Well Pits to Contain Water Equipment & Well Access
InspectAPedia^®  -    

• Well Pits to Contain Water Equipment & Well Access
• Types of wells and water supply systems and what to watch out for with each
• Well pump & water tank diagnosis & repair procedures

Well Pits for drilled wells are excavations, usually outdoors, which were dug below to below the frost line (in freezing climates) to house the well top and sometimes the pump and water tank.

The photo above shows a messy well pit interior with a plastic bucket over a well casing and a glimpse of the water pressure tank. At page top we have a collapsing well pit with no cover whatsoever - a serious falling hazard.

The sketch shown above, courtesy of Carson Dunlop, demonstrates use of a well pit of capping and accessing drilled wells was used in order to provide ready access to the equipment while also assuring that the water line between the well and the building it serves was protected from frost. While the sketch places the water pump and pressure tank inside the building, in many instances the well pit may contain all of these items.

Well pits are very common in many areas all over the world.

Safety Warnings Regarding Well Pits

• Well pit covers: As with our concern for dug well safety, a well pit should have a child-safe cover to prevent falling-in and injury.
  
  
• Well Pit shock hazards: You should also be very careful of electrical shock hazards when entering a well pit. Often the well pit is wet or perhaps even flooded. In such cases be sure to turn off electrical power before entering in or working in the well pit.
  
  At a property where we broke a water supply fitting we needed to shut off the water pump. The water pump and its controls were in an outside well pit. On opening the pit cover and seeing a foot of water therein we knew better than to jump down into the pit to turn off the pump switch. We used a dry broomstick to push the switch to the off position. We could also have found the main electrical panel and found and turned off the pump circuit there.
  
  
• Watch for collapsing well pits such as the frost-damaged masonry block pit walls shown at page top.
  
  
• Watch out for flooding well pits - especially if the well cap is located in the well pit floor. A well pit that floods risks leaking unsanitary surface water into the well - be sure that the well cap is water tight in these cases, and take steps to keep water out of the well pit.
  
  At a property inspection we observed a well pit housing the well head itself as well as water pump and pressure tank. The well casing had no cover installed. It was raining. Water was running across the property from a pony stable down into the well pit and into the well. Manure-runoff was entering the drinking supply, making it unsanitary and possibly quite dangerous to the building occupants. The well needed to be sterilized, tested, and provided with a water-tight sanitary cover. The well pit needed to be protected from surface runoff from the stables. The building occupants needed to be informed immediately that their water was unsanitary.

A rough sketch of a well pit and a compression-type well sealing cap can also be seen at Components of a Well with a Two Line Jet Pump?

Contact Daniel Friedman for website content suggestions or for fee-paid consulting