This isn’t the best time for a Lakemoor well pump installation but if you need it, you need it

When a Lakemoor well fails this time of year, a well pump installation is often a little more complicated. Working with frigid water, in sub-zero temperatures, with a cold wind cutting across the yard takes a particular kind of fortitude. It’s also inherently difficult because, at temperatures below 32-degrees Fahrenheit, a not-so-subtle change happens to water.

This combination of freezing water, air and wind tends to make a well technician’s hands numb while performing a well pump installation. While John Matthesius, of McHenry Water Well & Pump, doesn’t necessarily charge more in the winter, the process can take longer. That’s why it’s generally a better idea to have a well pump installation in the warmer months.

Of course, if a well pump installation is needed, it’s needed, even if it is January or February and it’s below zero outside. When the pump fails, a well pump installation is required, assuming a well pump repair isn’t feasible.

You may ask, “How do I know when my well pump will fail and I’ll need a well pump installation?” You don’t. However, if you have regular maintenance of your well pump, while extending the life of the well pump, and the well tank, a well technician will have a chance to take a look at your well pump. The well technician may be able to tell you that the well pump is getting a little tired.

Armed with knowledge of the condition of your well pump, you can make a decision to hold out another year, while also hoping Lakemoor doesn’t have another bitter and long winter. Or, you can decide, maybe it’s better if my well technician performs a well pump installation now. ‘Now,’ of course, refers to last summer or fall.

If you haven’t maintained your well and well pump, hopefully, it will last through the winter without problems. If not, you can call your well technician to come out and do the maintenance now. Or, if the pump fails, you can make an emergency call for a well pump repair.

Even well maintenance is better performed in the warmer months. Proper well maintenance includes chlorinating the well. Properly done, this also includes flushing the well after chlorinating. Water flushed out of the well tends to freeze on the surface.

Bitter cold tends to sort out the fittest wells in Spring Grove

The cold, particularly the kind of bitter cold we’re experiencing in Spring Grove lately, adds additional layers of challenge to everyday life. It thickens the oil in car engines and challenges batteries to turn those engines over to start. Parts are hard and brittle – more apt to break.

The torch is to unfreeze the nuts and bolts on this well.

The cold is also hard on Spring Grove wells. If the cold takes the upper hand, shutting down a well, the challenges for those living or working in the home or office the well supplies have another challenge to add to shoveling driveways and walks, bundling to stay warm or safely driving on icy roads; they suddenly find themselves without access to clean, fresh and potable water.

No showers, no water for cooking, no washing clothes or dishes, no flushing toilets – when the water doesn’t flow in your Spring Grove home, you suddenly discover how much you depend on it. That’s all the more true when you’re virtually trapped inside by sub-zero cold and drifts of snow. But, of course, that’s one of the times when your well is more likely to fail.

Throughout the year, well technicians try to warn people to maintain their wells. Of course, just because your well is maintained doesn’t guarantee the cold won’t win the fight but it dramatically changes the odds. In other words, if your well isn’t well maintained, it’s almost as though it’s sitting there waiting for the cold to come. Next thing you know, you turn a faucet handle, flush a toilet or try to draw some water from the kitchen sink and … nothing.

The problem with repairing a well in this kind of bitter cold is that it makes the process that much more difficult for your well technician. First of all, will they have trouble locating the well under the snow? Once they find the well, they have to use their fingers to hold small and intricate parts. The cold does a funny thing to finger dexterity.  It makes holding and manipulating those small parts all the more difficult.

A simple process of threading a screw into a threaded hole at 80 degrees is a major challenge when it’s below zero. Gloves will help keep the technician’s fingers warm but they generally charge too high a price in dexterity.

Often, the well technician has to work while enduring a driving wind that has wind chills to 50 below and lower.

John Matthesius, with McHenry Water Well & Pump, remembers when he was younger and working for his father back in the early ‘80s. The temperature dropped to 28 below. The wind chill factor was 82 below. It was hazardous to go outside for too long. And then the phones started ringing. And they kept ringing. The cold was more than many wells in the area could handle.

“I had to take a map and put pins for each call,” said John. “Then I went out on the most direct route possible. I’d spend half an hour. If I couldn’t get the well going in that time, I had to move on and come back to them. There were just too many people without water.”

While well technicians appreciate the extra work, they really don’t look forward to working in those conditions. As far as John is concerned, he’s hoping last winter, and the cold we’ve felt this week, aren’t indications of a bitter cold winter ahead.

Still, if your well fails, regardless of the cold, it’s comforting to know you can call John to come out and get the water flowing again.

