Have you ever asked yourself: “Does my well water need treatment?” The question is not one you can answer if you have not had your water tested recently. You should ask yourself instead: “When was the last time I had my water tested?” If the answer to this question is never or a long time ago, it’s time to do it, or do it again.

A well owner preparing to sample her well water for testing

NGWA and many other agencies constantly encourage all private well owners to test their water quality periodically to protect themselves and their family. Despite their efforts, many private well owners have never had their water tested. If they have, it may have been for nothing more than the presence or absence of coliform bacteria. This test alone is not enough to accurately answer your first question. Your next question should be: “What should I have my water tested for?”

The amount of water testing a person would recommend will vary, but never as much as public water systems are mandated to be tested for by the EPA. Most of us agree—without regulations or specific guidance from state or local governments—we can reasonably suggest private well owners test their water yearly for coliform bacteria, total dissolved solids, pH, nitrite, nitrate, and fluoride.

In addition, test your water once every five to ten years for arsenic, uranium, mercury, radon—and in some areas, perform a pesticide screen. There are many other elements I could recommend testing for in specific areas of the country.

You must keep in mind that no single treatment can remove all contaminants that might be in your well water. Depending on your water quality test results, you may have to remove more than one contaminant. If you do, you may need to combine several treatment devices into a single treatment system.

The following is a step-by-step question and answer procedure to guide a well owner in deciding if they need water treatment and what kind. The four-step question and answer sequence can guide a well owner in selecting their most likely treatment processes. If you are not attempting to install the necessary water treatment equipment yourself (not recommended), then you will at least know what processes the water treatment expert should be offering you.

Iron color in your water means it needs treatment

1. Is the water cloudy, tan, or rust colored?

Is there any visible sediment in the water? Does that sediment quickly settle to the bottom of a glass or does it take hours to settle? Does the color or sediment settle downward or upward? Does your water have a light milky color, a light tan or rusty color? Yes or no? If you answered yes to any of these questions, your water needs some form of filtration.

The size and type of filtration will vary, depending on the composition of what’s making the water appear as anything but crystal clear. It can be residual bentonite, natural clays, organic particles, or dissolved iron in the water. Whatever it is, filtration is the first step to consider if your answer was yes.

Filter Application Guide

Filtration can mean many things to different people, but keep in mind if something is filtered out of the water, it must be either removed from the filter or the filter replaced when it is full. The size of filter pores can range from hundreds of microns to one thousandths of a micron. Most water filters will be in a few tens of microns ranging from 50 down to 10. Selecting too small a filter size will require more frequent replacements.

If your answer to question 1 was no, then go on to question 2.

2. Does the water chemistry report show there is an excess of minerals or elements in the water that need to be removed?

If the report indicated excessive hardness, pH, iron, or other metals, you would need to add chemical treatment, water softeners, or pH adjustment. Treatment is needed if your water has a bad taste or smell or is excessively corrosive.

If your answer is yes, then you must seek water treatment equipment to soften the water to make it easier to treat efficiently. If your answer is no, then proceed to question 3.

3. Does the chemistry report indicate that the water is high in dissolved solids, harmful metals such as arsenic, or trace organics?

If your answer is yes, then you will probably need to perform reverse osmosis, iron filtration, and/or use activated carbon to clean up your water. Activated carbon filtration is often added after reverse osmosis treatment to “polish” the water of any remaining trace organics.

Keep in mind that reverse osmosis treatment systems are more effective operating at higher water pressures. If your well system is working at a minimal 20-40 PSI, you may be wasting considerable amounts of water keeping the RO filter membrane flushed.

If your answer to the question was no, proceed to question 4.

4. Does the water need disinfection?

After all required water treatment methods have been answered yes we do or no we don’t need one of the above steps, then the final treatment to be considered is disinfection.

Because water treatment can sometimes be a slow or low flow process, there will probably be a container to hold the treated water for later use. Anytime stored water is allowed to stand, it has the potential to grow microorganisms. Therefore, water disinfection is applied last. It is typically done through chemical chlorination or ultraviolet radiation.

The answer to this question might always be a yes, especially if your well water is treated and/or stored before use.

Now you must ask yourself one additional question: “How much water do I need to treat?”

Confirm the total gallons of water you need in a day. Most water treatment equipment can be rated in the number of gallons per day they can process—so it is very important to get this number right. One has to be careful when assembling components of a water treatment system to assure their flow-through capacities are compatible.

