Problems with water well? (Memphis: houses, organic, live in)

[escapeclub]

My mom recently moved to Tennessee and is having problems with her water well. She has water for a few days and then she seems to run out of water??? Any one she talks to says that Tennessee has slow recovery wells. She lives in Grainger County. I live in Florida and just visited her. I am familiar with wells in Florida, and have not had any water issues. She seems to have had times that she "runs out of water". Do you know who she can talk to about this subject? She is almost 80 years old and I am concerned that she may have a cracked well. Is that possible? Thanks in advance for any info or direction to someone who can answer questions.

[Pam& Bill]

I'd contact a well driller. She may have a shallow well and her water useage is more then the well holds. But don't take my word for it, I'm not a professional.
Lots of luck,
Pam

[Driller1]

I would like for her to have a driller look at it. There are MANY kinds of wells. If if had a hole in the casing she likely would be getting dirty water. Call her local health department for a name of a driller they trust. HUD has funds to fix or re-drill. Again someone in the county could help her apply. Many senior programs will also help!!! My best, Driller1

[Driller1]

Originally Posted by escapeclub

My mom recently moved to Tennessee and is having problems with her water well. She has water for a few days and then she seems to run out of water??? Any one she talks to says that Tennessee has slow recovery wells. She lives in Grainger County. I live in Florida and just visited her. I am familiar with wells in Florida, and have not had any water issues. She seems to have had times that she "runs out of water". Do you know who she can talk to about this subject? She is almost 80 years old and I am concerned that she may have a cracked well. Is that possible? Thanks in advance for any info or direction to someone who can answer questions.

One more thing. If she just bought this house maybe there is something on the reality contract she can use. State laws are SO different, I would still check.

[Gary Slusser]

It sounds as if the well goes 'dry'. Meaning the water level is pulled down to the inlet of the pump. Unless the pump shuts off for some reason, then cools off and comes on again because of the thermal overload prtection.

She needs to start water conservation measures. Do a load of laundry and wait a couple hours to do another and spread all water uses out some.

She can look in her yellow pages under the headings Pumps, Wells, Well Drillers or Plumbers (only plumbers that do pump and well work, most don't).

She needs someone to do electrical checks on the pump and to check the static water level in the well and possibly the pumping level of the well.

They may be able to lower the pump in the well or find something wrong with the pump or power cable etc..

Tell her to not trust what she is told without verifying it by making them prove what they tell her. Proof is showing her test results for electrical checks as they do them etc. and the figures in a manual rather than just telling her what they should be. And make them put what is wrong in writing and why.

[marmac]

Originally Posted by escapeclub

My mom recently moved to Tennessee and is having problems with her water well. She has water for a few days and then she seems to run out of water??? Any one she talks to says that Tennessee has slow recovery wells. She lives in Grainger County. I live in Florida and just visited her. I am familiar with wells in Florida, and have not had any water issues. She seems to have had times that she "runs out of water". Do you know who she can talk to about this subject? She is almost 80 years old and I am concerned that she may have a cracked well. Is that possible? Thanks in advance for any info or direction to someone who can answer questions.

--" Tenessee has slow recovery wells "--

Is this a problem throughout much of the SE ?

I ask because many houses I have looked at( both via internet and in person ) in rural areas are --" public water, sceptic sewer"

That is totally unheard of in many states cuz if you are ouside a city limit you get neither a public water supp;y or a public sewer line.

Well drillers sure have the demand for their services cut into with all those public water lines, but if getting water in the SE is difficult, it is understandable cuz it probably would be very costly to homeowners for every person to have their own well

[yarddawg]

Originally Posted by marmac

--" Tenessee has slow recovery wells "--

Is this a problem throughout much of the SE ?

I ask because many houses I have looked at( both via internet and in person ) in rural areas are --" public water, sceptic sewer"

That is totally unheard of in many states cuz if you are ouside a city limit you get neither a public water supp;y or a public sewer line.

Well drillers sure have the demand for their services cut into with all those public water lines, but if getting water in the SE is difficult, it is understandable cuz it probably would be very costly to homeowners for every person to have their own well

OK, this is a huge oversimplification, there's always room for local geological weirdness, but in general wells in Tennessee fall into three categories based on region.

In west Tennessee wells are in deep unconsolidated sediments, quality is good and quantity is good. As long as you aren't within a couple of miles of a landfill, hazardous waste site, etc. you don't have much to worry about. Most of Memphis' water comes from wells.

In middle Tennessee and western east Tennessee (central basin, highland rim, Cumberland plateau), most wells are in karst. Which is limestone rotted to a fair impersonation of swiss cheese. Most the water underground is moving through large open channels. Quantity is very good if you intersect a large channel but transit time from the surface is also very fast and there are many "windows" to surface water which creates potential quality problems. Filtration systems with chlorinators are a common way to deal with chronic bacteria problems. Periodic testing for heavy metals and organic chemicals is also a good idea as it's difficult to asses whether or not the landfill or industrial site five or ten miles away could be a problem for you. Underground waterflow in karst systems often does not travel in the same direction as surface water streams. Higher elevations may have wells suddenly go completely dry for an extended time (days, weeks) as the water table falls during dry weather.

In the eastern part of east Tennessee most of the wells are in the hard crystalline rocks of the mountain cores. Water mostly moves through small fractures in the rock and getting a well with good quantity involves a lot of random chance in crossing enough fractures while you're drilling the well. Quality is generally better than karst but not as nice as nature's massive sand filter in west TN.

Can't speak for the rest of the southeast but the roots of the public water initiative in Tennessee were massive outbreaks of disease associated with people drinking from contaminated springs and wells, mostly in the karst regions. There's still a lot of subtle anti-well bias. In every single project I've ever worked where contaminated well water was an issue and HUD was involved they pushed the public option even when it was more expensive. I never was able to follow the logic about why it's better to have the city add chlorine to you water to kill the bacteria than to install a chlorination/filtration system on your well that did basically the same thing.

[Driller1]

Originally Posted by marmac

--" Tenessee has slow recovery wells "--

Is this a problem throughout much of the SE ?

I ask because many houses I have looked at( both via internet and in person ) in rural areas are --" public water, sceptic sewer"

That is totally unheard of in many states cuz if you are ouside a city limit you get neither a public water supp;y or a public sewer line.

Well drillers sure have the demand for their services cut into with all those public water lines, but if getting water in the SE is difficult, it is understandable cuz it probably would be very costly to homeowners for every person to have their own well

You would think it would cut driller's work, in fact in Michigan it gives us more when they run city water lines. The wells have to be abandon to code. That runs any where from $600/$1500, per well. We can do a lot in one day.

[marmac]

yarddawg-------thanks for taking the time for your explanation of wells in TN and why there is so many places with public water.

Driller1----yup " well abandonement "- is a big business as some jurisdictions are requiring abandoned wells to be capped by a licensed well drilling company prior to a property being sold.

Many times when a new well was dug, the old one was just left sitting idle.

[Driller1]

Originally Posted by marmac

yarddawg-------thanks for taking the time for your explanation of wells in TN and why there is so many places with public water.

Driller1----yup " well abandonement "- is a big business as some jurisdictions are requiring abandoned wells to be capped by a licensed well drilling company prior to a property being sold.

Many times when a new well was dug, the old one was just left sitting idle.

The property owner has the right to do their own. But, they have to do it to code. That means they need a cement pump or if code can be Benoite, a grouting pump. It all depends on where you hit bedrock. You also would need a well rig to rime the hole out and pull the drop and pump if it is in the well. Then there is paper work with the state.