Folks with wells (instead of city water)

A

Atrus

Forum Member
So, my wife and I are looking into relocating up into the Romeo area. We'd be on a well - it'd be new construction. I have a buddy who lived a couple miles from where we are looking and was on a well. With the high iron content, the water in his toilets and whatnot was always rust-colored.

Since I am really not hip on well water - is there anything that can be done to remove the rust? He was running a softener.

Also, what's an average cost to drill a new well? I know there are a lot of factors, but are we typically talking a couple hundred, $1k, $5k? How often do you get the water quality tested? Any words of wisdom or experience you could share?
 
Atrus said:
So, my wife and I are looking into relocating up into the Romeo area. We'd be on a well - it'd be new construction. I have a buddy who lived a couple miles from where we are looking and was on a well. With the high iron content, the water in his toilets and whatnot was always rust-colored.

Since I am really not hip on well water - is there anything that can be done to remove the rust? He was running a softener.

Also, what's an average cost to drill a new well? I know there are a lot of factors, but are we typically talking a couple hundred, $1k, $5k? How often do you get the water quality tested? Any words of wisdom or experience you could share?
Click to expand...

I've got an iron filter along side my water softener and my water is great. No staining, no smells, and I drink it right out of the tap. It's a backwash system so there is zero maintenance to do on it.

Kinetico has whole house water softening and filtration systems. http://www.kinetico.com/water-filter/

There is another brand too I can't think of off the top of my head that is great, It will come to me and I'll post it.
 
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Awesome, so fairly simple and cost effective just to have a iron filter added and that'd take care of the problem? I appreciate the response - that makes me feel a lot better!
 
Yeah. It's not terrible. My iron filter was about $800. A kinetico system will run about $3k for softening and filtration the last time I priced it out.


You'll have to have the water tested to see what you need though. You won't necessarily need an iron filter, you may need something else depending on the water.
 
Normally I go to the agency I want to use (State of Michigan, county, etc) and purchase
the empty water test bottles. You then follow the directions on how to carefully fill & return
the water samples (you can mail them in).

Like I said, I run two sets of tests, and don't be cheap, get a full battery of tests done.
You'll also want check "water flow" to make sure you have proper pressure & flow.

All of these things are very easy & simple to do (hey, i did them ). There is really
no reason you can't do this yourself - its something you'll want to be able to do, so learn
now.

I live in an area of "bad water", yet I have some of the best water you've ever tasted!
Remember, it is common to have great water at one house, and horrible water next door!

Another trick is to refrigerate your drinking water overnight, it helps to distill it and can really
improve the taste quality.

You should take TONS of photos. Always take a camera when looking at a house
for sale & take photos of all the mechanicals. I normally take 100+ photos of a property.
 
4Gas$ said:
Normally I go to the agency I want to use (State of Michigan, county, etc) and purchase
the empty water test bottles. You then follow the directions on how to carefully fill & return
the water samples (you can mail them in).

Like I said, I run two sets of tests, and don't be cheap, get a full battery of tests done.
You'll also want check "water flow" to make sure you have proper pressure & flow.

All of these things are very easy & simple to do (hey, i did them ). There is really
no reason you can't do this yourself - its something you'll want to be able to do, so learn
now.

I live in an area of "bad water", yet I have some of the best water you've ever tasted!
Remember, it is common to have great water at one house, and horrible water next door!

Another trick is to refrigerate your drinking water overnight, it helps to distill it and can really
improve the taste quality.

You should take TONS of photos. Always take a camera when looking at a house
for sale & take photos of all the mechanicals. I normally take 100+ photos of a property.
Click to expand...

It's new construction he said....
 
Thanks for the info, guys - very much appreciate it. I feel better that if the water is stinky (sulfur) or iron-laden (not to be confused with Iron Maiden), it seems to be easily remediated.

So, really dumb question. I am looking at a vacant lot. There's no well on the property. No way to test anything unless I purchase and/or drill a well, correct?
 
Atrus said:
Thanks for the info, guys - very much appreciate it. I feel better that if the water is stinky (sulfur) or iron-laden (not to be confused with Iron Maiden), it seems to be easily remediated.

