Having your own well

[Wheppy]

Just before we start our renovation it appears we have the potential for our own well. ( divining rods very positive but as the two adjacent neighbours have wells it is probably a given?). As phase 2 of our renovation is ( money permitting) a pool we wonder if any one has experience of this. Would advice be to find the water source now ( at 80 euros a metre drill) and use it for the house. Or will it only be useable for the pool and grounds?  If we source the water now, can we cap, ready for opening up at the phase 2 stage. Or should we just put it on hold until we decide to go for a pool?

It appears that finding the water is just the first stage. That is, once found you then need it testing and planning permission to open a well and then the plumbing and pump costs etc will significantly add to the cost.

Our dilemma is which way to tackle this.  Any pointers gratefully received.

[Shebar]

First thing, mains water in Italy is very cheap.

Lots of old rural properties here have a pozzo, but most are not genuine wells, they are storage for roof water which is generally then pumped out to grow tomatoes and aubergines.

If you do make the investment and find water, if it is not potable I would think you would be ill-advised to use it for your pool, though others may say that the pool chemicals will deal with "polluted" water.

For 30 years I drank delicious, free water from a spring on my farm in Devon, nothing better!!

[levissima]

I have use of a well, which, with a pump, feeds standpipes in my garden. The water is fine for the garden but I wouldn't want to swim in it.

Can you ask your neighbours what the water is like? They usually know! Also, it's a very good idea to know where the water is on the land, it was an underground spring, coupled with snow melt and torrential rain that caused the huge land slip on the hill near me.

[linsead oil]

just becouse the water comes from a well does not  mean its  yours to do as you want with  well  thats the law in england

dont know what  it is here though

how this came up when i was spec building houses in england  the water board used to levie a high fee  for  building water   to consruct the  house  . fed up with paying tghis  i had a property to buil and there was a well on the site so i told the water board i would  not pay  them for building   water   i would use well water  ,, wait for it  they said  i still had to pay as the rain that  fell and filled the  well was there s  so i would have to pay

never asume any thing in life espechaly in italy  check and check again

[thediggers]

just becouse the water comes from a well does not  mean its  yours to do as you want with  well  thats the law in england

dont know what  it is here though

how this came up when i was spec building houses in england  the water board used to levie a high fee  for  building water   to consruct the  house  . fed up with paying tghis  i had a property to buil and there was a well on the site so i told the water board i would  not pay  them for building   water   i would use well water  ,, wait for it  they said  i still had to pay as the rain that  fell and filled the  well was there s  so i would have to pay

never asume any thing in life espechaly in italy  check and check again

What Crown property and the likes.... 

[Relaxed]

I had a well bored (so maybe you should call it a borehole rather than a well). We didn't have the option of mains water, and realised that the artesian well on site (which was good, and potable) wasn't going to be sufficient to run a pool (and garden irrigation).

As it turned out, in a very dry season, the 100 metre plus deep borehole gave up the ghost, while the artesian one (no more than 6 metres)  stood up.

The great advantage of a well (we also had an entirely independent septic tank discharging to our own land) is that it is not metered. Both your water costs, and your (increasingly expensive) drainage rates are based on how much water passes through your meter - so if you are looking at a pool (or substantial  irrigation) it will be assumed (for billing purposes) that you are discharging all this water through the mains drains, whereas in fact it is getting evaporated. It isn't a cheap option to drill a borehole, and maybe you won't get excellent water from it, but even though our well water was over 8 ph (pretty hard) it was both softer and more delicious, and of course unchlorinated. I now have mains water which must be over 10 ph and the bathroom smells like a public swimming pool every Monday morning. (Which is when the comune realises that their population is going to die from cholera because nobody renewed the disinfectant stuff on a Sunday).

[Wheppy]

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts.  Will sound out the neighbours and make enquires at the commune before we move forward on this.  One point that is interesting is that water is cheap.  We have not had our first bill yet and were under the impression water was metered and expensive. Am I wrong?

A bore hole just for watering plants may be a pricey and unnecessary addition.