Well maintenance is well insurance for Richmond homes and offices – winter or summer

Imagine your well technician coming out to turn the water back on in your Richmond home on a day such as this.

The snow and cold are coming. After all, it’s winter and it’s Richmond, Illinois. How cold? How much snow? The answers to those questions are still shrouded by the shadows of what is to be. But, rest assured, they are coming.

There is no good time to turn on a faucet and discover you have no water. Certainly, that’s true in the winter. If you’ve done a good job of maintaining the well at your Richmond home or office, you won’t have to worry about that. If you have had your well maintained on a timely basis, you probably called your well technician out to your home or office during the warmer months.

It’s easier for them to perform well maintenance on your well when the sun is shining and it’s 80 degrees. On the other hand, not only are the weather conditions harsher for the well technician, the process is increasingly difficult in the winter.

Well maintenance includes chlorinating the well. To do this properly, requires flushing the well, too. When flushing a well on an 80-degree day, the water tends to merely soak into the ground. When it’s below freezing, however, the water doesn’t act the same.

The frost line won’t allow the water to soak into the ground. And, water standing on the surface, on a below-freezing day, tends to harden – it turns to ice.

Additionally, if there is snow on the ground, the well technician may have to spend time locating the well under all that snow.

Here at McHenry Water Well & Pump, we understand what it means to go without water. Customers facing that dilemma call us all the time. You can’t cook. You can’t bathe. You can’t even flush the toilet. Water is a vital fluid that runs through a home or office. Turn the water off and other processes tend to atrophy.

Good weather or bad, warm or cold, when called, we’re on our way as soon as possible. We treat a lack of running water as an emergency because that’s how our customers see it. We’ll come out and get the water running as quickly as possible – that’s our promise, our commitment.

We just don’t like to see people families without water. Knowing that the difference between a well that works and well that doesn’t is almost always a matter of proper maintenance, we encourage our customers to have their wells maintained on a regular basis. It’s inexpensive well insurance.

If your Richmond well hasn’t been maintained in a while, give us a call. Call somebody but, please, don’t wait until the water stops flowing.

You and your pipes are liable to groan if your Spring Grove well isn’t maintained

You turn the faucet at your Spring Grove home and the pipes bang a bit and groan. Finally, a trickle of brownish water drips from your shower head. This is not what you would call good news when your head is full of lather.

What happened? Where did the water go?

Chances are, the water is right where you left it – in your well. Most likely, the problem isn’t a lack of water but something broken with your water delivery system.

With a private well, as is common with many Spring Grove homes, the ‘delivery system’ includes several integral parts. All of these parts have to complete their intended operations while working in unison. If they do, they’ll move the water through your pipes and out of the faucets and shower head, or into the washer, dishwasher or ice maker.

The parts of your well ‘delivery system’ are common for wells in Spring Grove or almost anywhere else. They include:

• The well – if it was drilled properly, you’ll have years of reliable access to water, assuming the rest of the well works properly.
• The well pump – some well pumps are better than others but, if they’re maintained, they should all provide years of service.
• The well tank and internal bladder – a good quality bladder is essential to the reliability and service of your well.
• Electronic switches and parts
• A sealed well cap – if the well cap doesn’t seal correctly, the water may flow but who knows what’s in it.

These parts will generally operate without failure for quite some time. However, if not maintained properly, that length of time is shortened appreciably. In fact, the likelihood of a problem with your well ‘delivery system’ increases significantly without regular, scheduled maintenance.

In either case, whether you require emergency well repairs, or if you want to maintain your well to avoid emergency well repairs, the key is to do the job right. Your best bet there is to call in a professional.

A qualified, licensed well technician will ensure that your well is operating correctly and, therefore, will do so longer without problem. If you require repairs, they’ll have your well back in running order, and the water flowing, in no time.

A qualified, licensed well technician will also help to ensure that the water your well ‘delivery system’ provides is clean and safe. On an annual basis, they’ll properly chlorinate your well and have the water tested as appropriate.

Is all well with your well contractor? Don’t take it for granted

You’re having a little trouble with your well. But, you’ve called a well company and you’re confident everything will turn out fine once your well professional shows up. Hopefully, you’re right. Unfortunately, that’s not guaranteed.

The unfortunate truth is that some well companies know wells, and well maintenance and repair, better than other companies. Even more discouraging is the reality that some well companies aren’t, well, quite as trustworthy.

John Matthesius, the owner here at McHenry Water Well & Pump was recently called by someone who wanted to abandon a well. They told John about the price they were quoted by another McHenry County well company that had come out to look at the job.

