How do I get to my well?

[Dirtdigger]

My son bought a place with a well and well house. He doesn't know how to find the actual well, other than the pipe leading into the ground. This sounds odd, but the family member who sold the place didn't know. We put in a new tank and everything. He also just added an irrigation system to the well. Now there is air in the line to the house; he put back flow valves on the line but there is still air. The air sounds like it is being sucked in and not just hammering pipes.
My son had to go back to the army and now I am not sure what to do. Do I drain the tank; turn off the irrigation; try to locate the well? The water pressure seems to stay at the correct level.
Help.

[Cass]

When was the house built...

[speedbump]

There is an instrument called a Schoenstadt locator. (Last time I checked) The surveyors use them all the time to find property pins. If you can borrow one, they are dandy for finding wells. I have found them as far down as 12 feet deep.

As for the air problem. It could be a lot of things and without some info on the equipment you have, it's impossible to tell.

[speedbump]

Yup they are amazing. Mine was bought back in 1976 and it's still working like a new one. I just change the batteries now and then to keep them from leaking inside the unit.

The only problem with concrete is when they use rebar in it. That makes it impossible. You can also trace metal pipes that are screwed together. While you follow them along, for instance a 21' piece even though it is screwed to more pipe will have a north and south pole and it will get louder at the ends and quieter in the center. The other thing it hears is electric lines if they are passing enough amperage. The unit makes a warbling noise when it passes over them.

[Gary Slusser]

Dirtdigger, from my experience, if you are in PA and a number of other states, no government agency is going to have the physical location of your well on your property in any record. And they may not have a drillers' log/record on file.

You must have a pit buried in the yard somewhere out from where that water line goes. That was common construction in many areas of the country until maybe into the late 1960's-1970's in some areas. They can be very difficult to find but, you really need to find it so when there is a problem in the well, you don't have to take days to find it while you have no water. Today wells have the casing stick up out of the ground about 12" or more and use pitless adapters if you are in a freeze area. Otherwise the water line(s) come out the top with a sanitary seal.

Your air problem may be an air suction leak somewhere in the new plumbing that was done. I suspect that you have a jet pump (above ground) and it will have one water line to it from the well. Any threaded fittings in the line especially where it connects to the pump can cause a suction leak, it may not leak water.

Describe the plumbing or take some pictures and post them.

[Thatguy]

http://www.schonstedt.com/

The four products for finding well casings are down on the left of the page.

[Gary Slusser]

You are welcome! Just a quick web search did the job.
Thanks for the link but it seems to prove my point. BTW, I've been there a number of times over the years.

I've looked and looked for any mention of the location of wells and can't find a single one on that page or the pages at the links on that page.

Another problem is there's no mention of a well completion record as someone claimed "it also looks like they require a water well completion report on every drilled well, which includes the location.".

I'd like to know where it says anything about location and anything about a well completion record including the location.

Also, it is only within the last few years that drillers actually were made to file logs; prior to that it was suggested that they should but there was no incentive for them to actually send them in.

And IIRC they don't send them in to the department of health; I believe it is the department of agriculture.

Maybe you guys could look all that up including where the logs are sent to...

[Gary Slusser]

The bottom line; location does not mean on the property (it actually was within a mile of the well).

Well completion reports do not have the location of the well on the property.

Many well logs were not submitted to the state and many of those that were were not entered in to the state records. They are being added now, 10 to 20 years later.

What most here are missing is that drillers were not actually required to submit the log to the state. There was no enforcement of the regulation; until now, 6/1/09. I know because the quotes below says so and, I have spoken to the state when people I told about getting their log were told "the driller must not have sent it in because we have no record of your well". I was telling those people to get their log so we knew the depth, various depths and volume of water bearing strata etc., not so he could find the well on his property.

Below are quotes from the new link and a number of other pages at the links on that page and subsequent pages.

Below is a lot of reading and I have read it all which I have in the past but there are current changes I was not aware of until now. So thanks for the links but, using the info on the links provided above, I have proven beyond any doubt, that what I have/had said is true.

Now it has been said here that the location of the well on the property is included, but that was not true just a few years ago; and at the end of the quotes, the Dept says it never will be.

***********
Since 1966, drillers have been required to submit water well completion information describing the location and construction parameters of water wells drilled in Pennsylvania.

From another page at the last link.

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This manual describes an internet-based electronic system called WebDriller, used by water-well drillers to report water-well construction data to the Pennsylvania Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey. This digital process replaces the paper form

Since 1966 the Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey has been responsible for collecting, and making available, information about the construction of water wells in the Commonwealth. (NOTE by me; Nowhere does this mention the Dept of Health)[b] Collection and dissemination of these data is a major objective of Act 610, the Driller’s Licensing Act of 1956. Previously, data collection efforts consisted of the driller completing a half-page form. These forms were disliked by both the drillers, who must complete them, and our agency, which must process them [b](NOTE by me; which is why drillers didn't send them in and the agency didn't care). With upwards of 15,000 records being submitted annually (NOTE by me; until the 2000 Census was complied, PA had the largest number of wells in the US. It took Texas to beat PA), the Bureau no longer has the resources necessary to interpret the information before entering the data into databases.