There is usually no need to treat well water used strictly for outdoor irrigation. There may be some cases where well water with a contaminant such as uranium or some man-made contaminants should not be applied to irrigation of food crops in a garden.

For some applications, under-the-sink RO units can supply a sufficient supply of treated water for household needs. I suggest you ask a water treatment professional for advice on this issue.

Water Treatment Sequence

In other instances, a whole house water treatment system may be needed. This sort of system might be placed near the pressure tank for convenience and protection, or it may need to be placed in the basement or an ante-room to the house. Getting advice from a water treatment professional is recommended for making this very important decision.

Once you have worked your way through these questions and have made your decision about the need for treatment of your well water, you’ve just begun protecting yourself and your family.

Now it’s time for the next question: “How often do I need to check the operation of my water treatment equipment?”

Let’s leave the answer to that one for another time.

A water treatment system on a private well

About the Author

Gary Hix is a Registered Professional Geologist in Arizona, specializing in hydrogeology. He was the 2019 William A. McEllhiney Distinguished Lecturer for The Groundwater Foundation. He is a former licensed water well drilling contractor and remains actively involved in the National Ground Water Association and Arizona Water Well Association.

To learn more about Gary’s work, go to In2Wells.com. His eBooks, “Domestic Water Wells in Arizona: A Guide for Realtors and Mortgage Lenders” and “Shared Water Wells in Arizona,” are available on Amazon.

The post Does My Water Well Need Treatment? appeared first on Wellowner.org.

The demands we place on our private water wells is typically not the same day after day all year long. Most well owners will use their wells more for landscape irrigation during the spring and summer than in the fall and winter. Seasonal use changes can impact the operational mode and performance of a well and it can even cause changes to take place in a well’s water quality.

Let’s start by considering the year around use of a private well in a regional environment where there are hot humid summers and long, cold freezing winters with year around single-family use. Where the well is in almost constant use year around, a routine well inspection and maintenance could mean a once a month walk around, looking at and inspecting essential components of the system.

Just as important as performing the inspection and checking the water system is making a repeatable documentation of what you saw and checked. Your memory may be great today but photo and written documentation is far better and more reliable when it comes time to service the well.

Two tanks and a well

There are exceptions to the most common use cycles because some private wells across the South and Southwest are used only during the fall and winter months and are almost totally unused during the summer months. We call these “Snowbird wells.” These wells would be in sharp contrast to mountain and lakeside cabin wells that are used exclusively in the summer and not at all during the winter months.

A majority of the private wells are used year around and thus these wells must endure both torturous summer heat and bone chilling freezing weather. Each environment and each type of well requires a different seasonal well owner maintenance program.

Starting Point: Get and have on hand a detailed record of your well’s construction, equipment installed, static water level, and basic water quality. Keep this information up to date each time it is serviced or tested. Then begin a program of well inspections and performance check to go with the basic data.

Step 1 of a Private Well Inspection and Maintenance Program. If you see it, photograph it. If you check or measure it, write down what you saw. Build yourself a notebook or well inspection and maintenance record to properly manage your most precious real property asset, your well.

Step 2. Conduct your inspections and maintenance check at equal periodic intervals. First of every month, or the middle of every month, it doesn’t matter. Consistency is preferred and the same level of attention or accuracy should be applied for the data to have meaning.

Step 3. Compare the observations you see today with those you photographed in the past. Look for changes in the growth of weeds, bushes, or trees or evidence of standing water around the well head.

Step 4. Collect and test a water sample from the well at least once a year and after any servicing or major maintenance of the well or system components.

Step 5. Review and compare your measurements or reading periodically and look for subtle changes in the components that you are monitoring or water quality changes.

What steps can a homeowner do in a seasonal inspection and maintenance program? Here are some suggestions.

Walk around your well head to look for anything that might be intruding into a clear zone of a minimum of 40-foot radius around your well. Make sure there are no trees with potentially deep penetrating roots that might get into your well casing. Make sure that the land around your well head slopes away from it sufficiently that no water ponds there. Do not have or allow any petroleum products or hazardous chemicals to be stored or used around the well. Check that vehicle access to the well head has not been restricted by erosion, growth, or manmade obstacles. If it has, I suggest you remove them before it’s time to access and service the well.