John said that he’s usually a little lower but would be happy to come out and take a look, as he wasn’t comfortable giving a firm price without looking at the job. The price could vary primarily based on the depth of the well. With a well that was 150-feet deep or more, the price would be higher than a shallower well.

Based on the price the other company quoted, John expected to find a deep well. Instead, he found a 20-foot well and was able to knock the price down considerably.

“The customer didn’t know how deep the well was, or didn’t know what to expect to pay to abandon a well,” John said. “The other well company appears to have tried to take advantage of the customer’s ignorance of pricing for well work. Their price had a whole lot of profit built in.”

By giving the customer an honest price, based on the actual depth of the well, John developed the kind of good will he has with the vast majority of his clients. Realizing that honesty pays in more ways than one, including a clear conscience, John has no doubt that he handled the job the right way.

“The customer was clearly happy with the news that she was saving several hundred dollars,” said John. “It kind of makes you feel good when you can make a difference in someone’s life that way.”

Wells are abandoned for several reasons. For instance, someone may tie into city water, they’re demolishing a home and need to cap the well, a well has gone dry and they need to drill a new well.

“I never give a firm quote without coming out to measure the well and look at the project first,” John said. “Customers have a right to know what to expect.”

All is well in Lakemoor when your wells are well chlorinated

In Lakemoor, many of the homes and businesses are served by well water. Unlike city water supplies, where, for the most part, the only requirement is to turn on the water when you want it, a well requires a degree of maintenance and care.

More than a few of the residents in Lakemoor have become familiar with maintaining their own wells. Hopefully, they’re doing the job right. For instance, while well chlorination seems fairly straightforward, if it’s not done correctly, a homeowner or business owner in Lakemoor can actually cause problems with their wells.

Proper chlorination goes beyond simply pouring the chlorine into the well. To do it properly, you want to avoid pouring the chlorine over the well cap and pit-less adapter, as well as electrical connections in the well. Over time, the chlorine does a nasty job of eating away at these parts of the well.

When the pros at McHenry Water Well & Pump chlorinate a well, they add the chlorine so that it doesn’t corrode metal parts and connections.

It’s also important to completely flush the chlorine from the well and water lines after the chlorine has had time to sanitize the well. The chlorine will break considerable amounts of mineral deposits from the well and plumbing pipes. Those deposits can clog small diameter water lines and fixtures.

Last winter, John Matthesius, the owner of McHenry Water Well and Pump, filmed a video as he chlorinated an artesian well. It’s a short video that provides some insight on how to chlorinate your well. It also demonstrates that John is a consummate professional who knows wells inside and out. You may want to simply call John and let him handle the job at your Lakemoor home or office. It’s not that expensive and it’s comforting to know the job is done correctly.

Is it time to test and chlorinate your well?

What kind of water are you bringing into your home? Is it safe, clean and odor free?

The enemy lurking, waiting for a chance to contaminate your water is known as bacteria. It assaults your water supply and moves through your house in the pipes that carry this vital resource.

Water is an essential element in your home. You use it to bathe, cook and clean. Most importantly, you and your loved ones consume it – allow it to enter your bodies where it plays a vital role in the maintenance of good health. But, what if the water is tainted, if it contains toxic elements? Clearly, that’s not good.

If you have city water, the hope is that the city is doing a good job keeping the water safe and clean. In the process, they probably help to improve the taste while removing any negative odor. But, if you have a private well providing water to your home, you can’t count on municipal workers to do that job. The burden falls on your shoulders.

Where the city falls short, you might call in a water treatment company to help. Through filters and softeners they will help to improve the quality of the water in your home. With a private well, however, a really good place to start is at the source. In other words, proper well maintenance is the first step to ensuring good water quality in your home.

Water well maintenance includes ensuring that your well’s delivery system is up to par – that the pump works properly, the well tank is properly charged, the electronics are in good condition and the well cap is sealed so foreign insects and matter can’t get in. Proper water well maintenance also includes annual tests and chlorination of your well.

You may be tempted to chlorinate your well yourself. A word of caution in this regard: if you don’t do it right you can cause damage to parts of the pump, tank and electronic connections. Your best bet is probably to call in an expert, such as John Matthesius with McHenry Water Well & Pump.

One aspect of John’s job that he enjoys the most is the good feeling he gets knowing he’s helped to ensure that his customers are drinking and using safe and healthy water. Well maintenance is extremely cost effective. On the other hand, avoiding timely well maintenance can prove very expensive.