One of the difficulties in processing these records has been determining the location of the well from the driller-drawn maps on those records (NOTE by me; the map part meant a rough sketch of where in the county and along what road and some drillers would roughly draw a spot on a map of of the lot/property). In the early 1990s several drilling companies began using a proprietary software package to manage the data and create a facsimile of the official form for submission to the Commonwealth. For a number of reasons, the Bureau was forced to refuse the submission of these facsimiles. In turn, we agreed to look at processes of capturing the data directly from data management software on the driller’s computers.

A preliminary database application was demonstrated at an annual meeting of water-well contractors held in State College in January 1993 (NOTE by me; As I said, sent to Penn State, not the health dept). A request was made to the Department of Environmental Resources to help complete the application right after that meeting. It was not until early 1998, 3 years after the transformation of DER into DEP and DCNR that the Department actually undertook that request (NOTE by me; that is 1998, barley 11 yrs ago; and we now see Jun1 2009 before it really took effect.). A reevaluation at that time led to a decision to use the common language and interface of the World Wide Web to collect water-well information. The information included in the WebDriller Online Help explains the process to be followed while using the WebDriller web site to submit data on water-well construction.
***********

I can not find where GPS location is mentioned, let alone required. Can you point me to that requirement? BTW, digital means done by computer.

Here is what Act 610 says about location.

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(1) "Water well" shall mean any excavation that is drilled, bored, cored, washed, driven, dug, jetted or otherwise constructed, when the intended use of such excavation is for the location, diversion or acquisition of ground water:
************* and

**********
Section 10. Records and Reports.-(a) Every licensee shall be required to keep a record of each well upon a form to be prescribed by the department, setting forth the exact geographic location and log of the well containing a description of materials penetrated, the size and depth, the diameters and lengths of casing and screen installed, the static and pumping levels, and the yield and such other information pertaining to the construction or operation of the well or wells
**************
Here is proof of what I have said, which does not match what is being implied in this posting of the links above. bold emphasis is mine

# What's New in PaGWIS

General Info:

* We do not provide any maps with water well locations because PaGWIS is updated on a weekly basis and we have insufficient staff to continually update the maps. Data can be exported from PaGWIS for use in ArcMap as point files.
* Well record data in PaGWIS come from various sources (US Geological Survey, PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, Susquehanna River Basin Commission, PA Dept. of Agriculture), but the vast majority is from well records submitted to the Pennsylvania Geological Survey by water well drillers. Well records submitted by drillers have been added to the database at various times over the years, starting in 1969. The data entered varied somewhat with each generation of data entry.

1. Records originally entered into PaGWIS have latitude and longitude coordinates. These coordinates were determined by Survey staff by plotting the best estimate of the location of the well, based on the written description of the well location and the sketch map included on the paper well record. The goal was for the coordinates of each well to be within 1 mile of its actual location. These records will be listed in the results of radial and polygonal searches. These records do not include the well address nor the lithologic log. There are no links to digital images of the paper records for these wells.
2. For years, no records were entered into PaGWIS because of insufficient staff, creating a backlog of 10 to 20 years, depending on the county. In 2005, skeletal data only (owner name, well address, county, municipality, driller, and date drilled) for about 154,000 of those records were entered into PaGWIS. These records have no latitude and longitude coordinates. Therefore, they will not be listed in the results of either radial or polygonal searches. You must search by County and Municipality to locate these records.
Because these 154,000 well records do not have data entry of all of the data included on the paper forms, we have provided in the database, links to the images of the paper records submitted to the Survey.

Some drillers enter well records via the Internet using our WebDriller system. Data in WebDriller are not available to the public. On a weekly basis, data for completed wells are transferred into PaGWIS. These records do include latitude and longitude coordinates, and will be identified in the results of radial or polygonal searches. No paper well record forms were submitted for these wells, so there is no link to images of paper well records.

[Gary Slusser]

You're right, if he is in PA, his well could be anywhere within a mile of the actual location of the well.

[Bob999]

I live in Pennsylvania and had a well drilled in 1993. At that time the house was under construction--foundation in and house framed.

I checked my copy of the Department of Environmental Resources report of the well as filed by the well driller. The location gives good directions to the site (11 acres) and describes the location on the site as "well is southwest of proposed house".

[Bob999]

Then if it were underground it would be easy to fine. Just look where it come in the house. It would be straight out from there.

I posted the information to support Gary Slussers comments about what information is filed in Pennsylvania. I know where my well is. Unfortunately, if I didn't I couldn't find it using either the information on the report or by looking "straight out from there". It is located south of the house and it is located on a diagonal from the house wall--not "straight out".