well water in croton? (Yorktown, Yorktown Heights: power lines, house, buy)

[lulu79]

my husband and i found what seems to be the perfect home for us in the teatown area of croton. however, the house has well water - does anyone have any experience with well water in westchester, or in this area of croton in particular? how is the water pressure? does the water need to be treated, or does it taste ok on it's own (it is not currently treated in this particular house, but we could add a softener if we wanted). is it necessary to get a generator? this seems so rural to us, especially coming from manhattan!!

[dma1250]

We were a little nervous about the idea of well water too when we moved up from Brooklyn. But I have to say that I love having a well--the water is delicious here and we've never had problems. We live just north of the Croton Reservoir (in the Huntersville section of Yorktown Heights) and the water table is excellent. The same will be true in the Teatown area (which is partly Yorktown and partly Croton), just south of the res. The whole area is in the watershed and the water supply is quite good.

You'll need to have the water and the well tested as part of the home inspection process. We put in a water softening system, which runs well. You don't need a generator (but your water won't work for long in a blackout. We considered getting one for the lights, but our longest blackout in 9 years has been just a few hours). Wells, septic systems, power lines, snow shoveling, keeping the animals out of the trash--it all feels really country at first. But you'll come to love it.

[lulu79]

thanks so much for your honest answer. i grew up in columbia county, which is just north of dutchess, so i am pretty comfortable with the notion of country living, even though i've been living in nyc for many years now. i just have to get my yonkers-born husband on the same page!

[kletter1mann]

Originally Posted by dma1250

You don't need a generator (but your water won't work for long in a blackout. We considered getting one for the lights, but our longest blackout in 9 years has been just a few hours). Wells, septic systems, power lines, snow shoveling, keeping the animals out of the trash--it all feels really country at first. But you'll come to love it.

You'll not only come to love it, you'll chuckle at the notion that you once thought of this stuff as strange and exotic.

As for the generator, we got a small one and are very happy we did. Prolonged outages are pretty infrequent, but when there is one you'll still be in business while your neighbors are worrying about frozen pipes. You don't need to spend thousands for a fixed installation, a 5000 watt unit will be enough for the basics - run your fridge, well pump, most of your lights and an oil furnace. That probably wouldn't be enough to also use an electric stove or dryer. You'll need an electrician to hook up the wiring for it.

[Barrysd55]

Being a Westchester resident for nearly twenty five years, I've seen my share of power outages. It does seem that they are longer in duration as the years go by. To that end, If you DO buy a generator, and have natural gas from the utility, strongly consider a natural gas unit. The last two outages that I had in Yorktown were almost four days each, and I didn't have to worry about getting gasoline. If price is an issue, there are even conversion kits to convert most portable gasoline generators to run on natural gas.