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We are looking at newly constructed home with Brentwood Homes at the Preserve at Forest Creek in Waxhaw that offers well water. Can anyone tell us of their experiences with wells? How about in drought? Has anyone heard about the gallons-per-minute rate of a well or a water table? Do you know anything about drought in this area and if well owners were effected? What else should I know about well water? The sales agent states the that the area MAY get city water at some point. Are hook ups to the city system very costly?
Although I don't live in the Waxhaw area, I have a bit of work experience with wells and groundwater. A residential potable well should be installed to a sufficient depth to be able to withstand the affects of a drought. In this area, drought conditions can lower the water table maybe 5 to 10 feet on average. The water table is generally 20 feet below ground surface, so a drought would drop the water table to maybe 30 feet below ground surface. A potable well will be installed much deeper than this and thereby should not be affected. I would however take a look at surrounding properties to make certain that there aren't any contaminated sites (i.e gas stations, industrial plants) that may have impacted the aquifer that your well draws from. This information can be found through the NC Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources. If its a new development, the developer should have done his due diligence and researched/eliminated this possibility already, but it never hurts to double-check.
Saw this article in the Neighbors of Union County edition of the Charlotte Observer on July 13, 2008. Thought about posting it then for all who frequently ask questions about well water in Union County:
Charlotte Observer | 07/13/2008 | Straight answers for those who rely on wells (http://www.charlotte.com/union/story/709378.html - broken link)
We are looking at newly constructed home with Brentwood Homes at the Preserve at Forest Creek in Waxhaw that offers well water. Can anyone tell us of their experiences with wells? How about in drought? Has anyone heard about the gallons-per-minute rate of a well or a water table? Do you know anything about drought in this area and if well owners were effected? What else should I know about well water? The sales agent states the that the area MAY get city water at some point. Are hook ups to the city system very costly?
Union county for years, has had a higher than normal level of arsenic in its water table. It isn't wide spread and but some parts of the county have it worse than others, but it would be worthwhile to make sure it gets checked regularly. The county is supposed to sign off on the water as part of the CofO, but I know for a fact that UC uses some pretty lax parameters for acceptance and I would definitely ask for an independent test.
There is no water or sewer capcity in the county right now. Unless the developement already has a water or sewer permit, which if it did, it would seem that they would run it to the neighborhood. It might be quite sometime before water comes to your development. It can be quite expensive since the county would only run a line to the development, not to each house. It would then be up to the neighborhood to get it run to each house. We tried as an HOA to get our neighborhood off of septics and onto county sewer (we have county water). It was way more expensive than it was really worth. The county would only have to have run the line about 200 feet from the next door neighborhood, but we still would have had to pay $$$ to get it run into the hood and every house would have had to agree to sign on.
Although I don't live in the Waxhaw area, I have a bit of work experience with wells and groundwater. A residential potable well should be installed to a sufficient depth to be able to withstand the affects of a drought. In this area, drought conditions can lower the water table maybe 5 to 10 feet on average. The water table is generally 20 feet below ground surface, so a drought would drop the water table to maybe 30 feet below ground surface. A potable well will be installed much deeper than this and thereby should not be affected. I would however take a look at surrounding properties to make certain that there aren't any contaminated sites (i.e gas stations, industrial plants) that may have impacted the aquifer that your well draws from. This information can be found through the NC Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources. If its a new development, the developer should have done his due diligence and researched/eliminated this possibility already, but it never hurts to double-check.
Thanks for this info. Can you also tell me if all well water needs to be filtered? Do you have to "soften" all such water? What is a well water pumps life span?
We live in the Preserve at Forest Creek and had trouble getting good flow from the well. We originally purchased the sprinkler system with the house, but they would not install it because we're only getting 3GPM from the well. It's enough for the house, but not enough to support the sprinkler. They even went down 700 feet to try to find a good supply. We've spoken to people that live a few houses down and they hit 10+GPM at only 150 feet... so it's basically hit or miss.
As for the quality, it seems to be very good. The only thing that we noticed was sediment, but I went to Lowes and put in a whole house filter to get out the sand. (It's very easy to install with PEX plumbing). We are waiting on the water quality results... it was just tested this week.
Thanks for this info. Can you also tell me if all well water needs to be filtered? Do you have to "soften" all such water? What is a well water pumps life span?
No, not all well water needs to be filtered or softened, it just depends on the aquifer that your particular well will be drawing from. Shallower depth wells (<100') are generally constructed in unconsolidated sediments (i.e. sand, silt, etc.) and therefore, usually do require a filter to remove sediment from the water. Deeper wells are generally set into rock, specifically targeting fractures in the rock that carry water. Fractured bedrock wells are usually less turbid, but can have other issues such as the need for filtering due to the chemical composition of the bedrock. As a previous poster indicated, problems with arsenic, which is a naturally occurring metal compound that can be harmful at high concentrations, but can also be easily controlled using a filter.
The best thing for you to do is to get additional information from the builder or from other home owners in the neighborhood. Well water quality and availability does vary greatly from area to area and can vary from lot to lot if your dealing with bedrock wells.
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Straight Answers for Those Who Rely On Wells
