Well water testing checklist for Lehigh Acres, Alva, and rural Lee County homes

If you live in Lehigh Acres, Alva, Buckingham, or the eastern edges of Estero, there is a good chance your water comes from a well in your own yard. No utility tests it, no annual report arrives in the mail, and the only person responsible for knowing what is in it is you. Most well water here is fine to drink after the right treatment. The point of testing is to know what the right treatment is, and to catch the few things that make water unsafe.

What to test for

• Bacteria (total coliform and E. coli). The safety test. Coliform bacteria in a well mean surface water or something worse is getting in. This is the one to run every year without fail.
• Nitrates. From fertilizer, septic systems, and livestock. A safety issue for infants and pregnant women, and a sign that the well is influenced by what is happening on the surface nearby.
• Hardness. Calcium and magnesium from the limestone aquifer. Wells here are often harder than city water, and the number sizes the softener.
• Iron. The orange stain in the toilet and the sink. Iron can be dissolved (clear from the tap, then turning orange as it sits) or already oxidized (rusty from the tap). The treatment differs, so the lab should report both.
• Manganese. Iron’s cousin. Black or brown staining, a metallic taste, and a film on the water.
• Sulfur, reported as hydrogen sulfide. The rotten-egg smell. It gasses off quickly, so the lab may have you test it on site or take a special sample.
• pH. Acidic water eats copper and brass and leaves blue-green stains; very alkaline water scales.
• Tannins. Tea-colored water from decaying vegetation, common where the well is shallow or near wetlands. Tannins foul softener resin and need their own step.
• Total dissolved solids. A single number for everything dissolved in the water. High TDS points toward reverse osmosis for drinking water.

When to test

• Every year for bacteria and nitrates.
• After a flood, a hurricane, or standing water around the wellhead. Surface water over the well cap is the classic route for contamination. Do not drink the water until the test clears.
• When you buy a well home. Run the full panel, and have the pump and tank looked at while you are at it.
• When something changes. New taste, new smell, new staining, cloudiness, or a drop in pressure. Also after any well or pump work.

Where to send it and how to take the sample

Use a state-certified drinking water lab. The Florida Department of Health in Lee County offers bacteria testing for private wells, and several certified private labs in the area run the full panel; either will give you a sample kit and instructions. A test strip from the hardware store is fine for a quick hardness or pH check between lab tests, but it is not the annual bacteria test.

Follow the lab’s instructions exactly, because a bad sample gives a false positive and a second trip. The usual steps:

1. Pick a tap ahead of any treatment equipment if the lab wants raw water, or the kitchen tap if they want what you drink. Remove the aerator.
2. Do not touch the inside of the bottle or the cap. Some bottles contain a preservative; do not rinse them.
3. Run cold water for several minutes to clear the line.
4. Fill to the line on the bottle, cap it, and label it.
5. Keep it cold and get it to the lab within the time they specify, often on the day you collect it for bacteria.

Shock chlorination, and its limits

If bacteria come back positive, shock chlorination disinfects the well and the plumbing. In general terms: pull the well cap, add a measured amount of unscented bleach based on the well depth and diameter, recirculate with a hose until you smell chlorine at every tap, let it sit overnight, then flush to the yard (not the septic system) until the smell is gone, and retest after a week or two. The limit is the word once. Shocking kills what is there now. It does not fix a cracked casing, a rotted well cap, a missing seal, or a septic drain field too close to the well. If the retest is positive, the source needs finding, and a UV disinfection unit is the ongoing answer.

Reading the results and treating in order

Results come back against federal and state limits. Bacteria and nitrates are the health lines; anything over the limit means do not drink it until it is fixed. Iron, manganese, sulfur, hardness, and TDS have secondary limits that are about taste, smell, and staining, and those are what treatment is built around. A good well system goes in a specific order, because each step protects the next:

1. Sediment filter to take out sand and grit that would foul everything downstream.
2. Iron and sulfur removal, usually an oxidizing filter or aeration followed by a media tank. Iron ahead of a softener destroys the resin.
3. Softening for hardness, sized from the test.
4. Carbon for taste and odor where needed, and a tannin resin if tannins showed up.
5. UV disinfection last, on clear water, because cloudiness blocks the light.
6. Reverse osmosis at the kitchen sink if TDS or nitrates call for it.

Check the pump and tank while you are at it

Well problems and water problems arrive together. While the sample runs, notice the equipment. Pressure that surges and drops in the shower, or a pump that clicks on and off every few seconds, usually means a waterlogged pressure tank that has lost its air charge. Air spitting from the taps, sand in the aerators, or a pump that runs and never builds pressure point at the pump, the drop pipe, or the well itself. Sampling, reading the report, and changing sediment cartridges are homeowner jobs. Pulling a pump, replacing a pressure tank or switch, and cutting in a treatment system are licensed plumbing work, and the pump side involves the well’s electrical circuit, so it is where the DIY line sits.

If you have a lab report in hand and are not sure what it means, or you are seeing the pressure and staining signs above, send us the report and a description of what you are seeing. We will tell you what the numbers say and what the well needs.