If your well is a pitless adapter style of well, you may want to carefully and neatly remove the well cap and measure a depth to water in your well when it has not pumped for a period of time and record that measurement.

Pitless well cap

In areas where the depth to water is relatively shallow, this can be done with a tool we call a sounder. Water level measurements in your well a few times a year can tell you much about the performance of your well and detect changes that could save you costly maintenance repairs.

A hotlink to a published article on how private well owners can make their own water level measuring device from readily available materials can be found at the bottom of the page.

https://extension.arizona.edu/extension.arizona.edu/files/pubs/az1832-2020.pdf 

If your water system has a bladder tank or tanks, then checking the air to water ratio in it or them could be the next most important inspection step you can make. Bladder tanks and hydropneumatic tanks both must have some ratio of air and water in them to perform properly.

Feeling the side of a bladder tank

If there is too much or too little air in them, it can cause the well pump to rapid cycle and damage the motor. Place the palm of your hand on the side on the tank in both a high and low position. The surface of the tank should feel cool where there is water and warmer where there is only compressed air.

Note the relative volume of each. I sometimes use the base of my wedding ring to tap the metal of the tank for a clearer indication of the air and water contact. The sound is different when striking a metal tank with water in it versus air in it.

Turn off the electricity to the well for a moment. Note that you do or do not have a disconnect device that is clearly designated for control of the well and it is within at least 10 feet or less of the well head.

Pressure switch open

Once the power is off, you can remove the cover to the pressure switch and inspect the points of this device. If they look pitted and burned or cluttered with ant and spider remains, it might be best to have it replaced before it doesn’t work at all.

While the electricity to the well is off, you may want to drain out the water under pressure in the system. When all the water has been displaced from the bladder tank(s), the pre-charge pressure in the tank can be checked with a tire pressure gauge. The pre-charge pressure in the bladder tank with no water present in the tank should be two pounds less than the come-on pressure indicated in your pressure switch cover. If any remains in the tank when all the pressure has been drained off, then the bladder in the tank has failed.

If water remains in the tank when all the pressure has been drained off, then the bladder in the tank has begun to fail. The tank should be replaced as quickly as possible. A waterlogged tank can damage a well pump motor in no time.

If the notation is still visible inside the pressure switch cover, it should be labeled that this switch was manufactured to come on at a pressure setting of (20 30, 40) and shut off at (40, 50, 60) psi. There should always be a 20-pound difference between the on and off setting. If you are fortunate to also have a pressure gauge on your water system, observe and record the values on the gauge as the pressure switch cycles the well pump.

Pressure switch set 50-70 PSI

If you happen to have a more modern style of pump control, what we call a constant pressure system, you won’t find a pressure switch. We will have to cover these styles of pump controller in a future blog.

Well owners who have wells equipped with water filters should remove, inspect, and replace filter cartridges. It is especially important to fully replace filters that have been inside the housing for several months of non-use.

Filters are strainers and collectors of everything that cannot pass through it. If left on the filter media in a warm environment for months, it will strongly encourage the growth of microbial colonies. All water filters should be inspected and changed frequently and especially after periods of non-use on warm days.

On the other extreme, check to see that any above-ground plumbing related to your water system is protected for cold weather conditions. Especially sensitive to freezing are the small diameter pipes that pressure switches are mounted on and the body of a pressure gauge.

These sensitive instruments must be protected from freezing with the foam-wrapped protection of electrical heating tapes that come on when temperatures drop close to freezing. The condition of these items should be a part of your seasonal well inspection and maintenance program.

There are other items we will discuss regarding protecting your private water well in future blogs. Gary’s personal recommendation for your well:

“Paint it gold and think of it as if it were . . . because it is.”

About the Author

Gary Hix is a Registered Professional Geologist in Arizona, specializing in hydrogeology. He was the 2019 William A. McEllhiney Distinguished Lecturer for The Groundwater Foundation. He is a former licensed water well drilling contractor and remains actively involved in the National Ground Water Association and Arizona Water Well Association.

To learn more about Gary’s work, go to In2Wells.com. His eBooks, “Domestic Water Wells in Arizona: A Guide for Realtors and Mortgage Lenders” and “Shared Water Wells in Arizona,” are available on Amazon.

The post Well Owner Seasonal Inspections and Maintenance Recommendations appeared first on Wellowner.org.