Water well

Hi people,

Just made an interesting discovery in my very small garden.

We moved into a house that we bought in Feb. We are close to the centre of croix. I was loading some furniture so I reversed onto the grass and over a small slab of concrete that gave way.

To my surprise a hole opened up, and it appears we have a well, that the old owners knew nothing about. It’s not on the house documents. I would say it’s about 7 meters to the water line. I’ve not measured, but it’s a round brick structure.

So what’s my next steps on this? It appears there is an old pipe that would indicate it was once used to take water into the house?

Do we need to notify the town hall? Do we keep it and put a hand pump to use in the garden? Fill and seal it? In fact, is it actually a well?

We are not in the country side, but I think our house was originally an outhouse for a much larger property next door and before the area was built up surrounding us in the 30’s and 40’s.

Only discovered this over the weekend so a little shocked at this hole.

Any advice?

It certainly sounds like a well! I’d be buying a pump and using it on the garden! I don’t think you’d need to tell anyone unless you were wanting to use it for drinking water and needed it tested.

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We use our well via an electric pump to water the garden. Ours is also about 7m down - you need a suitable pump to make it work.

Even although you may only be using it for the garden, if you plan to have a veg patch and use it on that might be worth getting it tested.

Am I right in thinking you can get it tested at a pharmacy?

We bought a testing kit which came up clean.

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Thank you for all your responses.

I would like to get the structure checked to be honest. As it wasn’t on any plans from the 1930’s onwards, and it appeared to be covered in concrete by an amateur we would rather be cautious with two boys 2 and under.

The idea we have at the moment is to make it into a feature. Our garden is tiny, 20 meters by 6 meters.

I thought the town hall may have a record of such wells in the area? Or am I optimistic?

Unless you go and ask, you’ll never know…

Don’t report at all

Around here they want you to pay for your own water

It’s perfect to have for the garden washing machine dishwasher save you allot of money

That depends - the tac of the water in my wells is so high I can’t use it for machines without a lot of treatment, which I’m not prepared to do, especially as it would work out more expensive than ‘bought water’ - I do occasionally water plants with it.

And toilets

Would be good if my well-water wasn’t death to pumps.

Filters are not that expensive now days

I already have filters etc on the house water, for the wells it would be too much hassle.

Perhaps get a company in to check it for safety issues if you feel you need to. If you go reporting it you may be hit with all sorts of charges.

Probably not. You mentioned that you found it when you backed over it with your car which also suggests that making a feature of it might restrict your parking area?
As your garden is so small and you didn’t know the well was there, and of course with your young children then I would have a new cap put on the well with a secure access cover capable of withstanding traffic and leave it at that for the time being. Always time later to open it up when childen are older.

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We have what we thought was a well in the garden. It is obvious as it has a built up circular stone wall. We considered it dangerous to children as it is 20mts deep with water level about 7mts below top of wall. As well as me repairing the heavy wooden lid we had the local metal works install an iron grid.
It turns out that it is not a well at all but a water cistern, used for run off from some of the rooves and available as a supply for animals. The previous owner used it to top up piscine with a pump and hose.

How wide is it? Do the stones form the sides all the way down? Maybe i should make my hubby build one of them for me to collect all the rain in the winter for my poor garden in the summer!

It is 2mts in diameter and lined with local stone inside