Brining a well back into service - what's the likelihood?

[Tom]

'Assuming' I find a well close to my house, say 2 feet away, what would be the possibility of incorporating it into an extension and bringing it back into service? 'Assuming' the bricks are in good condition and there was water in there (albeit murky because of fallen debris), would it be possible to build up the 'sides' and add a wooden, lockable top...would that satisfy Building Regs as regards safety? How would I know if the water was fit for human consumption or only suitable for, say, garden use? I have heard that Building Control would insist on it being filled with concrete. Is that true? If it wasn't possible to bring it back into use, would I be able to open it up and put glass over the top to incorporate it into the floor? I'm sure I've seen that done before.

If it was so close to the house it wouldn't be possible to have it outside, which would be a shame as that would obviously be preferable.

Sorry for so many questions but I really need some advice on this one...just in case I find one.

Thanks
Jaqy

 

[alice]

I've lived with private wells and now I live with a community well. While my experience with wells has been in the US, there are some common considerations.

Is your house in a community or is it rural? Your community might not allow private wells as it can effect the groundwater levels of the public wells (if any). Here in the States we have water rights laws (don't think the UK does) and how much water you can pull out is regulated. Safety is an issue, as well. Children and animals can fall down wells as narrow as 9 inches.

Are there any sources of groundwater contamination nearby such as gas tanks, septic systems, farms, etc? This can be very tricky to figure out since the catchment area for your well can be very wide. Also, you'll have to search for historical contamination (stuff that was buried and you don't know about, especially on farms). What is the mineral content of the local geology? Check with your neighbors with wells and taste their water to see if you can live with the local levels of calcium, iron and sulpher. You can set up filters for this, but that's another level of complication.

Here in the States we have labs that test the quality/safety of the water and I'm sure you'll find the same in the UK. It's important to test regularly (about once a year, more if there is some reason, like a flood) because fecal chloriform (poo!) is present in more wells than you think! If your well is only 2 feet from the house, you'll need to be very careful about waste line/septic contamination. I know that's too close for a legal well here; you'll need to check that distance in the UK.

From my experience, private wells aren't necessarily a great source of water because they can be unreliable in water quality and availablity. Sometimes the water tastes fine, but without the filtering and sanitizing availlable with public water systems, sometimes you'll be living with a muddy mess. It's very disheartening to go to your sink and out comes liquid rust. On the other hand, it's nice to be independent from the grid and when well water is clean, safe and reliable, it tastes great.

alice

 

[Tom]

Hi Alice

Thanks for your reply.

We live on our own smallholding and the well would only serve our property. Everyone else around here is on mains supply, as we are at the moment. Our house is 50' away from a river. The river is on average 20' wide and between 0 and 6 feet deep in the summer. In the winter it can rise by another 8'. The surrounding land has always been farmed. The soil is clay on limestone bedrock. Our septic tank is about 40' away from the house, downhill. Does any of this alter your view any? Thanks for your help.

Jaqy

 

[bower1]

Our house is only supplied by a well. But we are on top of a hill, so probably slightly different.

I believe that the local authority will test your water, but then they would know about it! I prefer to keep them out of the picture. So we only drink bottled water and use the well water for everthing else.

Another option for a well is to use it as the supply for an open loop heat pump. I've been quoted £4k. It needs a certain supply per minute and somewhere to dispose of the water

I would worry more about the structural side of it than the water itself. Whos going to know if you fit a pump later?

If there is a good supply of water, you could just use it for the toilets. Then you don't have any issue with the septic tank.

 

[Geoff Flegg]

Our neighbours found a well in their front garden whilst digging for a driveway. I believe they had the water tested by the water authority - it wasn't deemed safe to drink, but then again it's entirely possible that it would have failed the modern test when it was actually in use!

I was given a map recently of where I live that just pre-dates my house - it shows a well underneath my garage, which may be interesting when I come to demolish and re-build it. I doubt very much if it's been capped off properly, judging by the way the garage has been built.....

 

[Tom]

Geoff, what type of map do you have that shows wells? I have plenty of maps of our area, from various sources, but none show any wells at all. Thanks.

Jaqy

 

[Geoff Flegg]

It's a 1:500 scale Ordnance Survey map from 1882. My house is a relative youngster, built in 1899.

I don't know how accurate these maps always are though - it doesn't show my neighbour's well, and we think that pre-dates the house. All depends on if it was easily visible when they surveyed I guess.

For example - next to our house was a brewery, which was there at the time of the map - it doesn't show their well either, which was most definitely there as it's Roman! We're right next to Watling Street, the original London-Holyhead road. It's possible of course that their well was inside a building and hence not shown.