[levissima]

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts.  Will sound out the neighbours and make enquires at the commune before we move forward on this.  One point that is interesting is that water is cheap.  We have not had our first bill yet and were under the impression water was metered and expensive. Am I wrong?

A bore hole just for watering plants may be a pricey and unnecessary addition.

Water is metered but it will depend on your supplier as to how expensive it is. I am with Ruzzo Reti and my bills are very low. My last bill for the period 31/12/13 to 31/3/14 was €7.40. I believe that ACA, another supplier is more expensive. Check who supplies your water.

[thediggers]

We read and heard very different stories on water here in Italy from being very expensive, short supply to being cheap and plentiful. Is measured and costed per cubic metre (m3) by our supplier ACA, same region as Levi. Perhaps Levi can provide  the cost per m3 for Reti  if it is indeed costed the same, which I assume it will be. ACA have 3 bands; up to 100 m3 roughly = €0.48; 101-200 m3 = €0.68 and above €1.175, so quite a variation. We have used anything from 140 m3 to 161 m3 in the 3 years we have been here and it roughly cost just under €100 per year. Compared to the UK, that's very cheap, but a very good point by Relaxed is if main sewerage comes into the picture! We don't have this, so did not realise the potential cost, if anything like the UK, then this could really impact you bills. However I still think the cost will be a lot less than the UK. Of course all of this depends on your personal usage. All the above are "rough" as they do not include standing charges and because bills are sporadic and we've not had one this year at all...
One last point, keep an eye to your meter and the number of units uesd, in particular if it is whizzing around and you think you have no water being used... Many of the problems with high bills turned out to be leaks here and there, friend of our who did not have easy access to their meter, had a bill that ran into 1000's..

[linsead oil]

qalso you  need to watch if your lovely  nieghbers  have  not tapped into your supply  its hapened to forum members 

our watter averages out  100 eros a year  ande we dont stint on use   ie water gardens ect  when alowed

[levissima]

Ok, here goes :-

Water used 22 mc

Quota fissaggio = 5.60
03/2014 aqua dal 01/01/14  1^SCA = tariffa 0.180461 qt 21
03/2014 aqua dal 01/01/14  2 ^SCA = tariffa 0.682695 qt 1
Total aqua = 4.47
Rimborso delib.AEEG  N 273/2013 = _3.46

IVA 0.60

Totale di pagare = €7.40

Not the faintest clue what it all means but I'm not complaining.

Of course this was spring so no watering of the garden nor filling the pool, even so the biggest bill I've ever had was for €16 and I do wash, honest:)

[thediggers]

Many thanks Levi, it looks to me like your lot have a much lower start rate and slightly higher medium rate, but jump to the medium rate a lot quicker, even if that's only per quarter . At 22 m3 you have not hit any higher rate, if they have one... Don't think there is much in it and either way it looks cheap to me.

[Allan Mason]

We're with RuzzoReti and our latest bill had a "quota fissa" of €5.67. No idea why it should be a few cents more than Levi's. We have a septic tank, so no drainage fees.

The tariff list on the back of the bill:

from m³       to m³              price

    0                21             0.180461
  22                51             0.682695
  52                78             1.307094
  79         99,999             1.564998

A cubic metre of water is quite a bit of water in domestic use terms. Unless you're obsessive about long showers morning, noon and evening, I imagine it's pretty hard to hit the third or fourth rates just by household use over three months. Gardens are obviously entirely another matter.

As for reliability, we've been very satisfied with RuzzoReti. There are occasional outages of an hour or three, but the only times we have not had water for a whole day it was due to serious damage to the supply network caused by extreme weather. We've twice had the mains pipe upstream of our meter break and both times RuzzoReti dealt with the problem very quickly.

We understand from locals that the aquifer for RuzzoReti is under the Campo Imperatore and that there have never been problems due to contamination or the well running dry.

Al

[thediggers]

Just goes to show, because we used a lot more water than Levi, under Reti we would have paid €163 for water alone (without standing charges), where as we actually paid €66 with ACA, including standing charges. However I'm guessing you do not have a choice to change supplier. In any case would it be worth while as water here is cheap (sewerage might be very different).