our water output went up so they did their job according to them.

So a lot of caution to people who are going forward or want to try fracking their well. Learn from our mistakes!

[endlessclimb]

It’s always during something like that. My SO’s father’s 90th birthday party, everyone had to go next door to use the toilet. It was awful.

[endlessclimb]

Wow. I really had high hopes for you and your water troubles, that it would eventually clear up.

I’m so sorry.

Does the company drilling a new well have reasonable confidence the new well will produce better than the old one?

[Simkie]

@DiamondJubilee

I would have hoped a company that has been fracking for 32 years and does 400 wells a year would have known this as they must have come across a screened well at some point.

Holy shit, this is such a crazy, unexpected outcome! Do you have legal recourse? It seems like there should be some avenue to explore there. How on earth is this not part of their due diligence?

[DiamondJubilee]

@endlessclimb - the well company is 4th generation and his grandfather acutally drilled that well back in the 70’s. I met him today as they dropped off the water truck (we now have 1300 gallons on our driveway. They placed our pump in it so we can use the house water and barn water but of course it isnt working. I swear, our luck!! We think the pump is fried from sucking up all the silt as the pressure tank just won’t build up pressure and we can’t get water out of a hose even. 0 pressure).

The well produces a lot of water, they just wrecked it with the fracking and now its filling with silt, sand and clay. Its just 70ft deep but once they fracked it, we were getting 5 gallons/min and endless water as we left the hose on for almost 2 days straight and it never ran out. We used to be able to run the hose like that for about 5 mins and then would run out of water.

So Its just unusable water. We have so much iron underground it just clogged the bottom of the screen in the well after 50 years of build up. It really was time for a new well as it was not able to recover due to all of that iron. We do have a water system in the basement with a water softener, iron filters and UV light that we’ve installed about 8 years ago now., though we never had enough water to even flush the water softener so we know thats not good for the system either. We were just hoping we wouldn’t need a new well right now…

They said they would drill 20ft or so away from our current well, decommission the old one and tie into its lines. Looks like we may need a new water pump or maybe pressure tank as well.

The fracking company just got back to my husband a few hours ago and they want to put a camera down the well to see what it looks like. They will have to pump it dry and then I guess see what they can see?? They are planning on coming tomorrow so we shall see what happens. He also mentioned that he would give us back our money, which wasnt quite what he was saying at first. He also mentioned that they do screened wells all the time and it has never been an issue. Its so hard to know who to believe.

So we still have 0 water for yet another day, but have lots parked in our driveway. So fingers crossed we get a borrowed pump tomorrow and can at least get some water to the house and barn.

[DiamondJubilee]

They well company came back the next afternoon with a loaner pump and we finally have some water! After 8 days, this is heaven!

The facking company came back and put a camera down the well and said it looks fine but there’s no screen in it (of course, it was destroyed by the fracking) and they insist they do screened wells all the time with 0 issues. But they did leave and gave us our money back.

We are getting a new drilled well as I type this. They came in this morning and are drilling close to our old well as there is lots of water there. The well company confirmed it was the iron build up over the 50 years that really “killed” our well. So the well basically was no good anyway, the fracking just finished it off.

So hopefully all goes well (pun intended) today and we finally, finally will have water. We had water issues at our last farm (dry well) and had to use water trucks every month to fill up our well. So its been over 20 years since we have really had any water. This will be a nice treat fingers crossed

[endlessclimb]

I am so happy for you! That they gave your money back, and that you’re going to have water that won’t lose pressure immediately.