Does your Spring Grove well need some extra maintenance? It depends …

A little extra well maintenance can save
you from costly well repairs in the future.

The well outside your Spring Grove home requires maintenance. It’s an amazingly reliable piece of equipment but, if you don’t maintain it, it will break down, the water quality will deteriorate and it will cost you more in the long run.

It’s a good idea to have maintenance performed on your Spring Grove well at least once each year. This should include a visual inspection of key components, adjustment of the air pressure in your water well tank, and chlorination of the well. Do these processes every year, or have a professional come in and do them for you, and it’s far-less likely that your well will ever break down and leave you without water. And you’re more certain to drink water that’s clean, pure and healthy. However, your well may require even more maintenance.

Why would your Spring Grove well require more maintenance that a neighbor’s well? First of all, it’s a question of how the well was installed. When drilling a well, and installing the well equipment, there is a right way to do it and a wrong way. You need to ask how good of a job the well company did when they installed your well.

When a well is installed it’s essential that it’s set in an area where the ground slopes away from the well, not toward it. Surface-runoff water is not something you want mixing with the water that you drink and use in your Spring Grove home. Even if the water was pure enough falling from the clouds one rainy day in Spring Grove, water runoff will carry elements on the ground when it enters your well. These elements could include natural and man-made toxins, fertilizers, pesticides, fuels, degreasers, paints, motor oil and other pollutants.

Then there is always the question of how you protect the integrity of you well. Don’t mix any of those pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, degreasers, paints, motor oil, fuels and other elements near your well. When you dispose of solvents, do so properly. If you pour them out on the ground, they’ll soak into the ground and you might just find them coming back into your home through your water supply. Bring hazardous waste to a collection facility that handles these chemicals.

When you inspect your well, you may, for instance, look inside the well cap for signs of insects. Earwigs look for these kinds of moist, dark places to breed and setup house. If you see insects inside your well, you’ll know that you have to do something to get them to move along. But, if there are toxins, pesticides, bacteria or other hazardous chemicals in your well, chances are, you’ll only find out by sending a sample of the water out for testing. That beats finding out because someone in your home is sick.

Your Crystal Lake well is their home: have insects set up house in your well?

Would you want to drink water from your Crystal Lake well
if this family of earwigs is in the well cap? And earwigs are
only one of the species of bugs and insects that may make a
home in your well.

You bath in the water from your Crystal Lake well. You wash laundry and dishes in the water from your Crystal Lake well. You drink the water from your Crystal Lake well. Your loved ones drink that water, too. Is it safe to drink? One reason the answer may be ‘no’ is that you may find insects living in your well.

Of course, insects aren’t the only threat to the quality of the water that comes out of your well. Your well could have bacteria, pollutants, pesticides and other foreign elements that reduce the quality of the water – that could even make the water hazardous to drink. But, insects are also a potential problem for your well water’s quality.

Insects that may make a home in your Crystal Lake well include:

• Book Lice
• Camel Cricket
• Carpet Beetle 
• Ground Beetle
• Cellar Spider
• Cobweb Spider
• Ghost Spider
• Spitting Spider
• Dark-Winged Fungus Gnat
• House Centipede
• Earwig
• Little Black Ants
• Moth Fly
• Parasitoid Wasp
• Silverfish

Imagine that your pour a glass of water in the sink of your Crystal Lake kitchen. Then you notice a Silverfish or a Dark-Winged Fungus Gnat in the glass. Would you pick the insect out and then drink the water anyway? Probably not. So, why would you want to drink water from your well if your well is playing host to one or more of the insects listed above?

Unfortunately, many insects are searching for just the kind of environment that is found inside a well. For instance, Earwigs consider that moist, dark environment, found on the underside of your well cap, an ideal place to make a home – to make baby Earwigs.

To ensure that insects aren’t turning your water supply and Crystal Lake well into their home, the best thing you can do is to ensure that your well cap seals tightly at the top of your well. It’s also a good idea to keep debris away from the well. In consideration of the latter, idea, look at it this way; if the debris attracts them to the vicinity of your well, they’re liable to get the idea of moving from the debris to the well.

You should have your water tested annually. It’s a good idea to do this while performing annual well maintenance. If you do find insects living inside your Crystal Lake well, you’ll want to clear the insects, and dead-insect parts, out of the well as best you can. You’ll want to flush the system to clear away insects you were otherwise unable to reach and you’ll want to have the well chlorinated to kill the bacteria created by the insects. All in all, it’s better to keep the insects out of the well in the first place.