So, really dumb question. I am looking at a vacant lot. There's no well on the property. No way to test anything unless I purchase and/or drill a well, correct?
Click to expand...


Check with the county / health department. Also check with the
Well drilling companies that service that area for advice.

There is a very simple & inexpensive way to treat sulfur water. You
aerate the water, this purges the gas (sulfur) from the water. Sulfur
is very corrosive and can & will damage things in your home.

You simply build a 8’x8’ shed over your well head. Add a 200 or 300
gallon water tank & outfit it with an air bubbler (like a fish tank). Vent
the water tank through the roof of the shed. Then the “clean” water is
pumped as normally into the house for use. I have seen this simple
“homemade” system work great in my area.
 
If you're looking at a vacant lot there are a few things to consider. This applies to Oakland County, check with Macomb county Health Department they can fill you in on local regulations.

If city sewers are not in the area, make sure the property owner has a recent perk test? If not request them to get one or walk away. If the property doesn't perk don't assume they you will just need an engineered septic. The county health dept. does not have to approve the property for a septic system. Then it's appeal board meetings and sewing the county..

On Oakland county a well has to be 50' from a septic system. So if you neighbor septic is within 50' of where you want your well, you will need to figure out another place to put it. Same applies to locating a septic system and a neighbors well.

Also make sure it's not considered a wet lands. Co-working is having the EPA checking is vacant property.

Finally back to you're original question, as mentioned you can remove rust, and the sulfur from water. However you can't compare a friends water from a couple miles away. All wells are somewhat unique, it depend on the individual well for hardness, iron and sulfur level. It there are other houses right next to the property check the driveways for orange cement from the sprinklers.

I recently did a new construction build on a vacant lot. I would visit the county health department and ask them questions. Ask them if they can recommend anyone for a new well. Call them and ask them about the area. They should know average depth of wells.
When I had my well drilled it was a flat rate if they hit water at or before 50' then it goes up from there. The deeper they go the more it costs.
You will need a well permit from the county before they can drill, Oakland was $200 for the permit. Closer to $5,000 for a new well with all the equipment (and well related plumbing) installed.

Advice on a well, and pump. Go with a tank well pump, the brand is Grundfos. It's a variable speed pump that supplies water on demand. It eliminates the need for the big blue bladder tank. Water pressure is very good with a Grundfos system.

My previous house has very high iron, I tried several system and Kinetico was by far the best. They are pricey but you get what you pay for. Our water quality the best with a Kinetico system. I purchased another Kinetico system for our new home, no complaints.
 
When people talk about Iron (rust colored toilets) they're probably talking about IRB (Iron Reducing Bacteria). When the IRB hits oxygen it forms a rust color that people typically call Iron. The bacteria itself is harmless and most people just drink the water anyways but they do offer continuous chlorine drips for wells or you can just treat the well with chlorine manually once and a while.

I was curious about the cost of a new well and I was quoted around $3k, and some places were as high as $10k.

I usually use an RO filter for drinking water because they're cheap and last a very long time. I've reset the RO "change filter" meter a lot and I still measure close to 0 PPM of dissolved solids.

I also use a grundfos SQE variable drive pump and typically pump about 3 million gallons a year.
 
In the Romeo area I would recommend Suburban Well Drillers. 14 years ago I had another company drill a new well and they went to 130 and found no water, then they said that they had to pull their equipment for repairs and would be back, never heard from then again. Called Suburban, they drilled 15 feet away from the first guy and hit water at 85 feet, no problem since then. Let the well driller pull the permit unless YOU want to guarantee their work.
 
I have an Ecowater system from Douglas Water Conditioning. We had ridiculously high iron content in our water so needed a big softener. Added in the Reverse Osmosis system for drinking water. Overall I love this system. It does require cleaning from time to time. But it eliminated our orange rust problem (discovered the old softener was broken when our whites turned orange). We also added in a large carbon filter to filter out the sulfur odor. I change that once every 1-3 months.
 
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