As an aside, I've got a broken cast iron hand pump at the end of the garden, which we think served a long since demolished stable block. I'm going to try to get this back into service at some point - although that will mean cutting the remains of the original pump off the supply pipe first to dip to see if there's actually any water down there to pump up. If there is I'll put a reproduction pump head on to give me a supply for the garden.

 

[alice]

DWB, when I lived in Ohio that property was by a very wide river and the well was close to it, probably too close. When the water levels rose in the winter the well would be very muddy and moldy tasting. It surely was as unsanitary and unsafe as all hell, but I'm still here, typhoid and cholera free. My dad would go out and pour a gallon or two of Clorox down there and tell us to hold our noses.

That's where I learned not to look too closely into well houses, cisterns and down wells, if you want to drink the water. I've never looked in one and not come across dead vermin floating in the water.

The ground there was clay, too and clay didn't seem to be a good thing. My dad was a land surveyor and said we needed more sand layers for really good water, for filtration.

He set up a sand, gravel and charcoal box system to help filter the water. I don't have that now, here in Texas, but it might be something for you to research. The community well I'm on here is very deep, on top of a mesa and drilled into bedrock hundreds of feet. The Ohio well was very shallow, about 25ft deep and hand dug.

I'm not sure if I understand, but is your septic tank and leach field down hill from the the well? If it's (or any of your neighbor's septic systems) uphill from the well, I would be very careful. Water moves underground a lot further than you think. There could be all sorts of underground pockets and streams in that layer of limestone underneath you.

alice

 

[NT]

The short answer is clear it then get the water tested. There is no need to survey the surrounding land.

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Wells


NT

 

[alice]

I like this from the wiki site about wells in the UK..."The need for corrective action is common." Same here.

NT, I don't understand what you mean by " a survey is unnecessary". Do you mean a land survey or just trying to establish if there are hidden contamination sites? Farms here in the states, and the farms I visited that my UK uncles owned, often had ancient fuel, oil, fertilizer, etc tanks buried about. DB doesn't write as if he's on a farm and is worried about such hazards, but it's something that I would think about if I were going to re-use an old well.

Personally, I'm glad my terrace in the UK has nothing more to worry me than creaky Victorian water mains. I suppose I can add lead poisoning to my former cholera and typhoid contamination and the sulpher and fecal chloriform I presently drink in from the local ranches here in Texas. My mother always said we had to eat (drink?) a pound of dirt before we die.

alice

 

[Penners]

would it be possible to build up the 'sides' and add a wooden, lockable top...would that satisfy Building Regs as regards safety?

Jaqy - if the foundations of your extension were going to run across a well, you would probably be required to fill in the well, and steel-reinforce the foundation concrete.

But if the well is in the middle of the room, I think you could find a way of preserving it. Your Building Inspector would probably insist on certain precautions, depending entirely on its stability and the load that the surrounding ground would be carrying, but provided you're prepared to carry out his recommendations, I can't see that you'd have a problem making a glass-covered feature of it.

Ultimately, I reckon your best bet is to talk to a structural engineer and ask him to make recommendations.

 

[NT]

I like this from the wiki site about wells in the UK..."The need for corrective action is common." Same here.

NT, I don't understand what you mean by " a survey is unnecessary". Do you mean a land survey or just trying to establish if there are hidden contamination sites? Farms here in the states, and the farms I visited that my UK uncles owned, often had ancient fuel, oil, fertilizer, etc tanks buried about. DB doesn't write as if he's on a farm and is worried about such hazards, but it's something that I would think about if I were going to re-use an old well.

AIUI potential contamination sources are nearly everywhere in the UK. They are primarily surface water for shallow wells, pesticide runoff from neighbouring fields, and sewage. The question is whether these are contaminating the water or not, and that is settled by water testing. UK is not like Tx, the density of housing here is incomparable, and a land survey is not likey to turn up anthing of use: all the usual risks will be present in most cases.


NT

 

[alice]

I understand you, now.

I can see how the much higher population density and more intensive land use can make the potential for ground water contamination much higher in the UK than Texas, which makes me happier that I'm on public water in the UK.

alice

 

[Flyfisher]

when I lived in Ohio that property was by a very wide river and the well was close to it, probably too close. When the water levels rose in the winter the well would be very muddy and moldy tasting. It surely was as unsanitary and unsafe as all hell, but I'm still here, typhoid and cholera free.

