Have a tall, cool glass of water with confidence when you chlorinate your Johnsburg well

If you don't chlorinate your Johnsburg well each year, there's
no guarantee the water you're drinking is safe.

It feels good to get some work done around your Johnsburg home. You’ve worked up a bit of a sweat. You’ve worked up a thirst for a tall, cool glass of water, haven’t you? Will you go to the faucet, or the refrigerator door, and pour yourself a glass of water from the tap – from your well?

Maybe you haven’t thought about it, until the question came up now. You just assumed the water was fine. After all, it looks fairly clear. Take a whiff of the water. How’s that? No, all water doesn’t smell that way.

If you have a private well, such as many of the folks in Johnsburg, you can’t count on the village to make sure the water is safe to drink. If you haven’t taken care of your well – and that starts with an annual well chlorination – you might not even want to let the kids bath in that water.

See, if the municipal public works department is taking care of the water, there’s a good chance they’ve kept a regular schedule of chlorinating the village well. More than that, they’ve probably had the water tested, from time to time.

Without a regular, annual chlorination of your Johnsburg well, bacteria may have found a home in that glass of water you’re about to drink. If not bacteria, there are other elements that can make your water less than completely safe to drink.

Having a private well, it’s up to you to make sure the well water is regularly chlorinated and tested. You’ve probably got a neighbor who will tell you, “It’s easy. Just pour some chlorine into ‘the hole’ every year. That’s what I do.”

The problem is that your neighbor isn’t chlorinating his well properly. Is he taking precautions to avoid pouring the chlorine onto the pump and pipe connections in the well? If not, someday, when the well pump wears out, he’ll have a heck of a time disconnecting the well pump and fittings. The problem is that chlorine has a tendency to corrode and eat away at metal objects.

So, if you’re going to chlorinate your own Johnsburg private well, you’ll want to avoid damaging the pump and fittings. You’ll also want to flush the well after you’ve chlorinated. Some things seem easier than they really are or, at least, it’s essential that they’re done properly.

Another concern when chlorinating your own well is the possibility of damaging your own plumbing pipes. Most homeowners don’t know that there are two grades of copper – Type L and Type M. Type M is a low-grade copper and extra care is required because the chlorine can eat through the copper and cause leaks.

Type M copper has red lettering and markings on the outside of the pipe. The pipe wall with Type M copper is only half the thickness of Type L copper, which has blue lettering and markings.

A safe bet is to hire a qualified well technician to chlorinate your well. If you do that, you’ll know the well is properly cared for and you’ll drink that glass of water with confidence knowing you don’t have to worry about bacteria in the water.

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.

Time for Saufen und Speil and well maintenance of your Johnsburg well system

As Saufen und Speil approaches this September, the last days of another Johnsburg summer are waning. When the parade, raffles, games, food and fun are done, folks will return to their homes with thoughts of raking leaves not far from their minds.

With the passing of summer, it’s time to start thinking about having the car winterized so you’re ready for the winter that will arrive shortly after autumn. It’s also a good time to have the water well at your Johnsburg home checked and maintained.

Yes, your well does require annual well maintenance. If you didn’t realize this there’s a good chance your well is long overdue for well maintenance.

What does well maintenance involve? The first part of well maintenance is making sure the water will continue to flow when you want it to flow. Most homes in Johnsburg have private wells so this is a critical consideration for homeowners in town.

To keep your well flowing, the trick is to make sure that your water well system is operating properly. That includes checking the well motor, well pump, wiring and, above all, the well pressure in the well tank.

There is a bladder in the well tank that must – repeat – must be maintained at proper pressure. If the well tank pressure is wrong it can lead to other costly problems, such as burning out the well motor. With the wrong pressure in the water tank the motor can run too long and too frequently. This is especially the case if the improper pressure results in a tear to the well tank bladder.

Well maintenance also means ensuring water quality

An integral aspect of well maintenance is the chlorination of the well. This can also involve sending a sample of the well water to a lab to have it checked out for bacteria and other harmful elements. A well chlorination should be done annually.

Some people chlorinate their own Johnsburg wells. That’s fine as long as they do it properly. But, those people might be surprised to find that they’re doing damage to the well system if the chlorination is done wrong. It’s more than simply pouring the chlorine into the well. If the chlorine is poured over the well pump and connections, over time, the chlorine will corrode exposed parts of the pump and connections. The next time a pump wears out, the person replacing the pump will have a heck of a time getting the old pump out.

A proper well chlorination will also involve flushing the well system after the chlorine is added. Once again, turning to a well-system professional is a good way to make sure this procedure is done right.

McHenry Water Well & Pump float a hit in Fiesta Days Parade

The McHenry Water Well & Pump float was a big hit at the Fiesta Days Parade because John Matthesius put a lot of work into the float and because there was a big turnout of volunteers, including: (From L to R) Wayne Seeley and Buzz Schert (in back), C.J. Adams, Beau Bristol, Tracy Bristol, Makayla Bristol, John Matthesius, (Front to back) Gavin Bristol, Jodie Bristol Bristol,  Sarah Bristol and Mike Kutnick. Rich Rostron is on the safe side of the camera.

They were the hit of the McHenry Fiesta Days Parade Sunday, July 19. The McHenry Water Well & Pump float was one to remember – the company truck, driven by owner John Matthesius, pulling a float adorned with a claw-foot bathtub. You don’t see that in a parade often. And, better yet, it was functional.

More than functional, the claw-foot bathtub was in use. From start to finish, Wayne Seeley, of Visual Horizons (type of company) ‘bathed’ in the claw-foot bathtub.

The float was Matthesius’s baby. He worked on it for several months – searching high and low to find a claw-foot bathtub he could use. He then mounted the tub on a platform above a tank of water and ran pipes so the shower would flow.

