Has Your Well Been Inspected?

Today we are at an inspection in Corrales; it is not a home inspection, but we are here to inspect the well. This is vacant piece of property that someone is buying to build a house on. Since there is an existing well on the property, I am here with Marty Deford from A-OK Home Inspections to perform the inspection. Marty is the best and is a wealth of knowledge! He knows a lot about everything and will talk to us about wells and water.

As I stated previously, Marty Deford is with A-OK Home Inspections, but his expertise reaches far beyond homes. Marty also is a commercial inspector, commercial buildings and a catastrophic insurance adjuster in 40 states. His duties at A-OK deal with anything from radon, mold, air quality, swimming pool inspections (with scuba gear!) and roof-to-basement home inspections. Marty is a nationally certified home inspector through NAHI and this allows him to train up and coming home inspectors.

As for today’s inspection, the first Marty will do is go over to the well area and inspect the pump and retaining tank for pressurization to make sure there are no leaks. Marty also checks to see that everything is connected correctly and that the electrical has continuity and no open grounds or anything that could damage the well motor.

After the internals are checked, Marty goes outside to perform a “recovery rate” inspection. This shows him the gallons-per-minute and how long it takes to recover that time. If you have a good pressurization tank, you can expect to see 8-20 gallons-per-minute. To calculate this, Marty runs the well for 15 minutes and after that he will fill up a five gallon container. Once the container is filled, he will time it and let the water run again. This is done three times so he can obtain a good average and to make sure the well doesn’t run out of water.

If you have any questions, give us a call at (877) 933-6881. Thanks and have a great day!