The well
A cased hole down into the bedrock, with water standing in it at whatever level the groundwater finds — the static level. The pump hangs below that line with room underneath, so it never runs the well dry.
Pumps & Well Systems
Well Pumps, Pressure Tanks
& Water Treatment
Out this way, most houses make their own water. When the pump, the tank or the water itself starts causing trouble, this page tells you what you're looking at before you pick up the phone.
On A Well
Your house is its own water utility
In town you pay a bill and water shows up. On a well there is no utility. There's a hole in the ground, a pump, a tank, a switch and whatever wiring the last person put in — and every bit of it belongs to you.
That isn't a bad deal. A well set up properly and left alone runs for years. But it does mean the warning signs land in your kitchen instead of on somebody's monitoring screen. A rattle from the basement. A shower that goes soft halfway through. An orange ring in the toilet tank. Those are your gauges, and reading them early is the difference between a part and a project.
Nearly every place we walk into around Lepreau and Beaver Harbour is on its own well, and most handle their own waste too — year-round homes and camps that sit empty half the year alike.
How It Works
The parts of a well system, and what each one does
Six pieces do all the work. Being able to name them means you can describe the problem over the phone — and that on its own often shortens the visit.
The submersible pump
On most modern systems the pump sits down the well, underwater, pushing water up rather than sucking it. That's why a failed pump is a bigger job than people expect — the drop pipe and the wire have to come up out of the well to reach it.
Jet pumps and foot valves
Older, shallower systems keep the pump in the basement and pull water up instead. What makes that work is the foot valve at the bottom holding water in the line. When it leaks by, the pump loses prime and you get air, not water.
The pressure tank
What stops the pump running every time somebody rinses a cup. Inside is a rubber bladder with air behind it, squeezed like a spring: the pump fills the tank, the air pushes back, and the house draws off that stored pressure between runs.
The pressure switch
A small grey box on the tank tee with two contacts and a spring. It closes the circuit when pressure falls to the cut-in and opens it at the cut-out — commonly 30 and 50 psi, or 40 and 60. Cheapest part in the system, and the one most likely to be pitted, stuck, or full of ants.
Everything in between
Pitless adaptor at the well head, drop pipe, safety rope, the splice on the pump wire, the line running to the house below frost. Any of it can be the actual fault — a bad splice twenty feet down reads exactly like a dead pump from the basement.
We work on the system from the well head in. Well drilling itself is a separate trade.
Reading The Signs
What it's doing, and what that usually means
These are the calls we take most often and what they usually turn out to be. Usually, not always — but it will tell you whether you're facing a part or a project.
“The pump kicks on and off every few seconds”
Almost always a waterlogged pressure tank. The bladder has failed or the air charge is gone, so there's no cushion left and the pump hits cut-out and cut-in seconds apart. Short-cycling is the single biggest killer of well pumps — every start is hard on the motor, and a dead tank can put a pump through more starts in a week than it should see in a year. Sort the tank and you save the pump. Leave it and you'll be paying to pull the well.
“Pressure falls away in the shower after half a minute”
The shower valve is rarely the problem, which is why replacing it rarely helps. What you're feeling is the tank handing over its usable draw and the pump not picking up cleanly behind it — a tired tank, a switch drifting low, or a pump that can no longer hold the flow. Run a laundry tub wide open for the same minute and you'll feel the same fade. That takes the shower out of it.
“The taps spit and sputter air”
Air is getting in somewhere it shouldn't. On a jet system that's usually the foot valve leaking down between runs and the pump losing prime. On a submersible it can mean the water level has dropped to the pump — common in a dry late summer, or after a heavy draw like filling a pool. Some wells also gas naturally. When it happens, and for how long, tells us which.
“The pump runs and never shuts off”
Shut it down at the breaker before it cooks. A pump that can't reach cut-out is either fighting a leak between the well and the house, chasing a dropped water level, worn out, or wired to a switch that never opens. Running dry ruins a pump quickly, so this is a same-day item — and if it's a leak, that's a job for leak and pipe repair.
“No water at all, and the breaker has tripped”
Reset it once. If it trips again, stop. That's a fault in the pump or the wire feeding it, and repeated resets only add damage to whatever has already gone wrong. This one is a phone call, not a Saturday project.
“Pressure's fine, but there's grit in the aerators”
Sediment is coming through with the water — fine sand, silt, or flakes of iron and scale shed off the inside of the pipe. It plugs aerators, shreds cartridges and wears out fixture valves. A sediment filter stops it, but it's worth knowing which of the three you actually have before choosing one.
What's In It
Water quality, described the way people actually describe it
Nobody calls a plumber about water chemistry. They call because the laundry has gone orange or the kettle has furred up. Here is what those complaints usually turn out to be.
You notice
Orange-brown staining
Iron. It marks the toilet tank, the tub, the shower base and — worst of all — white laundry. It won't hurt you. It just ruins things slowly and permanently, and bleach sets the stains rather than lifting them.
You notice
A rotten-egg smell
Sulphur — hydrogen sulphide. If it's on the hot and the cold both, it's coming up out of the well. If it's only ever on the hot tap, it's usually the water reacting with the anode rod inside the tank, which is a water heater job, not a well job.
You notice
Scale on everything
Hard water: calcium and magnesium. White crust in the kettle, spots on glasses, soap that won't lather, a shower head that plugs. The costly part is invisible — hardness scales up the inside of a water heater and takes years off it.
You notice
Cloudy water
Fill a glass and set it down. If it clears from the bottom upward, that's air coming out of solution and it's harmless. If it stays cloudy, or settles a layer on the bottom, that's sediment — and that's a filter question.
