Well Inspection
 

I'm in the process of closing on a house, the seller was apparently your typical car/home owner. AKA, bought it and doesn't know anything about it, just had things "fixed" when they went wrong.[I'll save the "professional" fixes for another thread. Not a murderhouse, but everything looks like your cousin did it after drinking too much]

So the only information I have on the well is that:
"The water tastes fine"
"It was originally hand dug"
"Has been modernized"

Nothing on the depth, type of casing, flow rating, pump details, service records, etc.

What kind of inspections should I have done? I'm thinking get someone out there to pull the pump, send a camera down the pipe, measure the depth, and run a yield test.

All the places I've called will gladly sell me the timed bucket test and send a sample to the lab. When I mention popping the cap and inspecting things they start to sound nervous. Am I over-thinking things? I don't want to be drilling a new well out of pocket in a year.

You are not overthinking.
Here's the best checklist I've seen. I'd print it and take it to someone who digs wells and see what they say.

http://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/water/dwgb/well_testing/documents/checklist.pdf

Excellent information, thank you

Glad to help.

I may be digging a well and cistern on property before June 2014, so let me know what you find out.

I have a different set of problems: like, where to put the well?

Far away and uphill. The one I'm looking at is ~10ft from the house, 5ft from a giant old tree, and 30ft from the road. Fine if you're pumping by hand....but makes me a little nervous.

Ideally I'd put mine 75' uphill of the house. That's more $$ in piping and power lines, but no worries.

Hand dug would be at least a yellow flag for me. I'd get a sample as a minimum and try to establish a depth so someone who knows water table information in your area can comment on its reliability.....IE it could be fine now but if too shallow under other circumstances might go dry or become contaminated too easily.

All I can say is that you should make sure that it is well inspected.

(Am I horning in on Botnst's territory by saying that?).

Check with the county office depending on the age they should have the information on the well. While at it ask them if they do well water checks, which should include nitrates, iron, and a few others (county does ours free annually). will pull out our most recent if still on file and update this post.

Not sure where your property is, but given your B'more tagline this number may be of use. We've used these folks to keep our well tested.

Fredericktowne Labs Inc 301-293-3340

Does your state have a dept. of water quality? They are usually the agency that registers domestic wells and can give you any data that might be recorded. Other than that, I'd have the pump pulled and the hole camera'd and the above mentioned tests run.

Uphill if possible but more importantly as far away from neighbors, sewer or septic drain lines and fields. In my county a new well has to be at least 100' distant.
I'm a big fan of Grundfos pumps BTW. Can't get as good a warranty out of anyone else. Stainless steel impellers are a must in sandy or silty layers and theirs are guaranteed for ten years against sand.

Just called the county-they need to swap receptionists with the DMV. They were quick, helpful, and polite.

BUT....

They don't have any info on the well other than the house was originally built in 1920. Which means that it was "updated" to have the above-ground pipe&cap before 1955 or whoever did the work didn't pull a permit/file their papers, etc.

Full inspection it is!

What irks me(oh it irks me so bad) is that I'll be paying $300 or so for the flow test-something I can do with a lawn chair, buckets, stopwatch, and a couple beers. But alas, I didn't take the probably open book exam down at the county house and get "certified" to sit around for 3 hours counting how many buckets I can fill in 15 minute increments. Oh well, $100/hour isn't bad for a plumber.

At that price, make the plumber buy his own beer!

Wound up being around 150ft deep, with ~65ft of space up top.
Produced ~ 500 gallons in 1.5 hours

http://i.imgur.com/oduaA2m.jpg

It was money well spent

I know nothing about wells. Is that a good well or a bad well?