Without proper well maintenance, your Johnsburg well could be on borrowed time

If you own your own well, you can't count on the city

to maintain your water supply. Timely maintenance

is essential.

You’ve lived in Johnsburg for how long now – 10 or 20 years? And you’ve never had a problem with the well water before? So, why should you worry about it now? After all, don’t ‘they’ say, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”

Just because something isn’t broken doesn’t mean it won’t break. Besides, no one is saying that, if it’s not broken you should fix it. Simply put, without proper well maintenance, your well is living on borrowed time. One of these days, you’ll turn on a faucet, in your Johnsburg home, and nothing will happen.

Imagine if you bought a car and never changed the oil. For a while, it would run fine. But, one day, as you’re driving down the road, you’re going to have problems. Either the engine will overheat and stop running or it will stop running because the heat welded all the parts into one iron block.

The well outside your Johnsburg home works much the same way in that it’s designed to operate, just as a new car is designed to operate when it comes off the showroom floor. Without proper well maintenance, your well is going to work for a spell, but its days are numbered. Eventually, the well motor will burn out, the bladder inside the well tank will rip (which will cause the motor to cycle constantly until it burns out) or the electronics inside the well will corrode and leave you dry.

Additionally, if you’re not having the well water chlorinated, you and your family could be drinking and using water that’s unfit for man or fish. Without timely well water chlorination, your well water may contain unhealthy levels of bacteria.

If you’ve used your well for 10 years without any serious well maintenance, consider yourself darn lucky. If you’ve used the well for 20 years without well maintenance, or problems, that’s downright miraculous. And, keep in mind that, if you’re not the original owner of the home, the well and its components could be significantly older than that. Did the previous owner do a good job of maintaining the well?

If you’re in doubt about these questions, with winter only a couple months away, this is probably a very good time to have your well maintained. Johnsburg winters are often rough – lots of snow and cold. They’re even rougher if you’re stuck inside without any water.