You notice
A salty edge to the taste
Wells near the shore can pull in seawater, especially when they're worked hard or the water table is down. It shows up first as a change in taste, and it's hard on plumbing and appliances. On the coast around Beaver Harbour, a taste that has changed is worth testing.
You notice
Nothing at all
Coliform bacteria has no taste, no smell and no colour. A well can look and taste perfect and still not be fit to drink — especially a dug or shallow well, or any well after flooding or work on the casing. This is the one you can only find by testing for it.
Water Treatment
Treat what the test found, not what the brochure says
Water treatment is easy to sell and easy to get wrong. A softener fitted to water that's really an iron problem, or a UV light put on cloudy water, costs money and doesn't fix the complaint. Get the water tested, then let the results choose the equipment.
Sediment filter
First in line. Catches sand, silt and rust flakes so everything downstream lasts longer. Change cartridges on a schedule — waiting for the pressure to drop means you've already run restricted for weeks.
Iron filter
For the orange staining. It has to be sized to how much iron is actually in the water, which is precisely the number a test gives you and precisely the number guessing doesn't.
Water softener
For hardness. The water passes through resin and the unit regenerates itself with salt on a cycle. It protects the water heater and the fixtures at least as much as it protects the kettle.
UV steriliser
For bacteria. Water passes a lamp inside a stainless chamber and the dose of ultraviolet light kills what's living in it. Two things people miss. The water has to be clear — sediment and iron shadow bacteria from the light, so UV nearly always wants a filter ahead of it. And the lamp weakens long before it stops glowing, so it gets replaced yearly whether it looks lit or not.
The order they go in
Sediment first, then iron, then softening, then UV last, right before the water heads into the house. Good equipment plumbed in the wrong order does a poor job and wears out early.
Treatment train photo
Filter, softener and UV chamber plumbed in order along a basement wall.
Landscape, ~1200×900.
Test first. Always.
A water test turns four guesses into four numbers. It tells you whether the staining is iron or manganese, how hard the water really is, whether there's bacteria in it, and what has to be dealt with before anything else will work.
Talk to us about getting a sample taken and sent out — then we'll quote the treatment the results call for and nothing beyond it.
Basements
Sump pumps and the spring melt
A sump pump isn't part of the well system, but it's the same phone call for the same reason: a small motor in the basement is the only thing standing between you and a bad morning.
Around here the test comes in March. Frost still in the ground, snow going off fast, water table up and nowhere for any of it to soak away. Every weak point in a basement shows up inside the same fortnight — and the pump that seizes is almost always the one that sat dry since October.
Do this before the melt, while there's still time to fix what you find: tip a bucket of water into the pit and watch the whole cycle. The float should lift, the pump should run, and it should shut off cleanly rather than stuttering at the end.
If a wet basement turns out to be a supply line rather than groundwater, that's leak and pipe repair — and if the water is coming back up a floor drain, start with drain cleaning instead.
Sump pump photo
A pump in the pit with the float, check valve and discharge line visible.
Landscape, ~1200×900.
What we check on a sump
- That the float moves freely and isn't fouled on the pit wall or the cord
- That the check valve holds — without one, the water in the discharge pipe drops back into the pit and the pump lifts the same water twice
- That the discharge runs well clear of the foundation, and its outlet isn't buried in a snowbank or frozen shut
- That the sump isn't piped into the septic — clean water flooding the field is an expensive mistake
- Whether the pit itself is full of silt and gravel that will jam the impeller
- Whether you want a backup — the power tends to go out in the same storm that fills the basement
Seasonal Properties
Camps, cottages, and the two calls a year
Plenty of places along this shore are seasonal, and seasonal plumbing has its own rules. Water left in a line through a Charlotte County winter will split it, and nobody finds out until May.
Opening up in spring
- Walk the lines with the water still off, then charge the system slowly and watch the joints. Bringing it up fast hides a split until it has soaked a floor.
- Fill the water heater completely before switching it on. Energising an electric element in an empty tank burns it out in seconds — the most avoidable spring failure there is.
- Prime a jet pump before it runs, and expect the first water through to come dirty.
- Disinfect and test the well if the place sat empty, before anybody drinks from it.
- Check the pressure tank's air charge while the system is still drained down — the one time of year it's easy to do properly.
Closing up in fall
- Drain down and blow the lines out with air. Gravity alone leaves water sitting in every low spot, and low spots are where pipes split.
- Drain the water heater and the pressure tank, not just the pipes.
- Antifreeze in every trap, plus the toilet bowl and tank — it stops the traps splitting and the seals drying out.
- Open every faucet and leave them open, hot and cold both.
- Drain or pull the pump where the line runs above frost, and leave the breaker off so nothing can start dry.
Get it wrong in October and you pay for it in May. Winterising is the cheapest plumbing work you will ever have done. Book it before the weather turns — and ask what we carry in stock, because the fall run is busy.
Often The Same Visit
What else tends to come up
A house that makes its own water usually handles its own waste too, and the two sides run into each other more than people expect.
Water Heaters
Hard water and sediment take years off a tank, and a sulphur smell on the hot side only is a heater problem wearing a well problem's clothes.
Water heatersLeak & Pipe Repair
A pump that never shuts off is often chasing a leak. Finding it is half the job, and on a well system it's the half that stops the meter running.
Leak & pipe repairDrain Cleaning
The other half of a rural house. Slow drains, floor drains backing up and main lines running out to a septic field.
Drain cleaningReady When You Are
Pump acting up? Water gone funny?
Tell us what you're hearing at the tank and what you're seeing at the tap. That's usually enough for us to know what we're bringing, what it's likely to cost, and when we can be there.
506-321-6782Mon–Fri 8:00am–5:00pm · emergency call-outs by arrangement