What's the craic with private wells?

Howdy do folks,


I've lived urban all my life. As such, always been in houses with the gas/oil/water/electric/etc. all done and in place by the council or builders. I am interested in buying something cheap and cheerful, rurally, to get away from urban areas/life as a whole.


Came across a house that looks half-decent (based on the pics, haven't viewed it) and it has a private well. As someone who has never dealt with this, and most other houses I've seen being part of group water schemes, i was wondering could anyone shed any light on what way this works?


I presume, like most things, it will require annual maintenance of some kind? Does having a private well affect your day-to-day life at all (do they have poor pressure, or other such issues?).



Anyone got any advice?


Cheers.

elperello

The best advice I can give you is to remove the link to the house.

If you want to buy it why advertise it for free?

Seriously though, Glan is a lovely part of the world and all the best if you do move there.

The well will be your responsibility.

Any maintenance will have to be paid for at short notice so you will need to keep a contingency fund of say about €600 to €700 to pay for pump, pressure vessel etc. repairs.

Day to day if everything is working ok you won't notice any difference to mains.

jlm29

We have our own well. We had to get a treatment thingy put in recently because we live in a hard water area, that requires a bit of maintenance, but the well itself doesn’t.
Obviously the pump is powered by electricity. So In a power cut you’ll have no water. And it will up your esb bill a small bit. But that’s it!

db

That house is on a group water scheme. Having said that I have a well and prefer it to mains. A good deep well will give no problems but you will need a filtration system and possibly a water softener. Filters cost about €100 a year and salt about a tenner a month. If you have a septic tank it will cost you about €150 to empty about once a year. You should also test your water every year or two which is another cost. Adding it all up comes to about €500 per year. We have a large tank in the attic so if we do have a power cut we have enough water for a few days. The pipes are well insulated and buried a couple of feet so very unlikely to freeze like our mains water did previously.

elperello

Cheers for the replies folks.

elperello wrote: »

The best advice I can give you is to remove the link to the house.

If you want to buy it why advertise it for free?

Seriously though, Glan is a lovely part of the world and all the best if you do move there.

Ah, I figure if anyone else is in a similar position to me, they'll have seen it already anyway. It's very, very rural from what I can see, and, what, 2.5-3 hours to Dublin? So I'd say it's not in great demand anyway.


I had seen it listed before, and it disappeared, but now it's returned again. So not sure if there are some issues that I'm just not clued into.


You sound like you know the area, do you live nearby? I was gonna pop out to have a mooch around some day randomly, and call into one or two of the neighbouring houses to see what they have to say about it, though I dunno if that'll be appreciated mid-covid.

elperello

Deleted User wrote: »

Cheers for the replies folks.





Ah, I figure if anyone else is in a similar position to me, they'll have seen it already anyway. It's very, very rural from what I can see, and, what, 2.5-3 hours to Dublin? So I'd say it's not in great demand anyway.


I had seen it listed before, and it disappeared, but now it's returned again. So not sure if there are some issues that I'm just not clued into.


You sound like you know the area, do you live nearby? I was gonna pop out to have a mooch around some day randomly, and call into one or two of the neighbouring houses to see what they have to say about it, though I dunno if that'll be appreciated mid-covid.

Whatever you think yourself. I'm more of a cards close to chest type myself

I know the area but don't live there.

I'd say callers won't be too welcome just now.

By the way the other poster pointed out it is on a GWS. Is that a mistake?

elperello

elperello wrote: »

Whatever you think yourself. I'm more of a cards close to chest type myself

I know the area but don't live there.

I'd say callers won't be too welcome just now.

By the way the other poster pointed out it is on a GWS. Is that a mistake?

Reading it again there it does seem to be on a group water scheme. Was fully sure i read or was told it was a private well.


Still - handy to know about private wells just incase.


EDIT: You've scared me sufficiently to hide the link away. Hopefully the estate agent isn't bombarded with offers tomorrow. Though I do get the feeling something isn't as it seems, as it did go off the site for a while, and then re-appear. I'm assuming someone went for it, but then it collapsed for some reason.