Water,water everywhere, but not a drop to drink...

Just found out that my in-laws well went dry yesterday. MIL is hauling buckets of H2O from the neighbors to flush toilets. Big deal, you might say, there's drought everywhere.

Well,..... They live in Lexington, Michigan..... Right on Lake Huron, with 20% of the worlds freshwater at their door step (literally). Their well is on the sandy beach, and it's not unusual for the waves from the lake to come over the top of it. It's a shallow well (not sure of depth), wouldn't be allowed to be drilled today, from what I understand, but it's grandfathered in. It's great tasting and they've had it tested for contamination with no problems. You'd think the water table would remain high in that area, but Mother Nature is funny that way.

More than likely it's not the well. It may be a pump problem and if could have frozen somewhere. Freezing is not a problem that is foreign to Michigan residents.

bob...

Spoke with my in-laws over the holidays about their well problem. FIL said they found a leaky flapper valve in one of their toilet tanks. Replaced the valve, water came back.

OOOOH, I'm surprised that the well couldn't supply the small stream of water that goes to a toilet tank. You'd think they were tapped into the MOTHER LODE of fresh water.

Glad to hear the problem went away.

Pat

Pat,
Yeah, I was surprised too. FIL said they didn't even hear the water running as is common with a leaky toilet. It's one of those things that you scratch your head and say "that doesn't make sense" and if I had a lot of time on my hands, I'd investigate it more. (Do a controlled "leak test" over time, etc). But ...... I've got enough problems that AREN'T solved yet to concentrate on.

That's why I like the FluidMaster valves. They are either on or off. They can't just run a trickle. I had a bad flapper and you could easily hear the valve open, run for about 5 seconds, then close. Hard to miss.