Home Front: Well owners must monitor, maintain water system

Water has always tested man's control of his home in two different ways. First, the more elaborate the shelter, the more vigilant the occupant must be to prevent water damage from storms, floods and condensation. Second, a good supply of water must be made available within the shelter for drinking, cooking, cleaning and bathing.

An individual well can seem to offer greater control over one's water source than a municipal hook-up, but all wells draw from vast, migrating water tables subject to pollution and/or more development than some water tables can support. Although it sounds as if there's little you can do in advance to assure the color, purity, volume or pressure of what enters your home's piping system, that is not true.

The first measure of control is to remain alert and responsive to all threats to the water supply, whether it's community or individually operated. Unlike the City Utilities customer, the well owner must assume command of the supply itself, not just the in-house distribution system.

This means water samples must be sent periodically to a qualified lab for purity testing. Generally, samples are tested for E. coli bacteria, a sign that sewage could be seeping into the water supply. At the same time, the tests will show if other bacteria is present, even in minute quantities.

What should you do if there is a problem with the water quality?

Most labs provide suggested remedial measures if bacteria is detected in the water sample, most often shocking the well with a healthy dose of chlorine and then resampling the water several days later after the chlorine levels have subsided.

For those cases in which shocking does not eliminate the bacteria, there is also a wide range of products home owners can try such as point-of-use treatment systems that treat the water after it comes out of the well and before it enters the home. Be aware though that these systems are Band-Aids on a recurring problem and it would be better to eliminate the poor water quality than just to treat it.

For a well owner, taking care of the water system also includes inspection and maintenance of the parts that control the volume and pressure of the water supply, too. Submersible pumps, suspended at the end of the water pipe, are common today.

They push a column of water up from the depths often needed to reach a relatively clean supply rather than pulling it less efficiently from above. Most submersible installations include a combined storage/pressure tank inside the home near the electrical control box. In such installations, there's a pressure regulator on the pipe between the well and the tank, with both upper and lower limit switches.

The switches turn on the pump automatically when the pressure drops to the low limit and shut it off when the upper limit is reached. An air pocket within the tank, compressed by the incoming water, provides the pressure.

The tank's purpose is to avoid having the pump operate against a full column of water every time someone wants a glass filled. Therefore, one must maintain the protective air pocket inside the tank.

Re-pressuring can be done quickly and easily with an air-compressor. But procedure and pressures vary, depending on size and make of tank. Checking the pressure need entail nothing more than opening a faucet, checking the time it takes before the pump starts operating and calling a well service if the pump operates too frequently.

The tank, incidentally, should be wrapped in an insulating jacket if it's located in an area where humid air can contact the relatively cold tank and cause damaging condensation.

(Aimee Dixon is operations & marketing manager for HouseMaster The Home Inspection Professionals serving the Springfield/Branson region.)