Behind the tub, at the back of the float, Matthesius mounted a bubble machine. This meant that, the entire parade route, the float was pumping out bubbles as Seeley bathed in a one-piece Victorian-style bathing suite.

Along the parade route, the most-often repeated phrase was, “Look mommy, that man is taking a bath.”

Between Seeley bathing and the bubbles, the float was a particular hit with the younger set. Judging by the laughter, the adults also appreciated the humor.

As Matthesius drove, and Seeley bathed, others also assisted with the float. The volunteers, like Matthesius and Seeley, were members of the MC3 McHenry Area Chamber of Commerce business networking group, as well as some family and friends.

Sitting in front of Seeley and the tub was Rich Rostron, with Rich Publicity, a provider of content driven marketing. Rostron handed out candy and popsicles to volunteers who handed out the candy. Those volunteers included Buzz Schert of Alpha Laser Engravings and Beau Bristol with Garage Doors & More. Schert was assisted by his C.J. Adams. Bristol was joined by his wife, Tracy Bristol, brother, Gavin Bristol, sister-in-law, Sarah Bristol, and their children, Jodie and Makayla Bristol.

One of the most important volunteer positions on the float, however, was Mike Kutnick, a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway Starck Real Estate. Kutnick sat in the front of the truck next to Matthesius. Kutnick was the navigator. While most accepted the primacy of this position, Rostron had the audacity to question the importance of Kutnick’s role.

“Navigator?” Rostron asked. “It’s a parade. You follow the float in front of you.”

In response, Rostron received a condemning ‘you-just-don’t-understand’ look from the others … and then silence.

Other volunteers have operated the float with Matthesius previously, such as when he was in the Wonder Lake 4th of July Parade. He’s also taken the float out in the (other) parades.

“Other than Rostron’s whining about the navigator, everyone had a great time,” said Matthesius. “Next time, we’ll put Rostron in the tub. He’s due, anyhow.”

McHenry Water Well & Pump - hit of the Fiesta Days Parade

Call a well technician when your Spring Grove well water smells

Sure, the water is still flowing but now it seems to smell a little funny. What’s that all about?

It would be nice if you could pick up the phone and call the City of Spring Grove Public Works Department but, here in Spring Grove, many residents and businesses have private wells. If that includes you, it means that, when the water smells, it’s your problem.

When the water smells, how do you get rid of that odor? To fix the problem when water smells you first need to determine why the water smells. Water odors occur for a reason. To determine the cause of water odor you should have the water checked. Someone with city water counts on the city to ensure the water is safe. With a well system, it’s your call and a good idea to bring in an expert; it’s time to call a well technician.

One of the first questions a well technician will ask when arriving at your Spring Grove home or office is, “When did you last chlorinate your well?”

Well chlorination can ensure that a well doesn’t become contaminated with bacteria and pathogens. The chlorine will also help to neutralize the sulfur odor that is probably responsible when your well water smells.

There are other factors that can cause the water to smell. For instance, you could have hydrogen sulfide gas in the well or you may have a fouled bladder in the pressure tank. Whatever the case, a qualified well technician will quickly locate the source of the problem and offer a solution.

It’s not a bad idea to have the water tested, too. This is not terribly expensive and the well technician can take care of it on your behalf.

Finally, while chlorinating the well, your well technician can go beyond clearing up any water odors; the well technician can also perform a maintenance check on your well system. This will include checking the air pressure in the well tank, ensuring all the electronics are working properly and that the well motor is operating properly.

One word of caution – you may be tempted to chlorinate your well yourself. Many people do. However, if it’s not done properly, you can cause corrosion on the pipe fittings in the well. This can work out as a costly mistake the next time you have to change the well motor.

Annual well maintenance will keep the water flowing in your Port Barrington home

You lift or turn the handle and water flows from the faucet. It’s almost like magic. Of course, we tend to take it for granted; it happens every time we do it. We come to expect it. And, on that day when it doesn’t happen, when we turn or lift a handle in our Port Barrington home, it’s a disconcerting experience.

We find ourselves asking a simple question – ‘Why doesn’t the water flow?’

For homes that are connected to city water, there’s a good chance that the problem is with the city. You’ll just have to wait until they figure it out. Possibly, when the water does start to flow again, you’ll have to abide by a boil order – the water isn’t safe straight from the faucet.

In Port Barrington, however, homeowners generally rely on private wells to supply their water. If the water doesn’t flow it’s a personal problem. The city isn’t going to rush out and fix the problem. Maintaining and repairing the well is the responsibility of the homeowner.

Maintenance is a key factor in this equation. If a Port Barrington homeowner stays on top of the well, figuratively speaking, and keeps up with timely maintenance, such as checking the pressure in the water tank, ensuring that the electronics are working properly, that the motor is in good condition and that the well is chlorinated annually, repairs are an uncommon occurrence.

Well repairs are far more common when well maintenance is left by the wayside. Without regular maintenance, that disconcerting feeling you get when something is supposed to work and it doesn’t, is far more likely. One day the water just might not flow.

Some people try to maintain their wells themselves. However, it’s really recommended that homeowners call in a professional. For instance, when chlorinating a well – a vital process to ensure the quality of the water is up to snuff – some homeowners simply pour the chemical into the well. There’s more to it than that.

Improperly done, the chlorine can build up around the well motor, electronics and connections causing problems down the road. And if well repairs are required, the situation is considerably more difficult and costly when a well technician comes to the rescue.

Well maintenance is an annual affair. If you have proper well maintenance professionally performed on your Port Barrington home’s well, in all likely hood, you’ll go years with the water continuing to flow.