To put it mildly: YOU BETCHA. Carolina Well & Pump has put together some information surrounding well inspections, so you can begin your home buying experience with confidence.
Regulations for North Carolina Well Inspections:
You may be surprised to know North Carolina state law does NOT require a well inspection before purchasing a home. (However, a well inspection IS a standard prerequisite to obtain a traditional home loan.) That means, if you’re purchasing a home out-of-pocket, or through an alternative method, you may not know the condition of your well’s structure.
If you are purchasing a home, your home’s water source and its health is a critical element ensuring your future safety and well-being. Be sure to include the well’s status as part of the contingency of the purchase.
What to Ask for When Contacting a Well Pump Inspection Specialist:
A WELL QUALITY TEST
For your well inspection, you will want to request both a quality test (sending the water to a state certified laboratory to check for contaminates), and a quantity test. This is also known as a Well Yield Test, and will ensure your home’s primary water source will deliver a powerful and plentiful flow.
A WELL YIELD (or Quantity) TEST
This test quantifies the flow of your water over a four-hour period, watching for your well to pump a minimum of 5 gallons per minute with no significant changes over the course of the test. After completing the quantity test, the well service provider will return to the home to verify the well has recovered a minimum of 85% within a 24-hour period.
While the quality test checks the health-status and purity of your well water, the well yield test is equally as important. Why? Because this will showcase any potential problems with your well’s casing, submersible well pump, and more.
What Your Well Quality Test Will Tell You About Your WNC Home’s Water Source:
You will want a well water professional to help you with the water purity test for the state’s laboratory – specifically when reading and understanding the results of the test. The NC State Laboratory test will show you important factors like PH, water hardness, alkalinity, and turbidity, as well as mineral elements such as: iron, calcium, manganese, copper, fluoride, chloride, and more. You’ll also want to test for bacterial elements like coliform and VOC’s (volatile organic compounds), and radon.
If all those terms weren’t confusing enough, you’ll need to know how to read and understand the state’s lab results – which is why it helps to have a specialist like Carolina Well & Pump to walk you through this process. You’ll want to know and understand the safe parameters of elements in your water, and how to correct your water’s purity if the well quality test isn’t what you hoped for.
Ready to Test in Your Area?
Call Carolina Well & Pump today. We’re here to complete both quality and quantity testing for you with a simple, a no-frills process.
We service Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Madison, Mitchell, and Yancey Counties in Western North Carolina; as well as Green and Unicoi Counties in Eastern Tennessee.
