Water Supply

[tsafa]

I am in the process of moving into Monroe. I never had my own Well and Septic before. I was just wondering how consistent the water supply is out of a well. Can anybody recall from back in the 80's what the water situation was in the wells when there were droughts. Thanks.

[dc dalton]

All depends on your well and how deep it is and where you are. Ours is only 40' deep and no matter how bad it has gotten it never went dry yet we know people with wells 100-200' deep that have had problems.

[reichebrown]

It all depends. The well at my parents house was 200-300' and would have problems if we ran the water extensively. THe place i am at now has an artesian well that runs out an overflow 24/7. You could have the well tested for capacity when purchasing the house. There arnt many issues with a well other than needing to replace pumps when they go. Septic tanks you can flush some things down the toilet like you can in the city.

[tsafa]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

[Nightwolf]

Born and raised here and growing up we shared a well with my grand parents and never had an issue with running low on water. As for the septic...make sure you have it checked and know what kind it is before you buy. I bought a house 3 three years ago and never checked...turned out to only have been meant for a vacation house with no more then 2 people so I had to have a whole new set up put in Just make sure you know what you're buying.

[dc dalton]

Originally Posted by Nightwolf

Born and raised here and growing up we shared a well with my grand parents and never had an issue with running low on water. As for the septic...make sure you have it checked and know what kind it is before you buy. I bought a house 3 three years ago and never checked...turned out to only have been meant for a vacation house with no more then 2 people so I had to have a whole new set up put in Just make sure you know what you're buying.

Good point, and to the OP remember if you have a leech field now and it fails then you MUST have a turkey mound installed ... something else that is bound to fail eventually.

[CHEMICAL]

i HATE turkey mounds!......theyre stupid, ugly and a pain in the ass to mow!...just a thought also, to anyone with a leech field or may be buying a house with a leech field, you need to maintain it every few years by having someone come and service it.

they stick a pipe in the ground and blast it with air and shoot these little white "balls" into the ground. not exactly sure what the process is called, but know that it is a good idea to do to avoid having to install a completely new system.

[tsafa]

No issues with the septic design because I am building on raw land. Everything new. I don't mind the mound to much. Seems like a good snipping plateform and I have plenty of land to shoot on, lol.

[wis bang]

Sand mounds are ugly and they have a limited life, might be as little as 20 years. Drainfields also have a limited life but some places still allow them.

My mom is selling in Bucks and the buyer's inspector found that the 45 yr old system had problems. Never backed up but the pipe used in the mid 60's [orangeburg] was a paper/tar composite & the laterial feeds were collapsing. If ABS had been available back then the septic may have still been good.

Fortunately for mom the testing showed that her property would 'perk' and she is installing a new tank & drainfield at about 1/2 the cost of a mound. The new field is only going to be about 24" under the surface instead of the 5 ' - 6' of the older system.

Alot of sand mounds use a pump that can fail sooner than the actual field, either way they can get expensive.

I used to ship tankers of Sulfuric Acid to a guy in Long Island who supplied it to the septic repair guys using a smaller tanker to fill 30 gal carboys used to clean the drainfields. We shipped him 4 tankers a week, around 12,600 gal every week...imagine what that is doing to their ground water!

Speaking of ground water, make sure you have your well tested on a regular basis. The same inspector ffound slight bacteria contamination to mom's well. The local well guy came and treated the well w/ a chlorine bleach compound and it now tests OK but he has to come back and replace the well head cover. This wet summer allowed some round water to get in and you couldn't notice the problem w/ out testing.

[tsafa]

Thanks for that feedback Wis Bang.