On Feb 28, 4:39*am, Caesar Romano wrote:
On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:04:55 -0700, Jantero
wrote Re Residential water well question:

For houses with their own water wells, what kind of evaluations and what
info sources do you go to?

Obviously, if you can't get enough safe water, the house is unlivable -
so it's number one on the list to be checked out.

I can't find any books that focus on this and I'm hoping some people in
here know about this kind of stuff.

The specific are I'm interested in is Colorado.

Thanks

1) Do a flow test. *Open an outside spigot and let the water flow at
full open. Let it continue to flow for several hours watching for any
loss of flow. *If you get a loss of flow you have a problem well. *If
no flow-loss you very likely have a good well. *Of course you need to
monitor this test. *Don't start it, leave, and come back. *You don't
want the present owner to "interfere" with it while you are not there.
You can probably proceed with other inspections while the flow test is
running. *Note: measuring the *water level in the well is not a
sufficient test. *You need to measure the well recharge rate. That's
what the flow test does.

2) If (1) proves ok, *send a sample of the water to be tested. *You
will need to be sure that the sample bottle is clean. *Check with a
testing lab to see if they can provide a bottle.
--
Work is the curse of the drinking class.


An approach like the above seems reasonable to
me. A decent flow rate is 15GPM, which is enough
to support a decent lawn sprinkler system, for example.
10GPM is still OK for normal domestic use. 5GPM is
probably the lower limit, but I'm sure there are wells
out there in use that are below that. It also obviously
depends on the area.