Protect the savings of your Bull Valley private well with timely maintenance

You can avoid the monthly payments for city water when
you have a private well for your Bull Valley home. But, if
you don't maintain it, you could spend more in the long run.

That private well in your Bull Valley backyard quietly provides clean water on demand day and night, 365 days a year. It’s dependable. It’s cost efficient. It’s a marvel of modern science that generally goes unappreciated. However, if it isn’t cared for with proper maintenance, a Bull Valley homeowner can find themselves surprisingly jealous of someone connected to city water in Woodstock next door.

When a home is connected to city water there are connection fees to bring the water supply into the home. Then, each month, there is a water bill. According to The Hamilton Project, the average monthly water bill for someone in a large U.S. city, in 2010, was about $70. Though the price varies from location to location, even at $70 per monthly, that’s $840 per year that someone with a private well saves.

That’s $840 someone can spend to go out for dinner 21 times at $40 per dinner. Or, they could use that to fly to Germany or Asia. They could use the money they save on a city water bill to buy presents for friends and family. But, all those savings are easily lost if you don’t do a good job of maintaining your private well.

Maintaining your private well in Bull Valley breaks down into two categories: 1. Maintaining the mechanical operation of the well and, 2. Maintaining the quality of the water.

Maintaining a Bull Valley private well’s mechanical operation

Maintaining the mechanical operation of the well involves an annual inspection to ensure that the wire connections running to the electrical well equipment are not corroded. It involves checking the operation of the well pump, the well cap and the well tank.

Testing the well tank is critical. Maintenance of the well tank goes beyond checking it; it includes adjusting the pressure in the tank. If the pressure is set wrong, the rubber bladder inside can rip. Once the bladder rips, the well motor will constantly cycle turning on and off as it demands water from the pump trying to keep the unquenchable well tank at its proper pressure. Eventually, the well motor will burn out.

Maintaining the well cap involves checking the seal and to ensure that insects haven’t gotten inside and setup housekeeping. The well cap is also crucial since it helps to ensure that surface water doesn’t contaminate the well.

Maintaining a Bull Valley private well’s water quality

A private well should provide clean, clear and safe water that you can safely use to wash, cook and drink. However, you can’t assume that’s it’s safe. Bacteria is one of the primary culprits when a private well no longer provides water that is safe to use and drink. There are other contaminants, too.

An annual check of water quality is highly advised. Since it’s also a good idea to check the mechanical operation of the well annually, it makes sense to do both of these maintenance checks at the same time.

You can send a sample of the well water to a laboratory for testing. They’ll let you know if there is anything in the water that is troubling. You should also chlorinate the well annually.

Chlorinating the well seems like such a simple process that many people try to do this themselves. Unfortunately, if not done properly, when the chlorine is added, it can cause expensive damage to mechanical parts of the well.

The solution is to hire a qualified well technician to maintain the mechanical operation of your Bull Valley private well and, while they’re at it, to take a sample to send to a laboratory and to chlorinate the well.

Johnsburg resident pays high price for improperly chlorinating his private well

This is a pitless adapter. Improperly chlorinate your well
and you could spend a lot of money replacing the pitless
adapter in your private Johnsburg well.

Bob pulls in the driveway of his Johnsburg home hops out of the car and goes inside. The kids are running and screaming and his youngest, 3-year-old Alyssa, catches him from the side tugging on his jacket. As he tries to make sense of the adolescent mayhem, Alyssa keeps saying, “Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.” Trying to get his attention.

Finally, accepting the idea that there’s just no chance of the house coming under control, he looked down at his daughter and said, “Yes, sweetie? What’s up?”

“The water broke, Daddy,” she said.

One thing Bob knew for sure was that his wife definitely was not expecting; Alyssa’s statement just didn’t make any sense. He looked Brenda, his wife, with a puzzled expression.

“We don’t have any water,” she said with a frown.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Brenda walked to the sink and lifted the handle on the faucet. Nothing happened. “I’ve already called the well guy. He’s out back looking at the well now.”

Almost as though on signal, there was a knock on the door. Bob opened the door and came face to face with another frown, this one from the well technician Bob’s wife had called. “We’ve got a problem,” the well technician said. “Your well pump is bad and it’s going to take some work to get it out of your well.”

“Why is that?” said Bob, a suspicious tone in his voice.

Sensing Bob’s suspicion, the well technician asked a probing question: “Have you chlorinated your own well?”

“Yeah,” barked Bob, as though that was a ridiculous question. He was rather proud of the money he had saved doing it himself and that he had taken the time to do it at all – a lot of homeowners with private wells didn’t seem to bother.

“I’m guessing you just opened the well and poured the chlorine in, right?” asked the well technician.

“Of course,” said Bob with exasperation creeping into his voice. “What’s wrong with that?’

“Let me show you something,” the well technician indicating that Bob should follow him outside. He led Bob to the back of his truck where he pulled a crusty old pipe fitting out from under a rack of tools and equipment.

“I keep this to show people when I service their wells,” said the well technician. “I try to show them before they need to replace their well pump. Unfortunately, I’ve never been out here before.”

“What’s this?” asked Bob looking at the pipe fitting in the well technician’s hands.

“This is a pitless adapter I removed from another customer’s house here in Johnsburg a couple years ago,” said the well technician. “I keep it around to show people what happens when they don’t chlorinate their wells properly. See all this corrosion around the thread?”

Bob nodded.

“This is what happens when you simply pour the chlorine into the well. It doesn’t play well with the threads on the pitless adapter,” the well technician said. “It took me quite a bit longer to pull the pump out because of that corrosion. I have to thread a pipe into the pitless adapter to pull the pump out. And, when the threads are all messed up, it cost the customer quite a bit more for me to get the pump out. It can cost $2,000 to replace the pitless adapter.

“It’s good that you chlorinated the well,” the well technician said. “Unfortunately, they didn’t warn you about this before you chlorinated your well.”