Unless it is something very unusual, there is no way a normal home well can supply a fire truck with anywhere enough water. The well pipe will not handle hardly any of the volume of water the pumper is goung to use. They pump out 500 gallons in just a couple of minuits.
I doubt that the inusrance companies even care about water in the home well when it comes to fire protection.
If there isn't a fire hydrant within 200', or a suitably large pond that is consistently full, then rates will be a bit higher, but you will still get insurance generally. In the case of a pond it is common to pre-install a suction pipe into the middle of the pond at an appropriate depth with a standpipe and fitting at the edge of the pond for ready connection to the pumper truck.
There are plenty of places were low yield wells are common and pretty much every house has one and a cistern system. They are rarely ever a problem as long as the wells are reliable.
On 08/03/2014 5:42 PM, Pete C. wrote: ...
And there's the kicker -- in an area w/ generally almost an order of magnitude higher yield according to the OP, would one consider these wells likely to be reliable for the long haul?
I'd worry just on that grounds alone...
I'd ten to not worry on those grounds. If the wells in the immediate vicinity are higher yield, I'd expect this low yield well is being fed from the same source, but via cracks in the rocks thus the lower yield. Certainly there should be hydrology reports for the area that can give more information.
I've bought and sold quite a few houses and I've never seen a bank come test a well. Among other things, it's a bank foreclosure and the bank holding it might be perfectly happy to give a mortgage on it to a credit worthy buyer. If not, plenty of foreclosed houses are sold and I doubt the mortgage company is coming out to carefully inspect the water situation. If the house can't get a CO, now that would be a real problem.
I am out in the country and there is not a hydrant within a mile or more. Also no pond close by either. I did not have any problem getting fire insurance. Not sure what my well puts out, but still with a 1 inch pipe it is not going to do much for a fire.
Ohioguy wrote, on Sat, 02 Aug 2014 18:01:41 -0400:
Out here, in Northern California, where it won't rain for 9 or so months out of the year, we all have wells that are, on average four to five hundred feet deep - and the code is that we need 15,000 gallons of tank water, 10,000 of which is reserved for fire suppression.
One of my neighbors, who recently ran out of water, just drilled a new well of 520 feet, which is getting 18 gallons per minute, and which hit water at 300 feet initially.
You didn't mention where you live, but there is a chance you can just go deeper, but, it costs about $100 a foot to drill, so, you're looking at doubling the price of the property (although $64K is practically free as property prices go. Just the yearly tax alone on a typical Silicon Valley California property in a few years equals that much).
So, since the land is practically free, your main cost is the well, which is an improvement that will allow you to live there. I say spend the $50K or so to dig a 500-foot well, and you'll be perfectly happy.
plus generally you cant just drill a existing well deeper, so the 500 foot existing well needs to be replaced, you cant just make it deeper.....
certinally before purchase its a good idea to check on homeowners insurance, avaiblity of mortage, get a home inspection and do you due dilligence..... check with local well drillers, the local municipality etc etc....
there was a fellow trying to sell a home around pittsburgh that had no dependable water, the well had collapsed, and the sewer line was higher than the home.
the local government refused to issue a certificate of occupancy. years later it was still in court.
around here many municipalties have begun requiring a certificiate of occupancy at home resale time.
this after some fires in homes in poor condition
Ralph Mowery wrote, on Sun, 03 Aug 2014 20:03:39 -0400:
Out here (Silicon Valley), *every* home that has a well, *must* have a wharf hydrant, for the fire department. There are no exceptions.
One must also reserve enough water in tanks for the fire department. The code is for 2/3 of the water (i.e., 10,000 gallons) to be reserved solely for fire, with the 1/3 (i.e., 5,000 gallons) for the home.
I posted all the pertinent Santa Clara County fire department documents in an associated thread already, so I won't back that up here (as it's already backed up there).
DATE: 27, June 2014 TITLE: How to truck 1,000 gallons of potable water to a residence
NOTE: My well is 400 feet deep but my neighbor just drilled a 520 foot well, which is producing 18 gallons a minute (which is far more than my
5 gallons a minute at 400 feet depth).Pete C. wrote, on Sun, 03 Aug 2014 17:42:52 -0500:
My well, is 400 feet deep (another one is less than that but doesn't produce much) and it gets about 5 gallons a minute when it can, but it runs out of water every few minutes.
Once it runs out, it shuts off for half an hour, and then it turns on again, for about 10 to 15 minutes, and then runs out of water and the cycle renews.
In the other thread titled: How to truck 1,000 gallons of potable water to a residence I shut the well pump for a few hours, and it went for about 20 minutes before running out of water, averaging about 4 gallons a minute (more in the beginning, less in the end).
The 300 foot shallow well shut off in less than two minutes, so, I'm not counting its output.
This is Silicon Valley.
That is NOT Silicon Valley. The water table in the valley is relatively shallow and there is plenty of water (due to recharge and imported water).
You are up in the hills, at about 1800+ feet. Whole different ballgame.
Guess it really depends on where you are at. I am on the east coast in NC and sofar around here we usually have plenty of water within a few miles in moat places in the area I am in.
I have never been to CA, but from what I understand there is always a water shortage, or atleast almost every year so I can undestand the problem and differant rules.
There was a fire in the county that needed lots of water so the fire department put out a drop tank and several tanker trucks would go to pick up water and go to the fire and dump it in a tank where a pumper truck would put th ewater on the fire.
"Danny D." wrote in news:lrmiq3$vho$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
True -- but since he calls himself "Ohioguy" I'd say Ohio is a good bet.
Not here in the Midwest, it's not.
Which is one of the many reasons that Midwesterners think anyone would have to be nuts to want to live in Kalifornia... :-)
While this might be reasonable advice for a Kalifornia property, anywhere in the Midwest it's just crazy talk.
Nor would you see a bank perform a home inspection. But you would see any commercial entity that finances a house require an inspection and that would include testing the well.
Ralph Mowery wrote, on Sun, 03 Aug 2014 20:50:32 -0400:
It sure is different here.
I'd bet, for example, in North Carolina, only a few houses burn at a time, whereas, out here, from hundreds to thousands burn up at the same time.
I'm not sure why that's the case, but that's what happens.
It's weird.
Have you ever had five hundred houses burn there in NC for example, in a single fire?
The Oakland fire of 1991 burned 3,354 single-family dwellings and 437 apartments for example.
I'm not sure "why" California is so different than anywhere else. Where else, in the US, do three thousand separate homes burn in a single fire?
Pico Rico wrote, on Sun, 03 Aug 2014 17:45:05 -0700:
You are correct. I'm a couple miles *from* the valley, but up in the hills.
I've never heard anyone *not* call it Silicon Valley though, but, from a water perspective, it's hill and not valley floor.
"Danny D." wrote in news:lrn7i3$9bk$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
Yep, that's what happens when you live in a desert.
"Danny D." wrote in news:lrmiq3$vho$1@dont- email.me:
Or you can just take the $50k to a casino and save yourself a lot of time and trouble.
Zaky Waky wrote in news:XnsA37F36B3764F6gmail9com@
216.151.153.167:
More to the point, that's what happens when you live in a state that prohibits homeowners from clearing brush around their property because it might damage the habitat of some mouse... never mind the fire risk to *human* habitat.
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