test drinking water

Get Your Private Well Ready for Winter

As cold weather approaches, you want to make sure that your well and well pump are working properly so you don’t run out of water during a winter storm. There are some simple things you can do to prepare your well for the change in seasons.

Inspect the Well Cap

Your well cap is your protection from outside contaminants and damage to your system. Check the cap for cracks or damage that might compromise the quality of your drinking water. If you do find cracks, you may want to consider drinking-water testing, to make sure that your water isn’t already contaminated.

Hire a Technician

If you are not sure about how to check your pump for proper functionality, you can hire a technician to do a quick diagnostic check of your system. If any repairs are needed, it will be easier to have them completed before cold weather hits.

Test Your Water

Since there are no FDA regulations that apply to private wells, it is your duty to check the quality of your drinking water. You should have drinking water testing performed regularly, to ensure that your family is not at risk for serious illness, such as E Coli or Salmonella. Even if you do not find any damage to your well cap, testing your water can help you determine if there is an unseen problem with your well that needs to be addressed before the ground freezes.

Having a generous supply of fresh drinking water in the cold winter months is important, so make sure that you take proper precautions to get your well ready for winter and protect the quality of your drinking water.

The things that you need to do before you put any money into a new property are going to depend on what exactly you plan to do with that property. If you are buying it just to plant a garden, you need to make sure you have access, and a healthy water supply with which to tend it.

If you plan to build anything on the property, you need to make sure you have enough land to meet the building code requirements. You also need to make sure that the type of building you plan on is the type of building you are allowed to have there. For instance, you may be in a residential area, but plan to build a business. You have to see if that will be allowed. You might also have the desire to build a home in a commercial area and need to have it approved before you proceed.

Most importantly, you need to be aware of what you are legally allowed to do in your area. However, you can almost guarantee that whatever you do on the land, you are going to have to have an adequate water supply. You can test drinking water before you build. When you test drinking water, you can learn about the minerals and other elements that are in your water so that you know if you can use it, or if you need to do something to it in order to make it usable. In some cases you may not be able to use the water at all.