And you've probably got a well-developed, strong immune system as a result! Nothing wrong with a few bugs to keep you healthy (OK, typhoid and cholera might be a bit extreme) :wink:

 

[chuckey]

As you live 50' from the river, you must be in the bottom of a valley. Look uphill and figure out what people might be putting in the ground, silage etc. Similar problem with your own septic tank. I reckon that the ground water will soak down to the clay level and then when the top soil is shallow will appear as springs.
The Leckford Hut near Stockbridge in Hampshire has a 40' (?) deep well in one of the bars (under a trap door).
Frank

 

[biffvernon]

Water doesn't have to seep through very much soil / sand / gravel / whatever to become pretty much clean enough so long as nobody has been dumping toxic chemicals. I'd be perfectly content to drink our well water if it wasn't for the rats that keep dropping in. I'll make a lid one day.

 

[Flyfisher]

Quite so, and chalk is even better. Chalkstreams are not noted for their fine fishing for nothing! We have a chalkstream as part of our boundary and I've often drunk from it on a hot day without any problems - and very nice it tastes too.

I'm sure one of the reasons East Anglia is increasingly dry is that the water companies abstract the purified ground water from the chalk aquifers and pump it down to London for the masses. This is highly profitable for them since it needs so little purification compared with taking water from the Thames!

Still, they are only carrying on the Victorian London tradition of drinking Hertfordshire dry by moving spring-fed water from Great Amwell along the 'New' river into the great metropolis.

 

[Horace]

Recently found a well myself (partly under my garden wall). Its about 50 feet deep. The quick answer is talk to a local company that specialises in bore holes etc. The first thing you do is see if there is any water in it (hook up a pump and see if it keeps coming for a few hours). If it does, the same people will test it for you. To that point it will cost you about £250. If all's ok (it may be pure but very hard and thus drinkable but no good for your heating system) you then need to find a way of capping it. If its straight forward the bore hole people will cap it. If not, get a structural engineer to provide a detail for capping it (as I had to do because of the wall).

There is no need to inform anyone but the Environment Agency like to know where they are and employ plenty of water anoraks who find this sort of thing interesting (one such anorak is a good friend of mine!). Basically you can use something like a milk tanker full a day without the need for any kind of abstraction license or payment of any kind. Your only duty is not to contaminate the water. Sometimes they will fill it with gravel to get rid of it. You can also put a steel lining in the middle for a pump and then back fill with gravel if you wish. Shame to do this because they are interesting structures (lined with bricks with no mortar, compression keeps it together, various stages where ladders could be pitched and people could stand to re-leather the pumps etc - sound like a bit of an anorak myself!)

 

[Tom]

Horace, thank you so much for your informative reply. I guess it's time to let the cat out of the bag.......

......OK, so I found our well!!

Rather than it being in the middle of the yard, which I hoped it would be, it's 3/4 under a 1960's extension and 1/4 outside. The extension is not nice (roof pitch doesn't match the main house, looks like it been 'plonked' on as an after-thought) but we've made the most of it by adding wooden lintels, a 'beam' across the centre and raised the ceiling so it slopes rather than being low and flat. We've already had the wiring, plumbing and plastering done.

The plan now is to continue; electric underfloor heating, quarry tiles, bespoke oak door etc. This will allow us to move in later this year, which my husband is desperate to do after spending 11 years in a static caravan!! :shock:

HOWEVER......next year we will demolish the extension!!! :shock:

We plan to make it bigger, to accomodate the whole of the well, and to add a porch area. The extension will then be the dining room and the porch area will also be the utility with a downstairs loo. I know it sounds drastic but many of the materials can be salvaged and re-used. The new extension will 'match' the house better and the construction of it will be improved (currently it's only single brick/block with a concrete floor).

We found the well whilst we were digging out around the extension to underpin it, as we've had to lower the surrounding ground by 2'. This was necessary because the internal floor level for the rest of the house has been lowered back to its original level. For now, we've covered the exposed bricks on the well with DPC to protect them as we've had to back-fill under the extension with concrete (I hate that stuff :evil: ). So, hopefully, when we demolish the extension the concrete will come up without causing any damage.

I hope this all makes sense......probably not, though!! I'll get some pics up soon so you can see what I'm on about. In the meantime I'm wishing my life away to next year!! Just when I think we've discovered all this house's secrets, it lets us into another one. It's almost as though someone is making us work hard for each one as we go along. I just hope they're happy with what we're doing!!

Jaqy

 

[NT]

"This will allow us to move in later this year, which my husband is desperate to do after spending 11 years in a static caravan!"

Well, nice to hear youre finally letting him back in after 11 years banishment to a caravan. I daren't ask what he did!


NT