The Real Risks to Your Water Supply, and How to Plan Around Them

I've spent a long time around well pumps, and one thing I've learned is that the water most people take for granted has more moving parts behind it than they think. You turn a tap and it works, until the day it doesn't. It's worth understanding what can go wrong so you can plan around it.

Here are the risks I see customers run into most, and none of them require a doomsday story.

1. Weather and the power that runs your pump

If you're on a well, your water depends on electricity. So anything that knocks out the power knocks out your water:

• Ice storms that drop lines for days or weeks.
• Heat waves that trigger rolling blackouts.
• High winds and flooding that damage the grid.

We've had customers go two weeks without power after a bad ice storm. The ones with a hand pump kept water flowing. The ones without it had a much harder couple of weeks.

2. Municipal systems under strain

Plenty of our customers are on wells because the town system either couldn't reach them or wasn't dependable. Older treatment plants and distribution lines were built for smaller populations than they serve today. Boil-water notices, pressure problems, and drought rationing are common enough that a private well with a backup is a real advantage.

3. Falling water tables

In a lot of regions, groundwater is dropping. The High Plains aquifer is declining across farm country. Parts of California's Central Valley are sinking from overpumping. Some coastal wells are dealing with saltwater intrusion. The practical effect for a well owner is simple: wells sometimes need to go deeper, and deeper wells need a pump that can lift water from farther down. Our hand pumps reach a static water level up to 325 feet.

A backup that covers most of it

You can't control the weather, the town's pipes, or the aquifer. You can control whether you still have water when one of them gives you trouble.

A Simple Pump hand pump installs in the same well as your electric submersible. Day to day, nothing changes. When the power's out or you need water and the pump won't run, you pump by hand. There's nothing electronic to fail, and the standard hand pump carries a lifetime warranty on materials and workmanship.

If you want to think through what fits your well, start with our power outage prep guide or request a quote.

Questions? Call us at (877) 492-8711.