My friend is buying a home with a well and asked me if I could find out a couple things for her. I have to admit I know next to nothing about wells though.

How long does a sterilizer light generally last? (It is a Trojan UV Max C-4 ultra violet sterilizer light.)

The pump has some rust on it. Is that a common occurrence with well pumps?

She has paperwork that says that the well was put in in 1993 and is 97' deep, artesian flow, 2.5 gpm.

Any info you could provide would be much appreciated.

 

Is the well failing? IF not, it it should only need moderate maintenance. Rust on the outside of the pump is normal, but should be cleaned occasionally. As far as the UV lighting, the company recommends changing the bulb about every year. I think it runs about $100 for the bulb. However, you need to remember, they sell bulbs. A bulb could last much longer than that. I doubt the bulb and sterilizer unit are of the 1993 vintage, since the technology is much newer. Does she have any paperwork on the UV system? https://www.espwaterproducts.com/uvmax-c4/

 

Marie-

I have a UV filter and I think chandler is correct. The recommendation is to change the bulb annually and the prices are around $100 (my last bulb was $94). I believe the only way you know if the filter is still working properly is to get a water test (I do that annually. I don’t see any other way to make sure the filter is working correctly).

If the water is too clouded with particles the UV filter may not do it’ job, and if the UV bulb looses effectiveness the filter also won’t do its job correctly. So I do change the bulb annually which may in fact be overkill.

I got my last bulb through these guys. Think it was the cheapest I could find:

OEM Replacement UV Bulbs and Ultraviolet Lamps for Air and Water Ultraviolet Sanitizers and Purifiers. Replacement Ultraviolet Bulbs and UV Lamps for over 70 Ultraviolet Purifier Manufacturers.

 

I think if your water supply has a high manganese content, the UV bulbs will become ineffective at an even faster rate because the manganese will adhere to the bulb and cause it to cloud over quickly and without warning.

I've had houses for sale with a manganese presence than 0.05 mg/Liter required to install a whole house chlorination system instead.

 

Another thing to consider with cloudy water is a whole house filtration system. The UV system only disturbs the DNA of microorganisms to the point that they cannot reproduce. If they can't reproduce, they are not harmful. It makes the water safe, but does nothing about solids, which must be removed mechanically. My neighbor holds several patents on the UV tube systems used today, and he is continually improving the system. Errata: Polishing the inside of the stainless steel tube increases the UV protection by 30% or so. I have learned not to ask too many questions for fear of information overload.

 

Thanks so much for the replies.

She sent some of the well water in to get analyzed. The analysis said that there was manganese present, but it wasn't really a concern.

What they said was concerning was that, although 'no' e-coli at all was found, the coliform count was too high and that the cause would be hard to pin down. They said the problem could be in the cistern, the uv light, an animal (such as a mouse) or rainwater getting into the well head.

Thanks again.

 

Marie –

I’m sure no expert but my present house, on well water, had a UV filter when I bought it. The water test I got at that time also showed coliform present - but no e-coli. What I found out is:

Many wells test positive for coliform, which come from living things, but most coliform is harmless and poses no health problem.

The problem however is that the presence of coliform in the well water indicates that ground water is getting down into the well due to some defect in the well construction, and thus something worse than some harmless coliform could get into the well. Hence coliform indicates some problem with the well construction.

I think examples of faulty construction are : the sealant material between the well casing and the earth is bad, or water pools up at the well head and can drain down into the well, etc. (My well head is down in a pit that fills up with rain; So I know what’s wrong with my well.)

You can shock chlorinate the well and all the plumbing in the house to get rid of the coliform (I did), but if the well construction has a fault the coliform will return (It did).

But the UV filters work from what I learned (mine works) and will get rid of the coliform.

They don’t require much maintenance but you have to make sure the bulb is not too old (as mentioned previously), and you also have to make sure the quartz sleeve (the bulb sits in the sleeve and shines out through it into the water) is also kept clean from buildup (calcium, etc). And as mentioned previously the water has to be clear enough when it passes through the UV filter for the UV rays to work. (The system may need a filter before the UV filter, I happened to have a sediment filter and a big Acid Neutralizer filter before my UV filter).

The quartz sleeve is easy to remove on these filters and easy to clean (I do mine every few months as a precaution).

IMHO I would want to know from the sellers whether they had been keeping up maintenance on the UV filter. That Trojan UV Max C-4 filter can handle up to 12 gals/min so it seems to me that is a pretty hefty filter and shouldn’t be overwhelmed by the water rate in the house.

I think there is an upper limit to the coliform quantity that can be treated with a UV filter. You can find this statement in many places:

Drinking Water Treatment - Ultraviolet Radiation - eXtension

So maybe your friend can look at the coliform count from the test results and compare it to the above. If the water is clear and the coliform count is not higher than the above, it seems to me the UV filter should have worked if it was properly maintained. (The UV filter was not plugged in when I bought my house so that’s why coliform showed up in the drinking water).But I’m no expert.

I get water tests from Penn State University and you can ask them questions such as” is this water treatable with a UV filter”. I sure there are many places you can also do that in Canada.

(p.s. when they said the coliform count is too high I think anything above zero is supposedly too high because it indicates faulty well construction as mentioned above. I believe that’s the case. Unless they meant > the 1000/100 limits mentioned above.)

 

Did they also know that she was relying on an UltraViolet device to sanitize her water ?